Catholic Hierarchy – Page 230

December 6, 2014

Gay Catholic Music Director Files Discrimination Complaint Against Church For Unfair Termination

by Jack Jenkins

Colin Collette, a gay man, worked as the music director of Holy Family Catholic Community in Inverness, Illinois for 17 years, preparing songs for worship and orchestrating liturgy for weekly services. When Illinois embraced marriage equality in June, Collete and William Nifong, his partner of five years, celebrated a month later by getting engaged in Rome “in the shadow of St. Peter’s Basilica” and quickly announcing their betrothal on Facebook.

Instead of congratulating the couple on their upcoming nuptials, however, the priest at Holy Family responded by immediately asking for Collette’s resignation, saying his homosexuality violated tenets of the Catholic Church. When Collette refused, he was promptly fired.

“’Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ is the policy in the [Catholic] church,” Collette told ABC 7, a local news affiliate, in August. “I guess as long as you’re willing to live the lie, you’re safe.”

The church’s decision outraged many in the suburban parish, several of whom have held prayer vigils and voiced public support for their former music director. On Thursday, however, Collette took the matter to court, filing a federal discrimination complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the Cook County Commission on Human Rights. The move is a preliminary step towards filing a formal lawsuit; if the EEOC agrees with Collete’s complaint, it can either grant him the right to sue his former employer or even sue the church on his behalf.

“It is with deep regret that I have had to pursue this course of action,” Collette said in a press conference on Thursday. “I have chosen to enter into a marriage, as is my right under Illinois law, and perhaps I can open the door to other men and women who the church has chosen to exclude from the community.”

Collette, who holds a Masters in Divinity, named Holy Family’s priest and a parish manager in his complaint, saying his firing amounted to discrimination on the basis of sex, sexual orientation, and marital status. He also contended that his employer was well aware of both his homosexuality and his relationship with Nifong before he was let go, as the two were active members of the community.

“Our pastor knows both of us,“ Collette told the Chicago Tribune. “We’ve been to many social functions together, including the 20th anniversary of the parish.”

Collete’s complaint challenges the unusually broad power afforded to religious institutions to dictate who they hire. In 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that faith-based employers are allowed to hire and fire people for reasons that would otherwise be discriminatory because of a so-called “ministerial exception.” Although they are still technically subject to anti-discrimination policies, religious groups effectively have full control over “ministry” positions, a broadly-defined classification that extends beyond ordained clergy.

The case also poses a public test to the newly-appointed Archbishop of Chicago, Blasé Cupich. When Pope Francis tapped the former Bishop of Washington for the illustrious position in September, left-leaning progressives lauded the decision as a progressive step, citing Cupich’s passionate support for immigration reform and his willingness to condemn anti-gay bullying as “hateful and disrespectful” to “human dignity.” But while Cupich is far more progressive than Cardinal Francis George, his predecessor compared organizers of the Chicago Pride Parade to the Ku Klux Klan, he has not shown a willingness to break from traditional Catholic understandings of sexuality: Cupich openly opposed Washington state’s 2012 vote to embrace marriage equality, and has yet to respond to Collete’s complaint.

Collette’s filing is part of a growing number of LGBT people who are fighting back against the Catholic Church for firing people based on their sexuality. Colleen Simon, a Catholic food pantry worker in Kansas City, Missouri, who was fired in May for being gay, is suing the local diocese, saying they were aware of her orientation before her job was terminated. Meanwhile, several Catholic schoolteachers in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati are refusing to sign a new contract that reclassifies teachers as ministers and asks them to “refrain from any conduct or lifestyle” that is “in contradiction to Catholic doctrine or morals.”

Complete Article HERE!

November 7, 2014

Chicago Archdiocese Offers Sex Abuse Data

By MITCH SMITH and MICHAEL PAULSON

CHICAGO — The Roman Catholic archdiocese here released thousands of internal documents on Thursday that detailed decades of sexual abuse by its priests, a disclosure timed just days before the retirement of the current archbishop.

The files, some of which show past church leaders permitting clergy accused of abuse to continue working, describe complaints against 36 priests, many of whom are now dead and none of whom remain in active ministry. Nearly all of the alleged abuse occurred decades ago, though in several cases the accusers waited years to come forward.

Cardinal Francis E. George, the Archdiocese of Chicago’s current leader, had promised to make the documents public. That pledge became more urgent when Pope Francis accepted the cardinal’s retirement and appointed Blase Cupich, currently the bishop of Spokane, Wash., to replace him later this month.

The priests whose personnel files were posted online Thursday have long been publicly identified by the Chicago archdiocese as having credible complaints of sexual misconduct against them.

In a statement, David Clohessy, the director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, criticized the archdiocese for not releasing the documents earlier. The roughly 15,000 pages published Thursday included graphic descriptions of abuse and, in some cases, evidence of a less-than-swift response from church leaders.

In the case of the Rev. John W. Calicott, parishioners objected when the priest was temporarily removed from ministry in the 1990s over abuse allegations concerning acts in the 1970s.

The priest’s support from his congregation — and his contention that he should be forgiven for long-ago acts — were well chronicled at the time. But the letters and petitions released Thursday show the intensity of the pushback, including some concerned about the impact of Father Calicott’s case on African-American Catholics, because he and many of his parishioners were black. Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, then the archbishop, reinstated Father Calicott, with restrictions. His successor, Cardinal George, removed him from ministry.

Documents related to 30 other Chicago-area priests accused of sexual abuse were released in January. Those papers were examined by both the archdiocese and the law firm of Jeff Anderson, who has represented numerous victims of clergy abuse.

Mr. Anderson did not examine the most recent files in advance, and said he viewed Thursday’s release “with a great deal of suspicion and skepticism” because of what he considered a lack of outside scrutiny. But archdiocese officials said Thursday’s disclosure represented a desire to speak openly about past wrongdoing. “As we said in January, we are committed to transparency with the people we serve,” Cardinal George said, adding, “Child abuse is a crime and a sin.”

Complete Article HERE!

November 4, 2014

Church ‘leaving falsely accused priests in limbo’

By Caroline O’Doherty
A Catholic priest found not guilty of sexually assaulting a teenage girl is embroiled in a row with his order and the Archbishop of Dublin over claims they are punishing him for being accused.

Carmelite father Chris Conroy, 81, who is banned from saying public Mass and is defying orders to leave his family home and live in a monastery, says the Catholic Church has its own “Guantanamo Bay” for falsely-accused priests.

The former missionary from Co Wicklow, who was the subject of an award-winning documentary about his work with the Indians of the Peruvian Andes, says he has been in limbo for the last 10 years since his court case ended.

In his memoirs, to be launched next month, he accuses Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of interfering without authority to have him prevented from saying Mass and says his Order has shown undue deference to the Archbishop in attempting to impose other restrictions.

“This is why I wrote the book. I had to make a stand,” he said. “I spent my time in Peru fighting and putting my life on the line for the poor Indians and the suffering and injustice that they were enduring.

“Then I came back to Ireland to injustice and I said I’m not going to accept this, especially in the Church that I love and in the Carmelite Order that I love.”

In a statement, Archbishop’s House said it was not the practice of the archdiocese to comment on individual cases involving allegations of child sexual abuse.

Head of the Carmelites in Ireland, Fr Martin Kilmurray, however, said the memoirs contained “gross inaccuracies” about Fr Conroy’s dealings with the leadership of the order and with the archbishop.

Fr Kilmurray said he was “deeply concerned” that details of the case involving the teenage girl had been reproduced in the book.

“We see this as a blatant disregard for the wellbeing and right to privacy of this person. We have initiated contact with her, with a view of offering pastoral support,” he said.

Fr Conroy said he bore his accuser no ill will but he had to recall the case to illustrate the risks to clergy from unfounded accusations and their own hierarchy.

“Every priest in Ireland should read my book because it could happen to them tomorrow. I’m very lucky in one sense because I was accused publicly, I went to the public court and I was acquitted publicly.

“Supposing I had been accused and it didn’t go to the court and the Church was just dealing with it. I’d be in limbo forever. The Church doesn’t know how to deal with these types of cases.”

Complete Article HERE!

October 20, 2014

Trial showed that Kansas City diocese hasn’t learned enough from its past

By Mary Sanchez

The Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph showed itself as a forgiving, diligent shepherd in the civil trial just concluded.

But the sheltering love was for priests’ welfare first. Less attention was apparent for parishioners’ concerns, and certainly not for vulnerable children.

Given the testimony of denial by multiple priests, it’s questionable how far deeply ingrained attitudes have really shifted. In recent years, changes came about when the diocese was forced through repeated pleas by the faithful, multimillion-dollar settlements and court orders.

The trial’s conclusion was halted by a nearly $10 million settlement that lumped together multiple cases. But the jury trial was intended to weigh the sexual abuse accusations of a former altar boy, now a 44-year-old man.

Nearly two weeks of proceedings put on public display how the diocese for five decades — through four bishops — rationalized its decisions and struggles with pedophile priests.

The diocese put forth a shameful record in its own defense.

Letters and verbal complaints of specific troubling incidents, dating back to the mid-1970s, were initially dismissed. Sexually inappropriate advances were seen as raucous and drunken behavior, something that a priest could be chided for and then ushered back to the rectory. There seemed to be a belief, a misplaced hope, that treating a priest for alcoholism could also cure pedophilia, as if the criminal behavior was only contingent upon the drinking. For some bishops, there appeared to be confusion about the difference between homosexuality and the sexual abuse of children.

The church can choose to see the first as sinful. But to attack an innocent child is a crime. Such lack of common sense, that inability to separate church doctrine from criminal acts, is baffling.

In the 1980s, the diocese put its faith into what one expert testified was once common, moving a priest known to be struggling with sexual issues to a job as a hospital chaplain. One of the lawsuits settled this week was filed by a man who said he awoke from surgery to find a priest masturbating him.

Some of the deceased bishops’ actions can be understood better in the context of the times. Society in general is thankfully more informed about sexual abuse, how children are groomed to be victims.

But it’s a shallow defense.

Federal laws mandating that certain people must report suspected child abuse have been around since the mid-1970s. They always included clergy.

The priest in this case was still a priest when he died in 2013. He had been barred from performing some religious rites, but he was never formally defrocked. Monsignor Thomas O’Brien was treated as just another retired priest, his well-being taken care of as if he had served God and the diocese well in his time on Earth.

Before the settlement, O’Brien alone had already cost the diocese more than $7 million. And he’s just one priest who has been accused.

The question has always been, to what extent did the diocese shield its clergy at the cost of its flock? And why?

After this trial, we know more. But the jury was never going to hear the full story. Crucial information, broader context, was not allowed due to legal agreements between the parties to limit the case. Yet those elements draw a better picture of how the diocese mismanaged these problems, with one poor decision often leading to another.

Jurors were not told that one altar boy took his own life. They were not to know that O’Brien was believed to molest boys in tandem with another priest, Thomas Reardon, who has left the priesthood and has also been the subject of many lawsuits.

And they could hear no mention of former priest Shawn Ratigan.

Ratigan, sentenced last year to 50 years in prison for child pornography, is the link that makes the diocese’s past history so disturbing. Because the diocese used some of the same rationalizations initially for Ratigan’s behavior as they used in the 1970s and 1980s.

A long letter from a parish school principal detailed disturbing behavior by Ratigan toward children. The letter was not taken seriously by diocese officials. When disturbing pictures were found on Ratigan’s computer, he was simply shifted to another location and he abused again. Those decisions led to the misdemeanor charge of failure to report suspected abuse against the sitting bishop, Robert Finn.

It is only because of the Ratigan criminal trial that this civil proceeding came to be. Publicity about Ratigan’s case was the kick-start that brought these new allegations forward. So the past of the diocese is intricately linked to its more recent woes.

Certainly the addition of two non-clerical ombudsmen to handle allegations of abuse is significant. The two female workers have made prompt and appropriate reports. Most important, they’ve kept the diocese in compliance with the law when accusations have been raised the past three years.

Finn would not allow any non-monetary agreements to be tacked to this settlement. The diocese is still reeling from its breach of similar agreements to keep it on track, doing the right thing for parishioners. That lapse cost the diocese $1.1 million earlier this year.

These cases are not just about money. Lives have been ruined.

Among the most stoic in the courtroom were Don and Rosemary Teeman, with whom the diocese settled a lawsuit last year. Their son Brian committed suicide after serving as an altar boy at the same time as the plaintiff in this case.

These forever-grieving parents listened to detailed accounts suggesting the diocese knew this priest was a danger before he met their son. They believe Brian took his life after being molested by O’Brien.

No testimony changes their reality. The Teemans have two grandsons by their daughter. One boy bears a remarkable likeness to Brian.

But they do not have their son.

“They should have done something; it could have been stopped,” Rosemary Teeman commented midway through the trial. “I’d have a bigger family.”

Upon that truth is where the diocese should begin post-trial reflection.

Complete Article HERE!

July 18, 2014

“People who say homosexuals are sick are sick themselves”

By JAN MARTÍNEZ AHRENS

Raúl Vera is the Mexican bishop who holds the record for death threats. He has survived more than one attempt on his life, and his work in favor of missing persons, immigrants, children and juveniles, indigenous populations, prostitutes and pariahs of all types has earned him the undying hatred of many, including the drug rings.

Yet the threats seem to leave no mark on him. An engineer by trade and an intellectual son of May 1968, the 69-year-old Dominican friar has forged himself a legend as an untamed soul.

His first test came in 1995 when Juan Pablo II sent him to Chiapas in the middle of the Zapatista effervescence. His mission: to bring order to the diocese of San Cristóbal de las Casas, which was then headed by the charismatic Samuel Ruiz, a champion of liberation theology and supporter of pro-indigenous theories. But the man who was supposed to wrest power away from the unruly Ruiz and return the diocese to the path of conservatism ended up supporting the local clergy instead.

Rome never forgot. As punishment, four years later Vera was transferred to Saltillo, in the arid northern state of Coahuila. It was to no avail. Vera returned to the trenches, facing up to the government and to the fearsome drug cartel of Los Zetas.

Meanwhile, his charged rhetoric against inequality and “liberal capitalism” has distanced him from the rest of Mexico’s bishops, who are aristocratic and wed to orthodoxy.

For a long time, Raúl Vera was the Catholic Church’s black sheep, the old-fashioned left-winger. But that was until the ideological earthquake represented by the new pope, Francis I, gave renewed relevance to his words. Now, other bishops are suddenly turning to Vera for guidance.

Question. What visits would you recommend to the Pope when he comes to Mexico?

Answer. To begin with, he should become familiar with the migrants’ route. I would also make him visit a prison, because he likes going to prisons. I would also take him to the outskirts of a large city, because he says we should go to the periphery. I would organize a visit on the basis of what he is asking us to do. And I would make sure that the poor and the indigenous were standing in the front row, because that is something that doesn’t usually get done.

Q. Not long ago you baptized the daughter of a lesbian couple. What do you think about homosexuality?

The true meaning of life lies in the community, in caring for the weak”
A. That is a topic that we have refused to address. The people who say homosexuals are sick are sick themselves. The Church needs to come to them not with condemnation, but with dialogue. We cannot cancel out a person’s richness just because of his or her sexual preference. That is sick, that is heartless, that is lacking common sense.

Q. Is it not the same with abortion?

A. I share the Church’s views on abortion, and see it as murder. The difference lies in how you penalize it. Abortion, just like same-sex marriage, has served us subterfuge to tell ourselves that we in the Church have our morals. It is very easy to go against a woman who has an abortion, it poses no trouble and we have support from the ultraconservative right. When there was a national campaign against abortion here, I organized rosary recitations to reflect on the defense of the lives of migrants, miners and women as well as the unborn. But we are hypocrites. It would seem that the only moral rules deal with condemning same-sex couples and abortions. You do that and you’re the perfect Christian.

Q. Would you make prostitution legal?

A. No, that would be legalizing female exploitation. I believe in the dignity of women. Prostitutes are extremely damaged women, but they must never lose their dignity and their right to be respected. We are reaching horrible extremes in connection with trafficking and exploitation.

Q. You have confronted the drug cartels in public. Do you fear for your life?

I learned that in order to defend human life, you have to put your own life on the line”
A. In Chiapas I learned that you have to risk your life if you want to stand on the side of the poor. I learned that in order to defend human life, you have to put your own life on the line. There is no other way to be a shepherd.

Q. Mexico officially has more than 13,000 missing persons. In two northern villages, the drug rings took away 300 people in full daylight within the space of days, and authorities did nothing about it. What is happening?

A. Impunity is allowing this to happen. Disappearances come with the elimination of all evidence that might aid persecution of the crimes. First the people disappear, then their bodies.

Q. Would legalizing drugs be a solution?

A. That will not be a solution.

Q. Why not?

A. Absolutely not. Drugs go hand in hand with the depreciation of human life. The decomposition of man does not come from drugs; man turns to drugs, like he turns to alcohol, for other reasons. To some, life has no meaning and they need drugs to find that meaning. Others have no other place to go. Legalizing drugs will not solve the problem of why people use drugs in the first place.

Q. Are you a Socialist?

A. I do not consider myself a Socialist. I have not read Marx, I was not an activist, and I never liked the theory of conversion into a dictatorship. We all have the same rights and the same dignity, but we also have freedom. Yet I have never supported the methods of capitalism. The true meaning of life lies in the community, in caring for the weak and sharing equally in the bounty of the land. All of this I learned from the indigenous world, from the poor and the peasants. They taught me the value of human life and shared their capacity to feel joy. They taught me how to laugh.

Complete Article HERE!