The Times-Picayune
June 13, 2009
http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2009/06/archbishop_hughes_tenure_was_s.html
Conventional wisdom holds that history requires years to render judgment on leaders, but of New Orleans Archbishop Alfred Hughes this is already certain: The two great catastrophes in the nearly 300-year history of the local Catholic church both detonated on his short watch, trying Hughes as no archbishop before him.
Hughes' seven-year tenure opened with the firestorm of a national sexual abuse scandal and ends in painful recovery from the most destructive hurricane ever to hit New Orleans.
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| Archbishop Alfred Hughes bows his head in prayer while clutching a palm as he walks in the opening processional Palm Sunday, April 13, 2003. Photo by Eliot Kamenitz |
Both bruised the institutional church and altered the ways people relate to it.
The crises befell an archbishop who, from the beginning, acknowledged that he was more comfortable doing one-on-one spiritual direction than managing a major community in crisis.
But the priest who reluctantly agreed to accept promotion to bishop in Boston in 1981 agreed as archbishop 26 years later to remain at his job past the nominal retirement age of 75 and begin rebuilding the regional church.
"I am not a public person," he said in one of his first New Orleans interviews in late 2001. "My job as a bishop is the greatest asceticism of my life."
Yet he said recently: "I've never been unhappy as a priest or a bishop. I can testify that there has been great grace. That I've been purified. It's been challenging, but deepening. I wouldn't trade it."
Even so, the storm-damaged archdiocese he will turn over to Archbishop Gregory Aymond is three-quarters the size of the one he took over, with 104,000 fewer Catholics, 34 fewer parishes and 24 fewer schools.
It is poorer — although how much so will not begin to become clear until next week, when the church releases its first report on operational finances since the storm.
The man who was introduced to New Orleans in the summer of 2001 after eight largely uneventful years as bishop of Baton Rouge was known for his amiability, orthodoxy and work ethic. If he was not a hearty extrovert, he was approachable, ego-free and easy to talk to.
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| Archbishop Francis Shulte hands over his crozier and wishpers in the ear of incoming Archbishop Hughes during Mass of Transitition at St. Louis Cathederal as Hughes is installed as new Archbishop of New Orleans Photo by Eliot Kamenitz |
But Hughes never got the luxury of a routine administration.
'That immediately cost him'
Three days after Hughes took office in 2002, the Boston Globe began an explosive series of reports detailing how for decades, Boston bishops often protected and quietly transferred sex-abuser priests without parishioners' knowledge.
In the eyes of many in his new flock, Hughes' three years in the early 1990s as a top aide to Cardinal Bernard Law in Boston tarnished him at the outset.
"That immediately cost him whatever momentum he might have hoped for," said Jason Berry, a New Orleans author who frequently writes about the Catholic church.
The two crises — the sex-abuse scandal and Hughes' post-Katrina management — introduced a new, distinctly skeptical dimension to many Catholics' relationship with their archbishop.
When he closed dozens of parishes after Katrina, they fought back, hard.
The clearest measure of the wound: During the 2009 Carnival season, several parading krewes, including Chaos and Krewe d'Etat, satirized Hughes through the streets of New Orleans as a prelate closing churches to grab their money — for the first time placing the city's archbishop among the ranks of secular politicians considered fair game for parody.
Some thought he was maligned. "I love him; I love working for him; I think it's a privilege to work for him," said the Rev. Neal McDermott, head of the archdiocese's Department of Christian Formation, which includes its school system.
McDermott recalled one early morning when the New Orleans church, still reeling from Katrina, was temporarily based with the Diocese of Baton Rouge, where a line of cars waited for a Catholic Charities office to open to dispense emergency aid.
"That morning I'm walking across the field, feeling very sorry for myself, and there's this line of cars at 6 a.m. And there's this little man going from car to car, greeting and encouraging people there.
"I am a priest 48 years. I've worked half my life with bishops, and I never met a man more dedicated and more committed to his church, to his role as archbishop, than this man," McDermott said.
Critics of closed system
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| Archbishop Alfred Hughes holds a press conference at St. Pous X rectory, and discusses the Pope's letter to the priests, mentioning Priests abusing children. Photo by Eliot Kamenitz |
Others were critical, especially of his management in the post-Katrina period and his reliance on a few aides — along with his determination not to discuss his closure decisions after they had been reached internally.
"I think he turned out to be the worst archbishop since the Great Depression," Berry said. "Leadership is manifested in the trust people have in a person. You've got to earn that. He never did."
As the sex-abuse scandal unfolded early in his tenure, Hughes, like bishops elsewhere, promised to overhaul a church value system that once sought to rescue abusive priests' careers and shield them from prosecution.
Between 2002 and 2005, he removed at least nine local priests credibly accused of abusing children; he searched archives to re-evaluate old sex-abuse complaints; he pledged to call police on receipt of new complaints; and he enforced locally a promise by bishops that one instance of sexually abusing a minor would permanently end the ministry of any priest.
But even as he rolled out those changes, a Massachusetts grand jury review of the Boston archdiocese's conduct singled out Hughes for scathing criticism. Hughes recently defended his decisions, saying he thought Attorney General Thomas Reilly's investigation was motivated by his desire to run for Massachusetts governor.
But Michael Kuczynski, a Tulane University professor active in the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, said that even though Hughes seemed personally sympathetic to the struggles of abuse victims, victims felt that the archdiocese turned a stonier face to them.
Kuczynski said people who approached the archdiocese's victims assistance office with stories of abuse found its response erratic at best — and occasionally adversarial.
Moreover, victims felt that the church publicly communicated a kind of cold skepticism when discussing abuse claims.
One example: When the church stopped referring to victims' "credible" accusations and began referring to accusations with "a semblance of truth."
That language actually came from national guidelines and was supposed to convey a low standard for an accusation to be accepted. But victims heard it differently. "That was a noteworthy change, a small and indirect way to discredit victims," Kuczynski said. "It seemed inherently to cast doubt on what people were alleging in a way that 'credible' does not."
Even as he was pursuing policies to build greater safeguards for potential victims, three priests he removed from ministry sued Hughes in civil court, claiming defamation.
None of the cases has come to trial yet; one may be nearing settlement.
al News from New Orleans, Louisiana
Archbishop Hughes' tenure was stormiest in recent N.O. history
by Bruce Nolan, The Times-Picayune
Saturday June 13, 2009, 9:44 PM
STAFF PHOTOS BY ELIOT KAMENITZArchbishop Alfred Hughes bows his head in prayer while clutching a palm as he walks in the opening processional Palm Sunday, April 13, 2003.
Conventional wisdom holds that history requires years to render judgment on leaders, but of New Orleans Archbishop Alfred Hughes this is already certain: The two great catastrophes in the nearly 300-year history of the local Catholic church both detonated on his short watch, trying Hughes as no archbishop before him.
Hughes' seven-year tenure opened with the firestorm of a national sexual abuse scandal and ends in painful recovery from the most destructive hurricane ever to hit New Orleans.
Both bruised the institutional church and altered the ways people relate to it.
The crises befell an archbishop who, from the beginning, acknowledged that he was more comfortable doing one-on-one spiritual direction than managing a major community in crisis.
But the priest who reluctantly agreed to accept promotion to bishop in Boston in 1981 agreed as archbishop 26 years later to remain at his job past the nominal retirement age of 75 and begin rebuilding the regional church.
STAFF PHOTO BY ELIOT KAMENITZArchbishop Francis Shulte hands over his crozier and wishpers in the ear of incoming Archbishop Hughes during Mass of Transitition at St. Louis Cathederal as Hughes is installed as new Archbishop of New Orleans Sunday, January 13, 2002.
"I am not a public person," he said in one of his first New Orleans interviews in late 2001. "My job as a bishop is the greatest asceticism of my life."
Yet he said recently: "I've never been unhappy as a priest or a bishop. I can testify that there has been great grace. That I've been purified. It's been challenging, but deepening. I wouldn't trade it."
Even so, the storm-damaged archdiocese he will turn over to Archbishop Gregory Aymond is three-quarters the size of the one he took over, with 104,000 fewer Catholics, 34 fewer parishes and 24 fewer schools.
It is poorer — although how much so will not begin to become clear until next week, when the church releases its first report on operational finances since the storm.
The man who was introduced to New Orleans in the summer of 2001 after eight largely uneventful years as bishop of Baton Rouge was known for his amiability, orthodoxy and work ethic. If he was not a hearty extrovert, he was approachable, ego-free and easy to talk to.
But Hughes never got the luxury of a routine administration.
'That immediately cost him'
Three days after Hughes took office in 2002, the Boston Globe began an explosive series of reports detailing how for decades, Boston bishops often protected and quietly transferred sex-abuser priests without parishioners' knowledge.
In the eyes of many in his new flock, Hughes' three years in the early 1990s as a top aide to Cardinal Bernard Law in Boston tarnished him at the outset.
"That immediately cost him whatever momentum he might have hoped for," said Jason Berry, a New Orleans author who frequently writes about the Catholic church.
The two crises — the sex-abuse scandal and Hughes' post-Katrina management — introduced a new, distinctly skeptical dimension to many Catholics' relationship with their archbishop.
When he closed dozens of parishes after Katrina, they fought back, hard.
The clearest measure of the wound: During the 2009 Carnival season, several parading krewes, including Chaos and Krewe d'Etat, satirized Hughes through the streets of New Orleans as a prelate closing churches to grab their money — for the first time placing the city's archbishop among the ranks of secular politicians considered fair game for parody.
Some thought he was maligned. "I love him; I love working for him; I think it's a privilege to work for him," said the Rev. Neal McDermott, head of the archdiocese's Department of Christian Formation, which includes its school system.
McDermott recalled one early morning when the New Orleans church, still reeling from Katrina, was temporarily based with the Diocese of Baton Rouge, where a line of cars waited for a Catholic Charities office to open to dispense emergency aid.
"That morning I'm walking across the field, feeling very sorry for myself, and there's this line of cars at 6 a.m. And there's this little man going from car to car, greeting and encouraging people there.
"I am a priest 48 years. I've worked half my life with bishops, and I never met a man more dedicated and more committed to his church, to his role as archbishop, than this man," McDermott said.
Critics of closed system
Others were critical, especially of his management in the post-Katrina period and his reliance on a few aides — along with his determination not to discuss his closure decisions after they had been reached internally.
"I think he turned out to be the worst archbishop since the Great Depression," Berry said. "Leadership is manifested in the trust people have in a person. You've got to earn that. He never did."
As the sex-abuse scandal unfolded early in his tenure, Hughes, like bishops elsewhere, promised to overhaul a church value system that once sought to rescue abusive priests' careers and shield them from prosecution.
TED JACKSON / THE TIMES-PICAYUNEArchbishop Alfred Hughes holds a press conference at St. Pous X rectory, and discusses the Pope's letter to the priests, mentioning Priests abusing children.
Between 2002 and 2005, he removed at least nine local priests credibly accused of abusing children; he searched archives to re-evaluate old sex-abuse complaints; he pledged to call police on receipt of new complaints; and he enforced locally a promise by bishops that one instance of sexually abusing a minor would permanently end the ministry of any priest.
But even as he rolled out those changes, a Massachusetts grand jury review of the Boston archdiocese's conduct singled out Hughes for scathing criticism. Hughes recently defended his decisions, saying he thought Attorney General Thomas Reilly's investigation was motivated by his desire to run for Massachusetts governor.
But Michael Kuczynski, a Tulane University professor active in the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, said that even though Hughes seemed personally sympathetic to the struggles of abuse victims, victims felt that the archdiocese turned a stonier face to them.
Kuczynski said people who approached the archdiocese's victims assistance office with stories of abuse found its response erratic at best — and occasionally adversarial.
Moreover, victims felt that the church publicly communicated a kind of cold skepticism when discussing abuse claims.
One example: When the church stopped referring to victims' "credible" accusations and began referring to accusations with "a semblance of truth."
That language actually came from national guidelines and was supposed to convey a low standard for an accusation to be accepted. But victims heard it differently. "That was a noteworthy change, a small and indirect way to discredit victims," Kuczynski said. "It seemed inherently to cast doubt on what people were alleging in a way that 'credible' does not."
Even as he was pursuing policies to build greater safeguards for potential victims, three priests he removed from ministry sued Hughes in civil court, claiming defamation.
None of the cases has come to trial yet; one may be nearing settlement.
Millions in damage
Hughes was already carrying the burden of the sex-abuse scandal when the archdiocese was crushed by Katrina, one of the most traumatic events in the long history of New Orleans.
The storm caused $288 million in damage to Catholic churches, schools and other properties, according to figures the archdiocese released last year. The church indicated that insurance settlements would cover only about 35 percent of that toll.
In Katrina's immediate aftermath, the local church disbursed $77 million in aid to storm victims.
On the flooded east bank of New Orleans, the church began opening its least damaged schools well before the public school system did, offering seats to the children of police and firefighters, whose lives were in disarray.
But it also fell to Hughes to shrink the church's footprint.
Hughes said Katrina provided the church the opportunity to reorganize parishes to conform to needs that had been apparent before the storm. The archdiocese devised a thorough planning system that consulted carefully within archdiocesan headquarters but left parish leaders only tangentially involved.
In the end, he closed 34 parishes, including about a half-dozen small but beloved communities and churches that weathered the storm intact. With a dwindling number of priests, he said, the church could not continue staffing them.
Thousands of parishioners suffering deep physical and emotional losses from Katrina suddenly faced the loss of their churches as well.
Dealing with pain
Hundreds of angry parishioners leveled withering personal criticism at an incumbent archbishop in a grueling ordeal that spread well beyond the Catholic community.
Defiant parishioners pilloried Hughes online, on radio and in print. They unsuccessfully petitioned Rome for his early removal and twice sued him in state courts. One suit lost at the trial court level; the second hasn't yet been heard.
In the end, parishioners seized two churches and occupied them around the clock for 72 days before the archdiocese called police to forcibly evict them. That produced a public spectacle of arrests that bruised the church in the eyes of a city where the Catholic archbishop usually enjoys a deferential regard.
In a recent interview, Hughes said the closure plan was necessary and well-conceived, if sometimes flawed by poor communication and other breakdowns in its execution.
"I think we've laid the groundwork" for the archdiocese's recovery, he said.
"It pains me that people have suffered so much in all this," he said. "I've had crosses to carry. The hardest cross for me is being a public person. I'm not by temperament a public person. And to be crucified publicly, to have my motives impugned, my reputation called into question ...
"But God has been present. I've never been unhappy. I've never felt that I was abandoned by the Lord. He has stretched me in ways I would never have chosen to be stretched and called forth responses that I would have never imagined I was capable of."
Standing for church values
In less dramatic ways, Hughes quietly asserted his role as the appointed keeper of the church's values.
In 2006 he published an essay, or pastoral letter, on racism asking the area's white Catholics to acknowledge that a legacy of "white privilege" still systematically leaves African-Americans, Hispanics and other minorities with lower-paying jobs, lower-quality health care and poor housing.
He quietly required an overhaul of religion texts used in Catholic elementary schools to bring them closer in line with Catholic orthodoxy.
Last fall, he denounced state Rep. John Labruzzo's proposal to pay poor people to undergo sterilization as "an egregious affront to those targeted and blatantly anti-life."
And in April, he chastised Xavier University and said he would boycott its commencement ceremony because the university was to honor Donna Brazile, a Democratic activist who favors abortion rights. He did the same in 2005 when Loyola University honored the Landrieu family for its years of public service. Hughes said he found Sen. Mary Landrieu's positions on abortion problematic.
Hughes said he intends to remain in New Orleans during retirement, living in a religious setting such as a rectory or some similar arrangement. He said he is weighing two specific options but didn't elaborate.
He said he also hopes to return to what was once his specialty: one-on-one ministry.
"I would love to return to spiritual direction ministry and retreat ministry," he said.
At 76, Hughes said he can identify eight points in his career — including his assignments to Baton Rouge and New Orleans — when he acceded to assignments by superiors that he had not foreseen and would not have chosen for himself.
"I'm convinced that we don't know what's best for us," he said. "I have had brought home to me in all this that God writes straight with crooked lines."
Bruce Nolan can be reached at bnolan@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3344.
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