Editorials:
CONTENTS Volume CXX, Number 21 COMMONWEAL Correspondence: Editorials: 3 Cardinal Joseph Bernardin: Jim Uocrman 5 My quest for wisdom: David R. Carlin,...
...In other words, Chicago is 99 percent behind Bernardin, and you know about the 1 percent only spectrally...
...To reserve your place at the luncheon send a Also in November, the Foundation hoard elected Dennis check for $15 (per person) made payable to the O'Brien as a director and as vice-president for the Commonweal Commonweal Foundation endowment...
...Now the crucible engulfs Weales has always been concise, perceptive, fair-minded, re- the leader of the American church's progressive, you might say markably conversant with the lore of contemporary theater, and American, wing...
...Did this scoop Advertising Manager: Ruth E. Taylor Publisher: Edward S. Skillin show CNN to be supremely enterprising-as in its Gulf War coverage-merely sensationalistic and exploitative, or simply anti-Catholic...
...Portland...
...But that is the impression the system to defend a priest its own investigation concludes is inshow leaves with the viewer...
...Commonweal now shares time with New will suffer the most in the end...
...window...
...1976), was a Commonweal editor for a num- 371 Sixth Avenue between Waverly & Washington, ber of years...
...for examining abuse charges...
...This brings us to CNN (Ted Turner's Cable News Network) which broke the story Staff: Harriette Balsky...
...The editors are grateful for his long On the other hand, comments a young recent graduate of an service to our readers...
...Himself a veteran journalist (the longtime editor New York City of Purchasing magazine...
...What the losers won: Abigail McCart v Why aren't we in Vietnam'?: James F. O'Brien 9 How long must we preserve life'?: Thomas A. Shannon 12 Poetry: George Held I4 Screen: Richard Al/evu 15 Stage: Gerald Weales 17 CNN'S fall from grace The crisis in biblical scholarship: Luke Timothy Johnson 18 ccusations of sexual abuse against Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of BOOKS Chicago have shocked and saddened many Americans...
...suit filed by Steven Cook...
...In the case lovers of Commonweal have turned off their radios and are sayof Catholic priests and clerical sexual abuse, the standard has ing their night prayers...
...I hope you like the new time and the varied at stake along with the hard-won church processes set in place company...
...4: 3 December 1993 Commonweal TWO DEPARTURES, ONE ARRIVAL At a meeting held in the Commonweal offices on November 4, the board A CELEBRATION FOR of directors of the Commonweal Foundation regretfully accepted EDWARD S. SKILLIN'S 90th Birthday...
...segment to segment as the bishop who instituted measures to deal with priest pedophilia, Commonweal 3 December 1993: 3 "Fall from Grace" reiterates the accusations against him at least tion as well as compensation from the church...
...Joseph's Church John Cogley (d...
...chuckle) Why nine...
...Although the abuser and the reporter speak about way to go, they should recognize that the media, in this case the psychological nature of his "illness," the visual message draws CNN, is no longer necessarily an ally in the process of discloa connection between the priesthood and its religious trappings sure, acknowledgment, recompense, and reconciliation...
...In the latter capacities he Join us on Thursday, Januat,y 20, 1994 was joined by his wife, Theodora (Teddy...
...O'Brien is president of the University of Roches- to: ter, author of God and the New Haven Railway, and a frequent Anniversary Celebration contributor to the magazine, most recently in the issue of Oc- 15 Dutch Street, Room 502 tober 22 ["Between Law and Character...
...ASK AND YOU SHALL RECEIVE As you know Neither was it merely sensationalistic or exploitative...
...Such lawsuits can be frivolous maneuvers in struggles to win out-of-court setStage: Gerald Weales tlements and other advantages over an adversary when criminal indictments are unPoetry: Rosemary Deen likely...
...Cardinal Bernardin, who has been a leader among the bishops in efforts to change the way the church deals with abuse Unsolicited manuscripts are welcome but must be cases, is made "the star...
...We also like Gene Vader...
...J. Bryan Hehir...
...Nine men take charge of his (a) rebellious or (b) mean-spirited operation...
...Victims deserve pastoral atten- Yes, we do...
...Among the Catholic clergy, hypocrisy is ly shows...
...long primetime show, "Fall from Grace," to be broadcast the following Sunday and monthly July and August...
...chuck- Why doesn't he (a) crack down on altar girls and rail against le) Why not, say eight, or ten...
...What is the perience of those who have been sexually abused so poignantsubliminal message...
...Edward McGlynn Gaffney...
...1(X)38...
...Dionne, Jr., Peggi, Ellsberg periences led to a life of promiscuity and drug abuse...
...The Atlanta-based network cunanonweal, IISSN 0010-33301 A Review of followed the Cook interview with an announcement of its previously planned hourPublic Affairs, Religion, Literature, and the Arts, is published biweekly except Christmas/New Year's...
...Sidney Callahan, Liz Leibold McCloskey...
...Ab has a good idea A priest may privately call him a "pantywaist," using a quaint, now and then, but this baseball business is a laugher...
...campus meeting on his return from the Washington bishops' "Spectral evidence," mutters a Chicago-area cleric over meeting and at the inaugural sesquicentennial-year Mass at breakfast coffee, his Tribune open before him...
...playground-style term for a weak-knee...
...cite the laws under which the suit has been entered, and ask for a jury trial...
...program on Thursdays Second and even worse: If CNN's scoop plants the idea that called, fittingly, `Thursday Commentary.' The volunteer who anyone can accuse anyone else of sordid behavior and have the does `Religious Update' has graciously yielded Commonweal case tried in the press without presenting serious evidence, who to my program...
...Carmen Alava...
...His predecessor, Cardinal John P. Cody, Commonweal 3 December 1993: 5...
...In sequence after sequence, the reporter narrates the for the accused are somehow unchristian...
...New York, N.Y...
...Having defended the accuser says that under therapy he has remembered being guilty, the archdiocese now must defend the innocent, he said...
...I(X)38...
...Gerald in seventeenth-century New England...
...the resignation of Paul V. Farrell from the board...
...Nothing, that is, except Cook's accuDutch St...
...meeting in Washington...
...The best-known of them, Andrew ability of suppressed-memory evidence of sex abuse as invoked Greeley, a typically fractious Chicago-breed priest (and the type by the accuser of Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago...
...Managing Editor: Patrick Jordan There is not now and may never be any evidence to judge the veracity of Cook's Associate Editor: Paul Baumann charges except his alleged recovered memory and the chutzpah displayed by his lawyer, Production Editor: Jacqueline Dowdell Stephen Rubino...
...claimed on TV that when he was seventeen a Cincinnati priest Nicholas Clifford, Christopher Thomas, initiated him into homosexuality, that Bernardin sodomized him, and that these exE.J...
...You might say it's suppressed, held in reserve for when CARDINAL JOSEPH BERNARDIN some other, more concrete revelations are made, of a less specA SHEPHERD ENFOLDED BY HIS FLOCK tral nature...
...It was, if you get and read the Commonweal Associates Newsletter, rather, unfair and unprofessional...
...First, hierarchy of the Talking Book Network is an Associate and will the priest pedophilia story and its repetitive airing (as if the church now pull us out of the religious ghetto and classify us with New has made no significant effort to respond to it) can he terribly Republic, National Review, etc...
...As of this writing, there is none...
...to complain (sigh...
...cannot in any fair-minded way be presented as either emblematic Some even argue that the church should not resort to the legal of the problem or central to it...
...But it is a curious logic that insists that legal safeguards sinuation...
...The item ended: "But we're not going become "guilty until proven innocent...
...whose first husband, 12:10 Mass at St...
...Book for some time...
...Wilson J. Moses...
...except here...
...secretary-treasurer, Margaret Seating is limited...
...vice-president, James O'Gara...
...I I Graham Rd., So...
...He has in mind Holy Name Cathedral...
...I do a weekly 5 P.M...
...This CNN and other media paint as a corrupt and flamboyantly hyp- Associate has been a volunteer broadcaster with Radio Talking ocritical body...
...Priests and prelates deserve no special treatment from the press...
...Abigail McCarthy...
...Fall from Grace" was to explore the problem of sexual Telephone: (212) 732-0800...
...by Commonweal (November 14...
...corrosive for the church itself, perhaps especially to the faith Well...
...CONTENTS Volume CXX, Number 21 COMMONWEAL Correspondence: Editorials: 3 Cardinal Joseph Bernardin: Jim Uocrman 5 My quest for wisdom: David R. Carlin, Jr...
...He resigned for reasons of health...
...The gamesman barely contains himself...
...And there is another, broader in- nocent...
...As the priest tells of his pathological compulsion, the Were it not for the press, specifically the National Catholic camera zooms in on the window's chalice and Communion wafer Reporter, this story might never have been told and the church or on the word "SAINT," alternating these religious symbols with never able to admit and come to terms with this terrible scourge...
...Minnesota...
...Evidence...
...David R. Carlin, Jr...
...41106(207) 799- In fact, the program, most of which had been filmed before Cook's accusations were 4387, classified advertising correspondence to 15 made public, had almost nothing new to report...
...in an interview with Cook on the morning (Friday, November 12) the complaint was Pamela Quatse filed...
...And we are AMAZED...
...shots of the priests' hands-those defiling hands-held in front While victims and their advocates feel that there is still a long of his crotch...
...He is interviewed defending the innovative procedures adoptaccompanied by a stamped...
...In Chicago, let me tell you, the latter response is barely evident...
...self-addressed envelope...
...of course indefatigable...
...Moreover, though seeking legal remedies should in rank and rife...
...Yes, Catholic priests have abused children, but Bernardin tomatically that a priest who has been accused must be guilty...
...POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Commonweal, 15 Dutch St...
...sodomized by Bernardin sixteen or more years ago and has brought Hundreds gave Bernardin standing ovations at a seminarysuit, asking $10 million for the pain and anguish caused...
...including celibacy) and pedophilia...
...Bernardin might be panned here for mismanagement, as for the number of schools and parishes closed on his watch, but n early Bob Newhart routine has a game com- he's no candidate for obloquy...
...And the ball libertinism or (b) clean out his Augean chancery stables of timelanding on one side of the line is fair...
...The credibility of victims who Republic, American Spectator, Reason, and the Washington Post have fought long to overcome the denial of church officials is National Weekly...
...Some conclude more or less auate...
...Display advertising co:Tespondence should he sent to Ruth E. Taylor, abuse among priests...
...Comes now a note from one Gene Vader, Jr., of of the young who are hard pressed to admit allegiance to what Minnetonka, Minnesota, who reports: "It has heen done...
...the interview was preceded and followed by Bernardin's denials...
...Farrell made special efforts to Lunch to follow ($15 contribution) call the attention of the nation's major media to materials pub- For additional information call 212-732-0800 lished in Commonweal...
...Sidney Callahan, Daniel Murtaugh, and Richard Sexton...
...With this issue, Gerald Weales completes a twenty-five-year the testimony that put alleged witches behind bars and worse association with Commonweal as our theater reviewer...
...In introducing Bernardin from chance of being published...
...The directors marking his 60 years of service also expressed deep appreciation for all that Paul Farrell has to Commonweal and the beginning of done to advance the cause of Commonweal, both as a board Commonweal's 70th year of publication member (he served since the creation of the foundation in 1984) and as friend and adviser since 1947...
...servers and me-firsters...
...Bernardin Critics' choices for Christmas: Alice categorically denied the charges contained in a S l0-million civil McDermott...
...Letters of not more than once largely informational segments-now shown after Bernardin himself has been 250 or 300 words namrall_v have a better accused-seem ludicrous, unfeeling, and self-serving...
...on a side, Ab...
...Eastern college where rage simmers constantly about abuse of women by men, it's the sort of evidence a rape victim recalls REPORT FROM CHICAGO only after plumbing the depths of her psyche...
...sation which are briefly repeated during the show...
...In this case we A.M., whereas a program titled "Rated R," which features readare persuaded that "Fall from Grace," and other shows like it- ings from Esquire, Penthouse, and "appropriate books," is schedfor there is a relentlessly repetitive quality to them-suspend uled twice a week at Il P.M.- "presumably because at that hour their sense of fairness and professional standards...
...For unlike a criminal indictment, which requires a prosecutor to Senior Writer: Robert G. Hovt Business Manager: Richard Haas gather and to present to a grand jury evidence sufficient to warrant prosecution, this Deshun: Emil Antonucci is a complaint by which the defendants are put on notice that they are going to be Screen: Richard Alleva sued...
...RSVP by January 3, 1994 O'Brien Steinfels...
...In no small measure, it de- the fall issue reported that items from this magazine (and zilpended on the now almost pervasive view that the Catholic lions of others, including Super Teen, Amazing Stories, and church, along with other groups who defend culturally con- Walleye hrSider) are regularly read over the Radio Talking Book servative values-especially in matters sexual, reproductive, Network, operated by State Services for the Blind in Saint Paul, and familial-is fair game for public pillorying...
...Its story was not enterprising...
...The complaint in this case does nothing more than repeat Cook's allegations, Columnists: John Garvey...
...He has people mad at him for pany man listening over the phone to Abner not being tough enough or shrewd enough or ready enough to Doubleday's cockamamie idea...
...The Newsletter, however, took note that our stuff We do not share the view that the media and other opinion gets on the air once a week during a religious segment at 6:15 leaders engage in systematic Catholic hashing...
...it was mostly a rehash...
...ed in Chicago for determining whether there are grounds for accusations against a Commonweal welcomes letters on subjects priest, and whether a priest should be removed from his ministry...
...The goes a long way back), is in his corner...
...plicated problems sexual abuse presents to its victims, to the This concentration on Bernardin was wildly disproportion- church, and to those accused...
...Unavoidably, these treated in its pages...
...Due process, after now familiar story of priestly pedophilia over pictures of litur- all, is something the church needs more of, not less-as the exgical events, especially an ordination ceremony...
...But almost to a man, Somewhere between Bob Newhart and Kafka falls the reli- priests like Bernardin...
...In this case, CNN failed...
...Cook, who has AIDS, says he STAFF recovered the memory of the priest's abuse within the last year, and of Bernardin's Editor: Margaret O'Brien Steinfels within the last month-- all of this at least fifteen years after the alleged events...
...On the other side is foul...
...the day before the Catholic bishops were to gather for their annual Foundation, 15 Dutch St., New York, N.Y...
...New York, NY 10038-3760 Other directors of the Foundation: President, Edward S. Skillin...
...Cook, now thirty-four years old, Martin E. Marts...
...Maybe somebody high in the On the immediate issue, two points should be made...
...Regina Plunke tt Dowling...
...But acknowlfour times, often using as a verbal bridge the insinuating refrain- edging past wrongs does not magically change the very com"prior to being accused of being an abuser himself...
...But neither should the press go uncriticized when it fails to balance the competing interests of the public's right to know ET CETERA with its own responsibility to weigh the factual worth of accusations it is considering for public airing...
...no way be discouraged, victims should also recognize that the In one segment, "Fall from Grace" stages an interview with a recompense they seek and deserve is not easily won from the "recovering" priest-abuser in front of an illuminated stained-glass legal system either...
Vol. 120 • December 1993 • No. 21
