It is customary these days to ignore what should be done in favour of what pleases us.
Plautus
Maureen Dowd Must Go
I remember one summer years ago visiting my maternal uncle, whom was pastor of a small church on Martha's Vineyard; he would offer to buy me a newspaper, and I invariably chose The New York Times (not his favorite). I used to love the writing--even the format. That was when I used to respect the Times. I no longer do so.
I think one of the final nails in the coffin was a sensationalized story of an alleged past affair between the emerging front-runner for the 2008 GOP Presidential nomination, John McCain, and lobbyist Vicki Iseman; the story was not only dated (about 10 years old) but was based on anonymous sources, thin evidence, and lack of independent corroboration, as the Times' own ombudsman concluded. It also failed to adequately disclose numerous times that McCain's actions and positions contradicted the preferences of Ms. Iseman's clients.
Technically, Maureen Dowd is not a New York Times reporter; she's a "Know Nothing" columnist. [This is an intentional double entendre; the "Know Nothings" were particularly opposed to the influx of Catholic immigrants during the mid-nineteenth century. The name had to do with the movement's secretive nature.] however, her recent anti-Benedict column draws on yet another misleading story, by Laurie Goodstein, based on thinly-evidenced innuendos regarding Pope Benedict's alleged unresponsiveness in a couple of notorious cases of rogue priests several years ago whom reportedly engaged in child predator behavior. Goodstein relied principally on two sources: lawyers with current vested interests in the nature of lawsuits against the Archdiocese of Milwaukee and the Vatican, and retired Archbishop Weakland, whom she treated sympathetically in a piece written last May after the release of the bishop's autobiography. [The archbishop himself was a source of church scandal, allegedly having paid off a male lover using $450,000 in diocesan funds. Do you think a responsible journalist might question the reliability of a retired archbishop with an ax to grind against the disapproving Vatican over the handling of his own misconduct?]
Father Thomas Brundage writes the following:
I was the Judicial Vicar for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee from 1995-2003. During those years, I presided over four canonical criminal cases, one of which involved Father Lawrence Murphy...As I have found that the reporting on this issue has been inaccurate and poor in terms of the facts, I am also writing out of a sense of duty to the truth. The fact that I presided over this trial and have never once been contacted by any news organization for comment speaks for itself...
My name and comments in the matter of the Father Murphy case have been liberally and often inaccurately quoted in the New York Times and in more than 100 other newspapers and on-line periodicals..The problem with these statements attributed to me is that they were handwritten. The documents were not written by me and do not resemble my handwriting. Discerning truth takes time and it is apparent that the New York Times, the Associated Press and others did not take the time to get the facts correct...The fact is that on the day [Father Murphy] died, he was still the defendant in a church criminal trial. No one seems to be aware of this.
The competency to hear cases of sexual abuse of minors shifted from the Roman Rota to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith headed by Cardinal Ratzinger [Pope Benedict] in 2001 [i.e., after Murphy's death]... When the competency was changed..., in my observation as well as many of my canonical colleagues, sexual abuse cases were handled expeditiously, fairly, and with due regard to the rights of all the parties involved.The late Father Lawrence Murphy allegedly molested up to 200 boys during his tenure between 1950 and 1974 as principal of the Milwaukee-based St. John's School for the Deaf. These actions were and are morally reprehensible and against the Church's consistent moral teachings. What we need to understand is that many victims did come forward, during the 1970's and afterwards, both to the police and to the archdiocese. For whatever reasons (e.g., insufficient evidence or statute of limitations), the local district attorney declined to prosecute.
Father Raymond J. de Souza writes the following:
Under canon law at the time, the principal responsibility for sexual-abuse cases lay with the local bishop. Archbishop Weakland had from 1977 onwards the responsibility of administering penalties to Father Murphy. He did nothing until 1996. It was at that point that Cardinal Ratzinger’s office became involved....Archbishop Weakland writes to Cardinal Ratzinger [July 1996], claiming that he has only just discovered that Father Murphy’s sexual abuse involved the sacrament of confession — a still more serious canonical crime. The allegations about the abuse of the sacrament of confession were in the original 1974 allegations...In [posted New York Times] documents, Cardinal Ratzinger himself does not take any of the decisions that allegedly frustrated the trial. Letters are addressed to him; responses come from his deputy...His deputy, Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone, suggested, given that Father Murphy was in failing health and a canonical trial is a complicated matter, that more expeditious means be used to remove him from all ministry.It should be noted that Archbishop Bertone's position in this matter was primarily advisory and was advocating a position, removal from the priesthood, that Father Murphy strongly rejected and resisted, and in any event, the local bishop was continuing to prosecute the case. Let's hear from the presiding judge, Father Bundage, once again:
I also met with a community board of deaf Catholics. They insisted that Father Murphy should be removed from the priesthood and highly important to them was their request that he be buried not as a priest but as a layperson. I indicated that a judge, I could not guarantee the first request and could only make a recommendation to the latter request.Finally, let's hear from the current Milwaukee Archbishop Listecki:
Mistakes were made in the Lawrence Murphy case. The mistakes were not made in Rome in 1996, 1997 and 1998. The mistakes were made here, in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, in the 1970s, the 1980s and the 1990s, by the Church, by civil authorities, by Church officials, and by bishops. And for that, I beg your forgiveness in the name of the Church and in the name of this Archdiocese of Milwaukee.For those wishing to read a more comprehensive treatment of the Father Murphy/Pope Benedict kerfuffle, I recommend this post.
The second controversy involves speculation of whether then Munich Archbishop Ratzinger knew about a controversial decision involving the restoration to pastoral duties of a German priest, Father Peter Hullermann, whom was later convicted of child molestation in 1986. It seems that Archbishop Ratzinger was aware of the 1980 transfer of the priest to his district for treatment subsequent to sex abuse allegations. The archbishop's then deputy, Monsignor Gerhard Gruber, takes full responsibility for the tragic decision to restore Hullermann to pastoral duties. Judicial vicar Father Lorenz Wolf believes that it's unlikely Archbishop Ratzinger ever saw the relevant paperwork (even if he was, as a matter of formality, carbon-copied on the memo), and Monsignor Gruber does not recall any relevant discussion on the decision with the archbishop. [The archdiocese claims that the decision to restore Hullermann was based on input from his psychologist, Dr. Werner Huth, that Hullermann had effectively been cured and no longer posed a threat to children (or perhaps did not pose a threat so long as he continued ongoing therapy). Not surprisingly, Huth strongly rejects the assertion, which I find self-serving. I will simply point out that Dr. Huth continued to treat Hullermann for years after his 1986 conviction, and I find it difficult to believe that Dr. Huth was out of the loop and ambivalent regarding Hullermann's assignments. Personally, I have a zero tolerance policy towards sexual misconduct of priests and others; I strongly believe that the Church for years has, at minimum, not acted prudently and more responsively to relevant complaints and its first obligation is to minister to victims. Sexual misconduct is a grave breach of the discipline of celibacy.]
Maybe the way I weigh in on this matter reflects how I approach research and evidence: what would I predict of Pope Benedict's actions once in a position of influence; has he been "more of the same" or has he made a practical difference? Archbishop of Westminster Vincent Nichols provides relevant testimony:
Since 2001 the Holy See, working through the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, has encouraged that course of action on dioceses who have received evidence about child abuse and which the diocesan authorities are responsible for pursuing. The canonical procedure is best put on hold until the criminal investigation is complete, whatever its outcome...In England and Wales, since 2001, the agreed policy followed by the bishops has been to report all allegations of child abuse, no matter from how far in the past, to the police or social services.
What of the role of Pope Benedict? When he was in charge of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith he led important changes made in church law: the inclusion in canon law of internet offences against children, the extension of child abuse offences to include the sexual abuse of all under 18, the case by case waiving of the statue of limitation and the establishment of a fast-track dismissal from the clerical state for offenders. He is not an idle observer. His actions speak as well as his words.
One more fact. In the past 40 years, less than half of 1 per cent of Catholic priests in England and Wales (0.4 per cent) have faced allegations of child abuse. Fewer have been found guilty.
 |
| Viva il papa! |
Obama and "Doris the Taxpayer"
No one will ever accuse Obama of being pithy. I don't know if last Friday's question-and-answer at an advanced battery technology company will become this year's version of a "Joe the Plumber" incident, but when Doris asked Obama quite succinctly whether he thought it was a good idea to increase taxes when we are already overtaxed, Obama responded with a 17-minute, 2500-word filibuster, riddling his meandering technocratic response with acronyms like FMAP and FICA.
I think this level of obfuscation is deliberate. It reminds me of a student whom once unsuccessfully filed a grade appeal against me. (To indicate the nature of the frivolous appeal, he spent several minutes at the hearing venting about how there was a heavy snowfall on the last regular day of the semester, when the last computer assignment was due, a deadline I had assigned weeks earlier. In fact, I walked to the campus during the snowstorm to field calls from concerned students and offered a 2-day extension, which the student used.) The grade appeal policy specifically detailed that subjective reasons for an appeal were unacceptable, that complaints had to be specific and objective in nature, e.g., an incorrectly-graded exam. The student filed a grade appeal quite literally within the last few minutes of the college cutoff. This was deliberately done to preclude my filing a response, which is a gross violation of due process. I had been promised a copy of the alleged evidence, but the college later reneged, claiming there was "too much" to copy. They would only let me see the "evidence" under observation. When I reviewed the evidence, it was literally an unorganized mess of computer assignment printouts, class notes, etc. There was not a single exam; there wasn't any specific complaint about the any of the grade criteria set up in the syllabus.
The student had admitted from the get-go his entire appeal was based on his baseless speculation I had uncovered his role in a plot against me (in fact, the college had a policy of protecting the identities of malcontent students against presumptuous retaliatory actions by the all-powerful junior professor without tenure or the right to face his accusers). Silly me--I moved for summary judgment against the student's claim as materially violating stated policy... Of course, I was denied.
The point is after the initial hearing, I approached one of the members of the investigating subcommittee, a new junior MIS professor, and asked him, "Did you bother looking at the so-called evidence?" And to my utter astonishment (not that I was really surprised...), he readily admitted he hadn't really checked it out, obviously a breach of due professional care. When I pressed him further, he responded, "Look, there was just SO MUCH of it. Where there's smoke, there's fire." And if it's dung on the outside, it's dung on the inside....
So all of this stuff is a typical legal trick. There was a movie I watched a while back where the other side had to provide salient documents in accordance with legal rules in discovery--but the adversaries dispersed the handful of documents among the content of several boxes. So the good guys had to go through thousands of papers to filter out the desired evidence.
Now perhaps I'm giving Obama too much credit; after all, he did have a reputation of being long-winded during the early Democratic primary campaign. But for a politician who prides himself on his communication skills and connecting with his target audience, a convoluted speech full of Washington insider acronyms like COBRA, FMAP, and FICA is going to only appeal to the progressive policy wonks in the crowd. (No word on whether "Doris the Taxpayer" responded to Obama's filibuster with, "Say WHAT?")
I have written a few articles on readability; for example, a key traditional formula (Dale-Chall) looks at two principal factors as related to reading complexity: vocabulary and sentence length. Obama would be well-served to focus on comparable concepts in communicating with the average joe.
Political Cartoon
Eric Allie shows that economic reality will bring an overextended federal fiscal house of cards crashing down to earth.
Musical Interlude: More Songs of the Heart
Roxette, "Listen to Your Heart"
Bonnie Tyler, "Total Eclipse of the Heart"
Celine Dion, "My Heart Will Go On"
Double, "Captain of Her Heart"
