BY: FR. J. BRYAN HEHIR, M.Div., Th.D.
Fr. Hehir is president, Catholic Charities USA, Alexandria,
VA.
As we approach the joint convening of Catholic Charities
USA and the Catholic Health Association of the United States this August in
Chicago, the appropriate theme and tone is one of celebration. We will gather
to commemorate and celebrate nearly three centuries of compassionate care expressed
through these two institutions of the church in the United States. In the long
months of planning for the August meeting, the desire to remember what has gone
before us in the dedicated lives of men and women and to envision the potential
for service that lies ahead of us has been an organizing principle. Undoubtedly
this hope and intention to commemorate will be realized precisely because of
the dedicated work of our two planning teams.
A shadow, however, hangs overhead as we approach the August meeting.
The pedophilia scandal that has dogged the Church's life and ministry since
the 1980s has exploded anew, with unique intensity in Boston but with powerful
consequences in dioceses across the country. This is not the place to analyze
the problem in its multiple dimensions, but it would be less than realistic
or even less than honest to ignore the potential impact of this crisis on the
social institutions of the church in the United States.
The scandal has at least three major components. The first involves
sin and crime; the abuse inflicted upon children and young people was both a
grave moral evil and a transgression of civil law. The Church must address the
moral problem internally and is responsible to the wider society to cooperate
with legal authorities for past and any future crimes. The second involves the
procedures in the church for responding to cases of abuse. The crucial element
here is response to the victims and their families; this is the primary moral
obligation, but the procedures in place in dioceses for investigating and reporting
these crimes must meet some universal standards of transparency and effectiveness.
The third dimension of this national problem is its consequences for the pastoral
and public life of the church.
Both of these dimensions of the church's life are threatened
by this scandal because it raises the issue of trust. Trust is a hard won essential
element of the church's pastoral ministry. Its role was highlighted for me in
the juxtaposition of two articles in the New York Times "Review of the
Week" news section. The lead article was on the Enron scandal; the inside page
featured the pedophilia scandal. In the Enron article, the issue raised was
whether any institutions can be trusted.
Unfortunately the sentence was applicable to both crises, but
even more intensely for the church. For us, the coin of the realm, in human
terms, is that the church is trustworthyin its teaching, its ministry, its
service to the young and old, the fragile and the strong. The basic bond that
ties people to the church is faith, but trust is essential if the faith of people
is to be nourished, informed, and deepened. The immediate testing ground of
the sexual abuse scandal is, therefore, in the pastoral life of the church,
in the parishes where the vast majority of people are in living contact with
Catholicism. An enormous effort will be required to maintain and sustain trust.
There are hopeful signs; several news articles strike the note that while Catholics
are profoundly shaken and often deeply angry with some bishops, they distinguish
this from their bond with the church and with their parishes.
The second arena where trust can impact ministry concerns both
Catholic Charities and Catholic health care more directly. It is the church's
public life and its social ministry. The problem is well stated in a comment
in the New York Times by Professor Scott Appleby of Notre Dame. Addressing
the possibility of the church losing its moral credibility, Appleby said: "It
won't just be a crisis, it will be all over but the shouting. There will be
no moral credibility for the bishops to speak about justice, truth, racial equality,
war, or immigration if they can't get their own house in order." That assertion
is like a fire bell in the night for Catholic Charities and other agencies involved
in advocacy.
In the last 15 years both Catholic Charities USA and the Catholic
Health Association have undertaken systematic, intensive efforts to incorporate
the Church's social teaching into their own ministry and to witness to that
teaching through extensive programs of public policy and advocacy at the state
and national levels. Both organizations now join charity and social justice,
direct service, and policy analysis in systematic fashion. While distinct from
the episcopal conference, we have worked with the bishops, drawn from their
social teaching, and tried to fashion a broad-based social vision at every level
of Catholic life in the United States. The project is both complex and long-term;
we are not nearly at a point of synthesis either on issues to be pursued or
on fashioning common ground among diverse views within the church. Those of
us who have been at this work are realistic about its difficulty. But Appleby's
comments identify a new problem; this scandal threatens the moral integrity
of the wider ecclesial community. It's not about fashioning the right integration
of moral analysis and empirical judgments on a given issue of policy; nor is
it about finding the right mix of judgments around which we can build a consensus
on welfare reform or health care advocacy. This is about what kind of an institution
we must be to gain and hold the public's trust. It is more difficult than the
pastoral questions because we are seeking to be understood and to be seen as
trustworthy by civil society, by people and' groups who are not related to the
church by faith, but by an evaluation of our moral character and our role in
society.
It is at this point where I believe the work
and witness of both Catholic Charities and Catholic health care
are most relevant to the present crisis in the church. We are
both institutions located at the fault line where a ministry
of care engages the broader society. We are rooted in the Catholic
tradition but serve society without distinction and serve it
through the dedicated professional commitment of people of many
faiths. Appleby puts squarely on the table the issue of Catholic
credibility. Neither Catholic Charities nor Catholic health
care are the primary places where the pastoral and policy decisions
will be made about putting the church's house in order. But
credibility and trust must be rebuilt and solidified on several
fronts. The challenge is too large and too diffuse to be met
by any single group in the church, hierarchy, or laity. Both
Catholic Charities and Catholic health care are already sources
of credibility. We are known throughout society; we have been
effective agents of partnership with government and with the
private sector. But the past is now challenged by the present,
and even though the sources of scandal have not originated in
our organizations, we have an interest in and a commitment to
the broader public life of the U.S. church.
We have two great resources that are essential to restoring public
credibility: professional competence translated into compassionate care. Competence
is charity disciplined and transformed into specific abilities to meet human
needs. Competence in multiple ministrieseducation, social service, health careis
the vehicle through which Catholic social vision takes concrete shape in the
lives of people throughout this society. Competence is the means by which compassionate
care is given effective meaning in the lives of those who are vulnerable, in
need, or in pain. Credibilityof which trust is an essential elementis built
slowly over time; it is the product of thousands of individual actions and of
a pattern of consistent service. The very tradition we will come together to
celebrate is precisely the kind of competent and compassionate witness the church
needs today to overcome the doubts sown by scandal from which we suffer.
We should celebrate in August and we will, but
we should also be aware of how crucially needed our witness
will be in the months and years ahead.
Copyright © 2002 by the Catholic Health Association of the United States
For reprint permission, contact Betty Crosby or call (314) 253-3477.