Archbishop Chaput defends the Pope and the Vatican over abuse lawsuits

Contents - Jul 2010 - Buy a copy now Editorial: Religious education: the challenge of secularism - Michael Gilchrist Events: Leading US Catholics to visit Australia Archbishop Chaput defends the Pope and the Vatican over abuse lawsuits News: The Church Around the World Newly discovered World War II documents further vindicate Pius XII Book launch: Cardinal Pell's new book 'Test Everything' launched - Michael Gilchrist Trends: The Church in 50 years: John Allen's predictions - Frank Mobbs FOUNDATIONS OF FAITH: What we can know about heaven from Scripture and the Church - John Young Two views: Vatican II, infallibility and the Church today - James Bogle and John Young New apologetics for the new evangelisation Books: THE ABBESS OF ANDALUSIA: Flannery O'Connor's Spiritual Journey, Lorraine Murray - Terri Kelleher (reviewer) Books: CONVINCED BY THE TRUTH: Embracing the Fullness of Catholic Faith, John Fleming - John McCarthy (reviewer) Books: HANDING ON THE FAITH IN AN AGE OF DISBELIEF, by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger - Br Barry Coldrey (reviewer) Books: Order books from www.freedompublishing.com.au Reflection: The challenge: how to spread God's word in a secular culture - Bishop Arthur Serratelli

In the midst of lawsuits attempting the implicate the Vatican for the failure of individual bishops to properly handle clerical sex abuse cases, Archbishop Charles Chaput OFM Cap of Denver, Colorado, points out that the Pope "is not a global CEO" to be held liable, given that bishops are not "his agents or employees." Instead, the Church is "much closer to a confederation of families than to a modern corporation."

Archbishop Chaput made his observations in an article in the American religious periodical First Things on 26 May.

He began by addressing some of the common misconceptions about Church authority. He writes: "In the organisational structure of the Catholic Church in America, the Province of Denver includes the dioceses of Pueblo and Colorado Springs in Colorado, the Diocese of Cheyenne in Wyoming, and the province's metropolitan (or senior) see, the Archdiocese of Denver. That makes Denver's bishop an archbishop.

"As that archbishop, I rarely see a year go by without at least two or three unhappy parishioners assuming I have the authority to 'straighten out' their liturgists and principals and pastors or some other problem in their local parish — within the province but outside my own diocese.

"They tend to get even more annoyed when they learn that I have neither the authority nor the foolishness to meddle in the life of a sister diocese. Nor will I intrude on the ministry of a brother bishop who is "the chief teaching and governing authority in his own local Church." The title [arch-bishop] does entail some rights and duties in the life of a province, but these are strictly limited.

Turning to the Pope, Archbishop Chaput wrote, "the bishop of Rome is uniquely different" since "he is first among brothers yet he also has real authority as pastor of the whole Church."

"But he is not a global CEO, and Catholic bishops are not — and never have been — his agents or employees," he emphasised. "It's useful to remember this today as lawyers try ingeniously to draw the Vatican into America's on-going sex-abuse saga."

Archbishop Chaput referred to the case where attorney William McMurry has been attempting to lodge a federal lawsuit against the Vatican in Louisville, Kentucky.

McMurry was seeking class-action status for a case involving three men who claim they were abused by priests decades ago. He also represented 243 sex abuse victims who settled with the Archdiocese of Louisville in 2003 for $25.3 million.

"In O'Bryan vs. the Holy See, currently being heard in US district court in Kentucky," the Archbishop wrote, "plaintiffs' attorneys seek to depose Vatican official — including potentially the Pope himself — to determine what they knew and allegedly ignored or covered up about the handling of clergy sex-abuse cases by American bishops.

"The plaintiffs' legal argument hinges on the premise that bishops are, in effect, Roman-controlled employees or officials. But that argument is not merely false in practice it is also revolutionary in its consequences. In effect, it seeks to redefine the nature of the Church in a manner favourable to plaintiffs' attorneys, but alien to her actual structure and identity."

"To put it another way," Archbishop Chaput said, the "plaintiffs' attorneys want a federal court to tell the Church who she really is, whether she agrees or not, and then to penalise her for being what she isn't."

"Every bishop in the United States has a filial love for the Holy Father and a fraternal respect for his brother bishops," he continued. "But these family-like words — filial, fraternal, brother — are not mere window-dressing. They go to the heart of how the Catholic community understands and organises herself, and more importantly, how the Church actually conducts herself, guided by her own theology and canon law.

"The Church is much closer to a confederation of families than to a modern corporation," Archbishop Chaput explained. "And this has real, everyday results. In practice, the influence of the Holy See on the daily life of the Archdiocese of Denver is strong in matters of faith and morals.

"But in the operational decisions of our local Church, the Holy See's influence is remote. In 22 years as a bishop, my problems have never included a controlling or intrusive Vatican."

"We live in ironic times," Archbishop Chaput concluded. "Critics of the Catholic Church in the 19th century conjured up a monolithic Roman Church to frighten America's Protestant masses. Today — when that Roman strawman is even less believable — they rather like the idea of the Catholic Church as a Vatican-controlled monolith, no matter how far that myth is from real Church life, the better to sue her."

Catholic News Agency

Reprinted from AD2000 Vol 23 No 6 (July 2010), p. 4