Improving the View from the Pew

By Joe Barkovich
Welland Tribune
May 19, 2012

http://www.wellandtribune.ca/2012/05/18/improving-the-view-from-the-pew


The view from the pew is not a pleasant one. As a practising Roman Catholic, I do not like what I have been seeing.

I live with, and try to cope with, the sordid and sad stories at hand. On one hand, there are the civil suits against our diocese (and former priest Donald Grecco) stemming from the latter’s sexual abuse of three altar boys (see Thursday’s edition, page 1, Justice sought and Release surprises victim).

On the other hand, there is the disappearance of our former bishop, James Matthew Wingle.

I cannot speak for others: parishioners who sit in front of me, behind me, across from me.

I only know, with certainty, what I feel. Words that come to mind most readily include: disappointment, disgust, revulsion, anger, confusion, sorrow.

Time’s passing has not had a mitigating influence, the wound is painfully slow to heal.

Still before the court, the civil lawsuits are best left for comment at a later date.

But the bishop’s sudden flight from St. Catharines diocese after his resignation, April 7, 2010, is again being talked about, privately and publicly.

There seems to have been news on this front as I write this column, but it, too, can speak for itself.

I knew and admired this man as bishop/shepherd of our diocese, as dinner speaker, raconteur, stand-up comedian at times, consoler of grief, pastoral visitor at my father’s wake.

Now, after more than two years, I am still at a loss to understand why he had to take flight.

I remember how the story unfolded. It started with a telephone call confiding that staff at the Catholic Centre in Thorold had been summoned to a meeting where they were told of Wingle’s decision and about the letter to priests, deacons and the faithful across the diocese. It was faxed to parishes that same morning.

The letter was short but not sweet: “My decision to offer my resignation was the result of a long and intense process of prayer and reflection. The duties of the office of a diocesan bishop call for vigorous stamina to meet the challenges of leadership. I am no longer able to maintain the necessary stamina to fulfill properly my duties. I believe that my resignation will serve not only my own spiritual and personal well-being, but the good of the diocese and the Church as well.”

A second letter from Wingle, dated July 31, 2010, was addressed to the then-diocesan administrator, Monsignor Wayne Kirkpatrick, and was circulated to all parishes.

Wingle wrote: “This is to inform you, that as I had announced in the letter that I sent to the Diocese last April, at the time of my resignation, I have now completed the first part of my sabbatical which I spent in the Holy Land in a time of prayer and rest. Later in the summer, I plan to continue my sabbatical doing some writing and research on a catechetical-pastoral project.”

That’s old news.

The lack of news since then has been most troublesome.

The second letter explains, sort of, what Wingle did in 2010 after taking flight. But what did he do in 2011 and what has he been doing in 2012?

Rumours and speculation about his whereabouts have surfaced every now and then.

One in circulation is Wingle has e-mailed birthday greetings and well wishes to some priests in his former diocese.

I am inclined to say this one could be on the mark.

As a concerned, informed Catholic, I make it my business to read whatever I can about the sexual abuse scandal that has rocked our church.

The most recent is the text of a keynote address by Jesuit Father Thomas J. Reese, to the Clergy Abuse Conference at Santa Clara University in California just last week.

Reese is anything but a toe-the-line “company guy.” He has a reputation for expressing what is on his mind and for telling it like it is.

In May 2005 he resigned as editor-in-chief of the esteemed Jesuit publication America, after complaints from then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI), who, according to published reports, objected to the magazine’s treatment of sensitive church issues.

Here are two key paragraphs from Reese’s address:

“Finally the sexual abuse crisis has to be seen in the context of clerical culture in the church. I agree with those who say that celibacy did not cause the sexual abuse crisis, but when a group of men sit around a table discussing what to do with one of their colleagues who abused a child, it makes a big difference whether the men at the table have children. The first question in a parent’s mind is ‘How would I feel if my child was abused?’ The inability of celibate men to ask that question blinded them to the consequences of their decisions. They focused on the priest, not the victim.”

And this one:

“The problem in the Catholic Church today is that the hierarchy has so focused on obedience and control that it has lost its ability to be a self-correcting institution. Creative theologians are attacked, sisters are investigated, Catholic publications are censored and loyalty is the most important virtue. These actions are defended by the hierarchy because of fears of ‘scandalizing the faithful’ when in fact it is the hierarchy who have scandalized the faithtful.”

Re-reading the stories in Thursday’s edition of our newspaper left me with feelings of humiliation and helplessness.

They made me realize again my view from the pew is not a pleasant one.

Yet my place in the pew remains enriching, fulfilling, challenging and ever-inviting to a place at the table. I feel it week after week.

I relish my roles as a lay reader at Sunday and other masses and as eucharistic minister to the sick, I take seriously my membership on the St. Kevin’s social justice committee, look forward to my work with colleagues on the social justice scholarship committee, find inner peace at Taize prayer nights, feel spiritual elation as a choir soloist sings the great Easter proclamation, the Exsultet, during Easter Vigil, and more.

My place in the pew. There is still no place I would rather be.

St. Catharines diocese has a new bishop, Gerard Paul Bergie, Wingle’s successor.

Bergie is young (born Jan. 4, 1959, in Hamilton), articulate, ambitious, affable and, I am told, a mover and shaker. Proof of the latter will be seen in a round of clergy transfers involving several parishes in the diocese. If not announced by this weekend, I was told it will be soon after.

As a mover and shaker, Bergie may want to give thought to calling a diocese-wide meeting about the sexual abuse scandal perpetrated in large part, but not solely, by the disgraced Donald Grecco and how the diocese is coping with it.

This meeting could provide a transparent, open discussion of diocesan policy, it could be an extension of its Statement on Sexual Misconduct and the Abuse of Minors, found on the new and improved website, www.saintcd.com. (Once there, click on The Diocese on the navigation bar, then Responsible Faith.)

This important information has registered only 59 “hits” since posted Jan. 20, 2012, probably because few people know of its availability and accessibility.

Such a meeting might be an important step in improving the view from the pew.