Should We Forgive Bishop Conry?
By Fr. Dwight Longenecker
Over the weekend Bishop Kieran Conry, the Bishop of Arundel and Brighton resigned in disgrace after admitting not one, but two affairs with women. One of the women was married with two children. Bishop Conry was part of what Damien Thompson calls “the magic circle.” This is the “inside circle” of mainstream, moderate or liberal priests and bishops who govern the Catholic Church in England and Wales. After our conversion to the Catholic Church I spent seven years working for a small Catholic charity in England visiting parishes each weekend, and through this job I learned what life was really like in the trenches in England’s Catholic Church. It was a complex network of contacts and contacts within contacts through which, in the usual English Machiavellian way people and situations were manipulated while a polite and diplomatic facade was maintained at all times. It was wheels within wheels, and Bishop Conry was one of the main wheeler dealers. Damien Thompson has been a critic of this “magic circle” for years and he now has the knives out for them, asking all the tough questions. In the Spectator today he blogs forth criticizing Kieran Conry further and asking what Archbishop Nichols knew and when. Thompson contends that most people knew Conry was a womanizer years back and that he was questioned about the rumors when his name popped up for a bishopric and that he lied about his affairs. In the midst of this messy business it doesn’t make matters any better that Thompson continues to stir the pot and rake the mud. He has had it in for the “magic circle” bishops for years and one can’t help feeling that Thompson is experiencing a hefty dose of schadenfreude. While it may feel good to make bad news worse, what is the proper response to leadership scandal in the church? The seemingly “Christian” response which is loving and kind and forgiving to Bishop Conry. Is that right? Yes, of course we should forgive Bishop Conry, and we should always be humbled by the failures of our leaders. Each one of us may fall and while we lament the damage done to his diocese, to the Catholic faith, to the particular marriage he helped break up, the children of that marriage he has wounded and the spiritual lives he has soiled, we also ask the Lord’s forgiveness and hope he moves through this scandal to a better and more holy life. While we pray for him and offer forgiveness we also need to ask what forgiveness is. What are the parameters of forgiveness? How does it work? Does it consist of simply being harmless as doves or should we also be wise as serpents? In other words, is “forgiveness” just a matter of a pat on the head a “Tsk.tsk” and “There, there. Don’t let it happen again…Let’s go have some pie.” It is certainly fair to ask some further questions not only about Bishop Conroy but about the nature of forgiveness itself. Continue Reading
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