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I’m going to try to be charitable, but Cardinal Roger Mahony makes that very tough with his blog post on Thursday about what he’s experienced since the 12,000 pages of documents related to his handling of clergy child sexual abusers became public. The water of baptism may be at the heart of the Christian church, but Mahony has turned that water into whine.
First, he misunderstands humility and humiliation. According to Thomas Aquinas, “the virtue of humility consists in this, that one keep himself within his own limits; he does not stretch himself to what is above him, but he subjects himself to his superior.” Humiliation is what happens when one goes outside those limits and gets caught at it, especially when one is caught trying to play God.
Humility is a virtue; humiliation is punishment that may teach someone humility.
That, apparently, is the part that Mahony doesn’t like:
Given all of the storms that have surrounded me and the Archdiocese of Los Angeles recently, God’s grace finally helped me to understand: I am not being called to serve Jesus in humility. Rather, I am being called to something deeper–to be humiliated, disgraced, and rebuffed by many.
Um, no. He is being humiliated because he has not served in humility.
Yesterday, he posted again on the subject of humility, looking at Ignatius of Loyola’s thoughts on humility in his Spiritual Exercises, and again makes clear he doesn’t understand what he’s been reading and praying for 38 years. Ignatius writes that the most perfect kind of humility includes choosing
- poverty with Christ poor, rather than riches;
- insults with Christ loaded with them, rather than honors;
- worthless and a fool for Christ, rather than to be esteemed as wise and prudent.
The key words that Mahony misses are “with Christ” and “for Christ”. Ignatius is saying that when a Christian accepts insults for following in Christ’s steps, that is humility. Since his record on handling sexual predators among the priests in his care became public, Mahony has been targeted with insults for following in the path of Herod. These are not the same thing.
In Thursday’s post, he makes this same mistake in trying to understand Jesus’ words in Luke 9:23: “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” Despite the popular misconception, taking up one’s cross is not “dealing with whatever troubles your life”; it is dealing with the consequences of following Christ’s path of lifting up the lowly and proclaiming freedom for the oppressed, as Jesus described things in Luke 4.
As for insults . . . The prophets of the Hebrew scriptures were quite poetic in the insults they aimed — with divine approval and at God’s command, no less — at the priests, the kings, and the powerful of their days. One of my favorite prophetic insults is from Ezekiel 16, in which the prophet skewers the high and mighty of Jerusalem for their behavior vis-a-vis the poor and needy:
See, everyone who uses proverbs will use this proverb about you, ‘Like mother, like daughter.’ You are the daughter of your mother, who loathed her husband and her children; and you are the sister of your sisters, who loathed their husbands and their children. Your mother was a Hittite and your father an Amorite. Your elder sister is Samaria, who lived with her daughters to the north of you; and your younger sister, who lived to the south of you, is Sodom with her daughters. You not only followed their ways, and acted according to their abominations; within a very little time you were more corrupt than they in all your ways. As I live, says the Lord God, your sister Sodom and her daughters have not done as you and your daughters have done. This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. They were haughty, and did abominable things before me; therefore I removed them when I saw it. Samaria has not committed half your sins; you have committed more abominations than they, and have made your sisters appear righteous by all the abominations that you have committed. Bear your disgrace, you also, for you have brought about for your sisters a more favourable judgement; because of your sins in which you acted more abominably than they, they are more in the right than you. So be ashamed, you also, and bear your disgrace, for you have made your sisters appear righteous.
Calling the king a sodomite is not exactly subtle, and carries with it a lot of prophetic anger, which is kind of the whole point of being a prophet. Ezekiel was using humiliation to teach humility. But back to Cardinal Mahony . . .
Mahony’s problems and confusion in Thursday’s post get worse. Much, much worse:
To be honest with you, I have not reached the point where I can actually pray for more humiliation. I’m only at the stage of asking for the grace to endure the level of humiliation at the moment.
In the past several days, I have experienced many examples of being humiliated. In recent days, I have been confronted in various places by very unhappy people. I could understand the depth of their anger and outrage–at me, at the Church, at about injustices that swirl around us.
Thanks to God’s special grace, I simply stood there, asking God to bless and forgive them.
Incredible. This is Caiaphas, asking God to forgive Jesus for blasphemy. Instead of simply standing there, Mahony might want to try listening to them. He might be moved to pray for his own forgiveness.
Let’s take a look at the call that Mahony speaks of so longingly, as expressed in the rite of ordination of a bishop from 1968. During the homily, the principal consecrator is directed to speak of the role of the bishop using these or similar words:
Through the ministry of the bishop, Christ himself continues to proclaim the Gospel and to confer the mysteries of faith on those who believe. . . .
The title of bishop is not one of honor but of function, and therefore a bishop should strive to serve rather than to rule. Such is the counsel of the Master: the greater should behave as if he were the least, and the leader as if he were the one who serves. Proclaim the message whether it is welcome or unwelcome; correct error with unfailing patience and teaching. Pray and offer sacrifice for the people committed to your care and so draw every kind of grace for them from the overflowing holiness of Christ. . . .
I’m only a parish pastor, not a bishop, but somehow, I find it difficult to believe that the Gospel was being proclaimed through Mahony’s shuffling of rapists from parish to parish, or through his efforts to keep their criminal behavior away from the attention of the courts. Maybe I missed that class at seminary. Either that, or perhaps St. John’s Seminary and Catholic University of America may want their degrees back. But I digress . . .
Then come the questions of the bishop-elect, which include these:
Q: Are you resolved to show kindness and compassion in the name of the Lord to the poor and to strangers and to all who are in need? . . .
Q: Are you resolved to pray for the people of God without ceasing, and to carry out the duties of one who has the fullness of the priesthood so as to afford no grounds for reproach?
On March 19, 1975, he said “I am” in response to these questions (and others). In his actions as detailed in the 12,000 pages of documents, his own words and signatures said something else.
Mahony placed protecting the reputation of the diocese ahead of kindness and compassion for those who were raped by clergy in his charge. He placed protecting the reputation of the diocese ahead of the safety of the children of his parishes. He placed his own reputation above those he was charged to serve. He placed covering up crimes ahead of justice for those who were victims. He said “I am” with his lips on that day in 1975, but with his pen as archbishop of LA, he said something quite different.
And next week, he’ll get a chance to answer a few more questions:
A judge cleared the way Friday for a Feb. 23 deposition of the former archbishop by a lawyer for a man who alleges that a visiting Mexican priest molested him three decades ago at his Montecito Heights parish.
In a closed-door meeting, L.A. County Superior Court Judge Emilie H. Elias said Mahony could be questioned for four hours about the priest, Father Nicholas Aguilar Rivera, and 25 other clergymen accused of abuse during the same time period, according to lawyers at the meeting.
Mahony has been deposed repeatedly since the late 1990s about his dealings with accused abusers, but the upcoming deposition will be the first since the release of 12,000 pages of internal church records about the abuse.
The alleged victim’s lawyer, Anthony De Marco, said he has 138 pages of archdiocese memos and records about Aguilar Rivera that were not available when Mahony was last deposed.
“It’s a vastly different examination when you have their contemporaneous notes,” he said.
It certainly is.
In Christian theology, baptism is a statement of God’s love for us, no matter what we have done or not done. If I might be so bold as to offer the Cardinal a bit of advice, he might want to lay off the whine and go back to the water. It will help turn the humiliation into humility.
_____
Photo of Cardinal Mahony by Shay Sowden and used under Creative Commons.
Also, h/t for the title to Eli.
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Thank you, Peterr. Mahoney should be given a robe, a pair of sandals and a begging bowl and sent out into the streets to live.
It’s all about protecting the enterprise. Admitting flaws or failings is considered to be too dangerous to the enterprise’s existence even to contemplate. Especially now, when the survivors of the crimes can fight back with lawyers and such. Admission of any sort of guilt would be used to take down the whole edifice — which might not be a bad thing in the end.
Cardinal Mahony is a Prince of the Church. He isn’t supposed to be humiliated. And humility cuts against the grain too.
I cannot imagine the Pride, the narcissism, of a man who thinks that he is in a position to pray for the people who express their rightful anger and hostility towards him for his sins agains children, and his crimes against the State for covering up for rapists. It’s psychopathic.
You ask too much of a top executive of the church. He is more like a CEO of a major corporation than a man of God. His job is to keep the money coming by whatever means necessary. If that means scolding us sinners, so be it, if that means playing humility, that can work too. Hmm there’s a word for that — begins with an “h” as well.
In that regard, the next two verses of Luke 9 that follow the one quoted above that Mahony reflected on are instructive:
The Cardinal is discovering — painfully — exactly what Jesus meant by this.
You’ve met few senior executives then.
I fear that it is also endemic in the system.
I know many good priests, monks, and nuns, who are as outraged at all this as I am. Sadly, that outrage probably makes them ineligible for service in the hierarchy. (And the women would be ineligible anyway, on account of their female-ness, but that’s a whole other can of worms.)
I am aware of far fewer in the hierarchy with such outrage at what has been done. Those who speak publicly, however obliquely, tend more toward the Cardinal’s point of view.
There are few true Christians. Many of those who proclaim themselves christian fail.
Parable of the Pharisee seems to apply.
Or there is an explanation from the Greek gods. Hubris.
Peterr,
I think you should nail this post to the Bishop’s door.
I always try to live by the maxim that one should own their mistakes and work to correct them. Mahoney, like most conservatives, seems to have the philosophy that it’s better, (for them at least), to deny or deflect their mistakes and hide them or even to double down on them. Apart from the obvious theological objections I have, (i.e. that theology is fictional and should therefore be irrelevant to public policy), how can anybody continue to be a Catholic with leaders like Mahoney and Ratzinger? They seem much more interested in serving themselves than in serving the noble ideas supposedly espoused by Jesus. And if they are infallible, what does that say about the faith overall?
All children are under our protection. That is the way we are because our species would not have thrived without that understanding deep in our bones. All the verses of all the bibles that have ever existed are trivial in light of that fact. Those who don’t get that need to be kept away from influence over the care of children.
Actually, various passages of the bible reinforce exactly what you are saying. One that seem particularly a propos to this post is here:
Luke 17:1-2
This should be read out in the papal conclave right before each ballot is taken.
How about we play frisbee in the courtyard with some papier mache millstones.
BTW, Peterr, that’s a great title.
As the note says at the end, it came from Eli, in an email as we were trading about this. He’s not responsible for what I did with it, of course . . .
Just a wild arsed guess, but I’m thinking Mahony’s post yesterday was intended to a certain audience with a sub-layer of meaning: the Jesuits.
All the blather about Loyola, just opinion, was to remind the Jesuits who take that special vow of obedience to the pope. That in the upcoming trials, they need to remain willful fools and line up behind Teh Authoriteh Of The Church.
No dissent allowed, or they will be denied the special grace of Mahony’s “humiliation” via his “forgiveness.”
If he was trying to appeal to the Jesuits with this, he’s in for a rude shock. They’ll slice him apart even harder than I have.
Pete, I’m nominating you for Pope; you got the name and attitude.
The Catholic Church is nothing but a global multi-national corporation, CEO (Pope), Board of Directors (Cardinals), District Managers (Bishops), low-level employees and office workers (Priests and Nuns)…headquartered in the Vatican. Islam is similar, but headquartered in Mecca, which devout Muslims bow toward daily, required to make at least one pilgrimage in their lifetime to corporate headquarters.
Top-down tyranny is always the same, whether religious or not, and those at the top of these “corporate” tyrannies always try to cover-up any moral lapses, especially any that might tend to harm the “corporate brand.” For instance, Texas has been controlled by Republicans for years (the governors office, the Texas legislature, the courts), meaning that for years the Texas Youth Commission has been under Republican control. Thus, sexual predators preying on children at Texas Youth Commission facilities were allowed by Republicans to sexually abuse children for years, and when finally discovered, the Texas Republican Party covered this up for years…just like we’ve seen happen in the Catholic Church. So, what else is new under the sun? Nothing.
Jesus Christ had a different take on all this, on all that seems to be happening in this world. Evidence of this “radical” take of his is abundant throughout the four Gospels, as well as in certain Gnostic Gospels, but it took my reading of “A Course in Miracles” to finally begin to understand just how radical, relative to the world, Jesus really was, and as he was, we are, too. Peace.
Well, I dunno. Whenever I hear church hierarchy bandying Loyola (Jesuit) dogwhistles about, all I hear is Dalek voices shrieking “OBEY! OBEY! OBEY!”
There is no possibility of grace in the face of willful dishonesty and cruelty to others. I had many discussions with a humble and genuine Mennonite Pastor and we agreed that the path we face is paved with mistakes that we must learn from and change the behavior that caused these mistakes,transgressions, etc.It’s really very simple ‘ Be the best example you can be’ Although it is not our place to judge others’ Being human it’s difficult to not’ ! If we don’t judge how can we know the difference between good and bad ? We cannot overlook this awful coverup by men who are supposed to be leaders and examples of what is supposed to be the path to God . As a youth in Catholic school I requested to be placed in public school because of the abuse and cruelty of Nuns . One example of a humiliation I was forced to endure. I made a request to go to the rest room and it was denied. I defecated in my trousers and was made to stand in a far corner of the room. I can’t imagine anything more humiliating and it had the result of constant never ending ridicule from the other children.The tragic really tragic part of it was that up until that nasty ,vindictive Nun shamed me ‘ Needlessly ‘ I got along well with others. It was many years before I was able to trust Religion again.As an adult I became a member of a fundamentalist Church until I was convinced they were a collection of hypocrites with no interest in others except to indoctrinate them into the fold and then tithe and give until it hurt,home school children and treat woman as chattel good only to serve , obey ,bear children and keep quiet.Very little outreach except to preach to others a mistaken version of whats right.These people have a very high opinion of themselves as being the chosen of God with disdain for everyone else.Being ‘Chosen’ and ‘Saved’ allows a lot of transgressing . My point is that organized Religion corrupts! It’s up to each of us to help each other ! All this nonsense in Govt. with the attempts to disenfranchise a large portion of this Country is in a word Evil and most of this evil is a direct result of so called Christian’s meddling in things that are in direct conflict with what they claim to believe .They are so in for a rude awakening !
A-yep.
I suspect it depends on whether the Jesuits think that they can defy Mahony et al as a way of trying to scrub off whatever scandal splatter hits them. Is Mahony also trying to tell them “don’t even think of tossing us under the bus, because we’ll make sure you go under it too”?
I’m not religious, but one can understand Islam’s worldwide appeal. There Jesus is a bona fide prophet, but not a leg of a divine trinity of the sort that Aquinas consolidated theologico-philosophically, in opposition to the Persian Avicenna’s insistence on an absolutely undivided first principle (Chapter 8 of The Metaphysics of the Healing, Michael Marmura, transl., Provo, Brigham Young Univ. Press, 2005).
There are fewer appendages in the doctrine to grab onto when you are trying to excuse yourself for misdeeds.
This is an excellent post. I especially want the Archbishop who sat on the evidence about Mahony for 18 months before slapping his wrist to read it.
Anyone who thinks Mahony will be returning from Rome after the Papal Conclave isn’t reading between the lines here: this is a “you’ll never eat lunch in this town again” missive. Mahony’s gone, never to return, once he gets on that jet plane next month.
Or sooner, if the secular authority’s requests for courtroom appearances start to stack up. I hear Bernie Law has an extra room, or that nice Protector of the Faith Levada.
Book Salon up with Tom Wilber’s Under the Surface: Fracking, Fortune, and the Fate of the Marcellus Shale hosted by Steve Horn
Good and fitting analysis Peterr. Now that we are getting to the head of the snake, maybe a few more apples will be shaken from that tree of vanity and corruption, to mix metaphors.
Now, perhaps when some more of the background garbage leading up to the too-weary-to-serve Benedict may emerge, despite the criminal enterprise’s best efforts to contain it, you will provide as lucid and theologically correct an analysis. I’m sure the Vatican is just buzzing with all those sub alterns cranking out possible mea culpas
“The Cardinal is discovering — painfully — exactly what Jesus meant by this.”
I doubt it.