The Catholic Crisis In Perspective

In her latest Political Points commentary, CBS News Senior Political Editor Dotty Lynch says in order to craft appropriate solutions, it's important to answer the question of how the current situation in the Catholic Church grew to crisis proportions.

First it was the Boston Globe, then Tommy O'Neill and a group of Catholic public relations men who tried to tell him how to handle the scandal. By Monday, it was his fellow cardinals who were calling for the head of Boston's Cardinal Bernard Law.

On Sunday, Law finally got his talking points down. At Mass in Boston he acknowledged that he had been "late to recognize the inadequacy of past policies, the dimensions of the crisis and the changes required to restore a sense of public trust."

Law called the crisis a wakeup call and said he would tell those attending this week's convocation in Rome that the "crisis of the clergy sexual abuse of minors is not just a media-driven or public perception concern in the United States but is a very serious issue undermining the mission of the Catholic Church."

No kidding. A CBS News Poll conducted last week found that 83 percent of Catholics are concerned that reports of sex abuse have hurt the Catholic Church.

Melinda Henneberger, in one of her insightful articles in the New York Times, cites a friend of Pope John Paul II describing him as "an old man with the innocence of a child – someone who literally found it difficult to believe the accusations of pedophilia and sex abuse against his fellow priests."

Many Americans will be cynical about this description of the Pope. In fact, our poll found that a 2-1 margin of American Catholics who said they believe that the Pope knew all about these problems and that he should have done more about them before now. They are even more critical of the American Catholic hierarchy. By 79 percent to 15 percent, they say these leaders should be held responsible and by 56 percent to 30 percent, they believe Church leaders should resign.

Despite this cynicism, many American Catholics (including myself) are in shock over these revelations because their personal experience with priests has been extremely positive. And, despite disagreements with the hierarchy over questions of celibacy, birth control and the ordination of women, there has been no suggestion that they were (in a phrase coined by Gary Wills) the moral monsters who have recently emerged in the media.

A question arises as to what has propelled this situation to crisis proportions. Is it institutional sickness and corruption , irresponsible journalism, inept public relations or some combination? The cause matters because if the problem is not correctly identified, the solutions will be faulty.

Peter Steinfels, the columnist for the New York Times and the paper's senior religion correspondent from 1988 to 1997 has a masterful piece in the April 19 edition of Commonweal Magazine in which he separates the hype from the reality. While not in the least diminishing the seriousness of the problem, Steinfels points out that despite the fact the newspapers are just reporting on the stories today, most of these crimes were committed 10, 20 or 30 years ago. Since 1993 "very, very few priests having credible past allegations in their dossiers have remained or have been returned to parish duties…on the contrary most have been put in the hands of the law," he says.

According to Steinfels, the years 1985-1993 were pivotal for alerting the Church to the problem of sexual abuse by priests and in 1992-93 the nation's Catholic bishops put forth general principals for dealing with it. Chicago's Cardinal Joseph Bernadin took the most concrete steps and the Chicago model was imitated and adapted elsewhere. Many of the solutions put forward today have in fact been in practice in many United States dioceses since the early '90s.

The systemic solutions advocated by the right (more discipline) and the left (end celibacy and male-only clergy ) will continue to be debated . Letting the civil authorities deal with the accusations is an option which almost everyone supports - including the bishops who are relieved to be off the hook by turning these cases over.

But, Steinfels overarching point is that the Catholic Church in America is "not a hothouse of sexual secrets but a Church tragically devoid of leadership and seemingly indifferent to squandering the gifts of the best educated and most fully engaged Catholic laity in the church's history." He proposes that a panel like the Kerner Commission be convened composed of leading bishops and laity, especially women, and possibly non-Catholics, to try to restore trust in the church.

One of the more interesting findings in the CBS News poll is that despite the current scandal, only 11 percent of American Catholics say that this has caused them to question their faith. This will surprise the 57 percent of non-Catholics who believe the scandals have shaken Catholics' faith.

The depth of faith of the laity, the goodness of the vast majority of the clergy and the presence of the Holy Spirit are the three big cards the American Catholic Church is holding. The hope is that after the dust settles in Rome, the Cardinals will come back home, open to both the people and the spirit, to join in rebuilding a community of love and trust.

By Dotty Lynch