Western Massachusetts Catholics
January 5, 2009
http://westernmassachusettscatholics.blogspot.com/2009/01/d412-diocesan-playbook.html
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"It would mean a great deal if [McDonnell] cleaned house. He needs to take the responsibility of showing he treats survivors who come forward as doing a service to the diocese and not as enemies." - SNAP member Peter Pollard, March 10, 2004.
Bishop McDonnell has not exactly treated victims as enemies – but neither has he embraced them. Instead, he seems content to watch as the victims, their concerns now "settled", once again drift toward a shadowy past.
For example, he has not responded to the non-monetary demands of the victims which Mr. Pollard presented in December. And, in the yearly review of important stories in the Catholic Observer, a story of some 3,000 words, the $8.5 million settlement rated only about 50 words – the same amount devoted to a supposed apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary in a damaged window at Mercy Hospital.
Despite Mr. Pollard's hopes in 2004, a review of Bishop Timothy A. McDonnell's actions shows that he did not clean house. The same chancery officials that surrounded Dupre for his 9 years in office (Sniezyk, Liston) the same lay advisors (Schuman, Egan) and the same media crew (Dupont, Pomerleau) continued, and continue today.
Observers of entrenched bureaucracy will recognize the phenomenon. Some governmental offices can be revisited after five or ten years, and the same faces and thought processes are found undisturbed.
Likewise, life goes on, uninterruped, on Elliott St. The chancery continues to be legalistic in intent, defensive in posture, and deadly serious in outlook.
While McDonnell has succeeded in turning the backlogged lawsuits of the Dupre era into slightly over 100 settlements, these have come at considerable cost. The unreimbursed amount of money that the Diocese has spent to date is more than $5.5 million.
More important, the continuation of Dupre's legacy has caused a grave loss of trust. Many view the Diocese as a polluted vessel. In the next few posts, we examine the rules of the game in the Springfield Diocese, those that constitute the Diocesan Playbook.
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The Playbook has only one goal:
1. protect corporation sole.
In order to do this, the Diocese employs many tactics: we concentrate on four:
1. maintain position
2. make decisions by not making decisions
3. avoid responsibility
4. withhold information
We'll look at how these tactics have been used in the Dupre and McDonnell administrations.
But first, a word about the goal (protect corporation sole).
The "Springfield Diocese" is really two things. One is the canonical entity sanctioned by Rome in 1870. The other is the legal Diocese created by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1898. We donate money to the legal Diocese and trust them to use it for the goals of the canonical Diocese.
The canonical Diocese is the one that includes all parishioners and clergy as the People of God, organized into a "particular church". It guides our faith, provides solace for the human condition, and challenges us to accept redemptive suffering into our lives.
The legal Diocese is known as corporation sole. It is no exaggeration and not a sign of disrespect to address the Most Reverend Timothy A. McDonnell as the CEO of the corporation known as the Diocese of Springfield.
The lines between the two are not clear cut. Even the standard reference work used by the USCCB, the "New Commentary on Canon Law", has grave reservations about how compatible "corporation sole" is with canon law.
Sometimes, the bishop's motivation for action stems clearly from the canonical side; other times, his deeds are just as clearly meant to enforce a business decision. Sometimes, it can be interpreted either way. I suspect that bishops like this ambiguity.
It should be clear that in this section we are referring almost exclusively to the business decisions of the Diocese, as revealed in their actions over the last twenty years or so. In my opinion, it is their desire to protect and preserve corporation sole, at all costs, which explains most of the tactics described here. The tactics were largely instituted by Dupre, and have been carried forward, though in a slightly different style, by McDonnell.
An interesting side note to the $8.5 million litigation is that part of our attorney's argument in Paper 50 was that the Springfield Diocese was part of a larger unit, sort of like a franchise of a McDonald's. Mr. Egan argued that an adverse decision in Springfield would affect all other U.S. dioceses. It's clear that he was referring to Rome, and trying to apply canonical reasoning as a defense.
This was rejected by the judge. He ruled instead that the Springfield Diocese was a stand-alone corporation, responsible for its own actions.
He said that the Springfield Diocese had the same duty toward its employees (its priests) as any other corporation. The Springfield Diocese was not excused from normal obligations, even though in the canonical sense it does have a "special quality" that other corporations lack.
When the first misconduct commissions were formed in the early 90's, the Times suggested that "…such a board might still leave final decisions to the cardinal, but it would report directly to him and not through the church bureaucracy." But soon, the commission in Springfield was doing this very thing, if by "bureaucracy" we include the chancery's legal department. This became especially clear during the toxic buildup of cases during 2002.
We've seen that it was the legal opinions of John Egan and others that caused the commission to begin refusing complaints if the victims had already filed suit. Increasingly, commission hearings took on the appearance of an armed camp. By fall of 2002 the new emphasis on litigation was spilling over into the Hampden County legal system.
Throughout 2003 Dupre attempted to throw dozens of suits out of court in many ways, justifying his approach by saying that: "… we should not throw away our defenses, especially, those based on the First Amendment and the laws of Massachusetts…".
Clearly, by fighting the victims, he felt that he was living up to his role as head of the Diocese. What is not clear is whether he was acting on behalf of the corporate Diocese, or for the canonical Diocese. But whatever his motivations, his actions showed that he did not see the self-interests of the victims and the Diocese as compatible. Just as clearly, he was dead set against allowing the victims any days in court, as we shall see. Then, he resigned.
At first, Bishop Timothy A. McDonnell was greeted as something of a savior. Within days of his appointment in March of 2004, he met with representatives of victims and seemed eager to solve the backlog of cases. With him came a significant change in personal style.
Dupre was a hometown boy made good. His persona was that of a combative canon lawyer, cool, closeted and grim. McDonnell, raised in the hothouse world of New York politics, looked larger than life compared to Dupre, with many more tools at his command. He charmed many during his initial appearances in Springfield, joking in a self-deprecating way about confusing North Adams with Northampton.
Yet, it's important to remember that during the transition period, McDonnell was under enormous pressure to solve the crisis.
In April, 2004, McDonnell announced that he wanted to disassociate the Diocese from a $100,000 fund set up by Dupre the previous Fall, funded by anonymous donors to aid indigent, defrocked priests, a fund that newly-defrocked Richard Lavigne would qualify for on May 1. However, a month later, the fund was still in place.
This led to public criticism of McDonnell by Rev. James Scahill. He urged the Bishop to dissolve the fund or put it outside Diocesan control. It has since become clear that Scahill had already criticized McDonnell about the fund in private, probably during meetings of the Presbyteral Council. Scahill was a member of this group of 18 elected priests who helped govern the Diocese.
The new Bishop blew up and retaliated. He stated at a council meeting that Scahill had done as much damage to the Diocese as Lavigne. He fired Scahill. When word got out of the comparison of Scahill to a convicted pedophile, victims and parishioners were outraged. The bishop was soon forced to apologize.
Yet, he insisted in his apology that "The Presbyteral Council is meant to be an advisory group to the bishop, not an adversarial one." He characterized Scahill's statements as "personal attacks."
Apparently, Scahill's greatest offense was that he took his criticism public. McDonnell said that "…the public second-guessing of my motives has slowed the [healing] process and, in some cases, may have derailed it…" He did not explain how Scahill's statements had slowed progress.
He also said: "While we can disagree on the arguments, there is no way that an attack by a priest on his bishop does not have consequences…you don't do that and not have repercussions."
This rather blunt display of the command hierarchy would not be repeated.
Since then, McDonnell has taken a different tack. His public statements about abuse are few, invariably kind, and are reflective in tone, even naive.
And yet, at the same time, the Diocesan newspaper, of which he is publisher, has on several occasions editorialized on the shortcomings of SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests). One example, published at the time of the $8.5 million settlement, is here, in which the group is tarred as an "attorney-allied group". Another is here.
It is difficult to gauge McDonnell's motivations, partly because he avoids speaking publicly about controversial topics. A notable example was on July 2, when the $8.5 million settlement was announced. He was out of town and not available for questions or additional comments during that watershed event.
One might describe McDonnell's approach to governance as "passive-aggressive". He asked parishioners to speak out about parish reconfiguration – but then restricted the "listening session" participants to a selected few. He mandates councils for every parish – but then does not work with them, even when critical decisions are made. He expresses solidarity with victims – but then finds time to criticize SNAP and other victim's organizations.
In a memorable exchange in April of 2008, the mother of two young boys filed a lawsuit against the Rev. Aaron Cote. Cote was not a priest of the Diocese, but the alleged crimes took place in the Springfield area, and Cote had been assigned here in the past. SNAP held a press conference outside 65 Elliott St., pressing McDonnell for more outreach to victims through the Observer, parish bulletins or the Diocesan web site.
The only response from McDonnell was that he knew little about the family or their accusations. "They are talking about it but they are not sharing," McDonnell said of the Survivor's Network. "That's what makes it difficult."
Another recent example was when William Nash, a native of the Springfield Diocese, showed up at Elliott St. to ask for help in defrocking a known sex offender, the Rev. James Tully. Instead, in the words of a local priest, Nash was "…condemned and chastised…" by McDonnell, simply because Tully was not a Diocesan priest. This super-sensitivity to criticism, such that the appearance of propriety is of more importance than the pursuit of justice, raises questions about McDonnell's priorities.
One of the positive differences between Dupre and McDonnell is that while Dupre acted like laicization for troubled priests was the last thing on his mind, McDonnell has embraced it.
In Dec. of 2002, it was reported that Dupre was not seeking laicization for Rev. Koonz, Kennedy, Meehan, Graves, and Dube. Yet in 2006, when Meehan was laicized, it was reported that another "6 or 7" were also possible candidates. Indeed, later that year we learned (from the Republican) that Edward Kennedy and Alfred Graves had been defrocked, joining Meehan, Lavigne and Malboeuf. The Diocese has not explained why its web site or print media carries no information about defrocked priests.
This initiative on the part of McDonnell is important because it must have generated a great deal of paperwork between the Vatican and Elliott St. This helps to explain why the insurance lawyers were so eager to see the cache of secret papers during the recent $8.5 million settlement.
Beneath these questions of style, there has been a remarkable continuity between the two bishops, as reflected in the tactics which we now turn to.
The first point of continuity between the two administrations is the Diocesan law firm of Egan, Flanagan & Cohen. This law firm has been in place for over 50 years, spanning back to the Weldon administration. From all appearances, the legal strategy of John Egan, lead counsel, and the legal strategy of the Diocese are one and the same. Whoever has been calling the shots, the legal strategy of the Diocese has been highly questionable.
Whatever the meaning of the dollar amounts of the settlements, which, if anything, are on the low side, the attendant costs have been high, and by no means limited to fiscal matters.
We now move from the macro-level of the Playbook down to specific instances of how it has been put into use in both administrations. Many of these overlap. But, they all contribute to a solitary goal – the protection of corporation sole.
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.