Today, Explained - Have you talked to God about this?

Episode Date: September 13, 2018

Today, Pope Francis met with American bishops at the Vatican to discuss the fallout from a report on decades of abuse by priests. A religion reporter explains the widening crisis within the Church, before a Jesuit priest and a few everyday Catholics struggle with how it affects their faith. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Support for Today Explained comes from TransferWise. It's a cheaper, faster, easier way to send money internationally. I haven't convinced anyone to send me money internationally yet, but maybe you'll have better luck. You can try TransferWise out for free at TransferWise.com slash today or download their app. A lot has happened since a Pennsylvania grand jury issued a report on 70 years of sex abuse in the Catholic Church. Missouri is the first state to announce an investigation into clergy abuse. The Catholic Church agrees to cooperate with a task force to investigate sex abuse by priests in New Jersey. The New York Attorney General's action comes less than a month after a scathing grand jury The Attorney General's office wants records from all three Nebraska dioceses dating back

to 1978. The state of New Mexico is now investigating sexual abuse within the Roman Catholic Church. As our I-Team sits down with Roman Catholic Cardinal Blaise Cupich, he is defending the Chicago Archdiocese while vowing to open up church books and records to the Illinois Attorney General. And it's not just other states taking action. Today, the Pope called a bunch of United States bishops to the Vatican for a sit-down. To discuss how to stop priest sex abuse and protect children.

During this meeting, he ordered an investigation into a West Virginia bishop who's facing allegations he sexually harassed adults. He has also called a meeting next February of bishops from around the world to come up with a church-wide response to the abuse crisis. Jack Jenkins has been following this story for Religion News Service. At least seven states, New York, New Jersey, Nebraska, New Mexico, Florida, Missouri, and Illinois, have all launched some form of an investigation into diocese and their state, specifically seeking the documents often that diocese hold on to.

When the Pennsylvania report came out, a lot of the report was based upon internal documents that the diocese kept about allegations of abuse against children by priests. And it appears that most, if not all, diocese keep those kinds of records. So these attorneys general in these various states are kind of seeking those out. Or in some instances, the diocese or the archdiocese are offering them up willingly for the attorneys general to review. So you are definitely seeing these kinds of reactions. And you see a little bit of varying intensity. In Illinois, the attorney general is offering up this sort of conversation with the potential for legal action. In Missouri, you have, again, archdiocese and diocese offering up their files for review. And then you have places like New Mexico, where the attorney general is sending a very sternly worded letter

with 11 pages of legal demands saying that they're going to want to see some action out of those dioceses. And then, of course, New York made a lot of news this past week because they are subpoenaing every Catholic diocese in the state. The subpoenas handed to the state's eight Catholic diocese request all documents relating to sex abuse allegations, including victim payoffs and findings from internal church investigations. I actually reached out to every diocese in America in the last week and a half. Humble brag.

It was not easy. And some of them you could only reach via fax. And they sent me a message back, which I'm still surprised by. A colleague and I reached out to all of them, asking them about these files and whether they would want to share them with law enforcement. And the responses are fascinating because some of them didn't respond. Some of them gave a non-answer, and some of them are very eager to let law enforcement completely review their files because they've already been investigated. Interesting.

Today, a spokesperson for the New York Archdiocese says it's eager to work with the AG's office, adding that since 2002, it's shared with its 10 district attorneys all information they have sought concerning allegations of sexual abuse of minors. Because a lot of dioceses in the immediate aftermath of the Spotlight Report actually already have had investigations. Others have had bankruptcy proceedings where they had to give the files over to law enforcement already. Now, it's unclear what percentage of dioceses have had this, but there has already been, at some level, an audit of some of these dioceses in America. The question is what will come out of these new investigations moving forward. Cardinal Timothy Dolan encouraged transparency. There's no use denying it. We can't sugarcoat this. This is disastrous.

A narrative you've seen emerge out of this grand jury report in Pennsylvania is that most of this abuse took place before the Catholic Church instituted these reforms. Pope Francis himself released a statement saying, thankfully, most of these allegations are from before we can see that some of our reforms have been effective and there is less abuse. You know, there have been since 2002, you know, in the aftermath of the Spotlight report, reforms instituted within the church. U.S. Catholic bishops gathered in Dallas and approved a package of reforms that called for punishing priests. and pushing for immediate reporting when these sorts of allegations come to Catholic officials. Those were things that followed the spotlight report. And it is also true that abuse still happens. And while the reforms in the Catholic Church have been sweeping since 2002, most victims say they're nowhere near enough,

and that some of the folks who participated in this, whether they were the abusers themselves or those who are alleged to have covered up the abuse, are still alive or sometimes even still in positions of authority. And so there might be quite a few who will continue to answer for that sort of thing. And I wouldn't be surprised at all if we start seeing other parts of the globe launch their own sorts of investigations within the coming months. Pope Francis met today with some American bishops. He's calling for another bigger meeting early next year. Is he taking this seriously?

Pope Francis did respond to the Pennsylvania report, saying we failed children, we failed to protect the little ones. The Holy See is taking very seriously the grand jury report from Pennsylvania. Clearly, the Holy See condemns sexual abuse of minors. We can express our feelings about these horrible crimes in two words. Those are shame and sorrow. And Pope Francis has had to deal with sort of discord within the church, right? There was this letter. What happened there? So that's the other part of all of church, right? There was this letter. What happened there?

So that's the other part of all of this, right? Because there's this state-level United States Attorney's General investigations. And then there's papal intrigue. After his visit to Ireland, Pope Francis is embroiled in scandal following the publication in conservative Catholic media of accusations made by the former Vatican ambassador to the United States, Carlo Maria Vigano. The key points is that he alleges that a formal D.C. cardinal, Theodore McCarrick, you know, there were allegations that this cardinal had abused or harassed seminarians, right?

So priests in training. And those allegations had come to light in the late 90s, early 2000s, that era. And that Pope Benedict was made aware of these. And that Vigano alleges that Pope Benedict put sanctions on Cardinal McCarrick saying, you know, you have to live in prayer and penitence, you know, this secluded life. And then when Pope Francis became Pope, he removed those sanctions. That's what this letter alleges. And this became particularly pertinent given that McCarrick, in July, allegations arose that he not just had harassed or abused seminarians, but that he had abused a child 50 years ago. Theodore McCarrick is no longer a cardinal.

Pope Francis stripped him of his title over allegations of sexual abuse. And he retired from the College of Cardinals. Now, there's a lot of holes in this story. And Vigano is not necessarily an impartial figure when it comes to Pope Francis. The two have very publicly sparred and fought in the past. The most famous example is that when Pope Francis came to the United States in 2015, there was a lot of news coverage right after he left because he met with Kim Davis, who, if you recall, was the clerk from Kentucky who was denying same-sex marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

Kim Davis says she and her husband Joe spent time alone with the Pope in Washington, D.C. I put my hand out, and he rushed and he grabbed it, and I hugged him, and he hugged me, and he said, thank you for your courage. After Pope Francis met with Kim Davis, it was on Earth that Vigano helped arrange that meeting. And Pope Francis said, I didn't know who this person was, and Vigano very publicly said, oh, he definitely did. And so what has become this, you know, these very serious allegations against Pope Francis and arguably Pope Benedict as well, it has been also overlaid with what many are calling the Catholic culture wars, which is that there are these different factions of conservative and liberal Catholics within the church that have leapt on to this story, both in defense of Pope Francis and to decry Pope Francis as like the story. It's become this sort of internal battle.

It sounds as if this is sort of a distraction from the real issue here, which is abuse in the church. It's now becoming about choose your own Catholic arch figure. I think many people have said as this papal intrigue story gets deeper and deeper, that, you know, where are the victims in all of this? We should be concentrating on those who've been abused and listen to their stories, not the ones of papal intrigue. The Vatican will be reckoning with all of this for a while, but we wanted to know how it's been affecting regular church-going people and priests. That's coming up next.

I'm Sean Ramos from This Is Today Explained. All right, real talk. I haven't used TransferWise yet, but last night I was at this guy's house and the ads came up and TransferWise came up and he was like, oh my God, I love TransferWise. He was over the moon. He was ecstatic. He said that TransferWise has revolutionized how he sends money back and forth internationally,

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And I know you now want to know the answer to that question. But if I told you it would defeat the purpose. So check out the goods by going to vox.com slash the goods. Father Patrick Gilger is a Jesuit priest who lives in New York. I asked him what his reaction was when that Pennsylvania grand jury report came out last month. I felt overwhelmed. It took me some time to even get up the courage to read the report. I felt angry that this had gone on for so long. Because look, so often the way we talk about this stuff in public is that the hierarchy chose the institution over people. And that's not true. And

the reason it's not true is because the people of God are also part of this institution. And for us to use that rhetoric, it's unfair and unjust to the laity who are as much a part of this church as anybody in the hierarchy. I mean, I felt confused. I felt frustrated. I felt angry that this was even less an isolated incident than I knew it was. in fact seems to have happened much too often over many years. And there's been these cover-ups for years and years and years and there's still cover-ups. How much worse does that make it for you? It makes it a lot worse although I would say this so to the extent that there are still cover-ups, it makes it even worse. And for me, that was the most dissatisfying part of this

because I felt ready to hear that this stuff had happened elsewhere than Boston in the past. But I also want to say that the church has made really significant changes and they seem to be working. And the Pennsylvania report actually shows that. That was the only point of light that I could see in the entire document. Hearing some of the details in this document, some of these things are just so difficult to imagine. The chasm between what you expect from a priest and what these priests were doing, and so many of them.

How do you even try to comprehend how someone like a priest might abuse the most vulnerable people in our society this way? Well, Sean, look, I think your reaction there is actually a perfect one. Like, look, speaking as a priest myself, you saying that is a sign to me that you have a good conscience, that you have been well able to tell where evil is present in the world and you react to evil appropriately, which is shock, confusion, incomprehension. That's what evil should always provoke within us.

Now, to even deepen your point, some bishops who were in charge of these priests, which is a minority, in fact, a vast minority of the priests who were functioning in the church over those 70 years, even in those diocese, that the leaders there were unable to see the kind of evil that you're seeing. And for me, it feels incomprehensible. I wonder, does it make you fearful to put on a collar in the morning and go out in New York City and, I don't know, confront people who might think, hey, are you one of those priests? A hundred percent. Yes. I am willing to do it anyway. But yes, that's exactly what my reaction is these days, is to get up and to know that, look, I personally, myself, I have not done any of these things. I find these things abhorrent the same way that you just described. Nevertheless, when I wear this Roman collar and I go out in the city,

it doesn't matter that I haven't done any of these things. I bear the burden, the responsibility of that. And it happened in the early 2000s after the Boston crisis. And it has happened again in those moments when I'm not in the city that people will definitely look askance at me. And that's painful.

But look, it is nothing compared to the pain that these people who've been abused have felt. And that's where my focus as a priest needs to be on caring for them and how we can prevent this kind of stuff from ever happening again. Has this Pennsylvania grand jury report or, you know, the fallout in the weeks that followed, has any of it changed your relationship with the Catholic Church? Being a priest has been the greatest gift of my life. The kinds of encounters with people in their deepest holiness and deepest brokenness that I'm able to have because I'm a priest, I would not trade for anything to be able to be deeply involved in people's lives through their generosity and vulnerability in allowing me to be so deeply involved.

And when that works well, I just can't tell you how good it is. So does it change my relationship as a priest of the church? Absolutely not. I will continue to serve the people of God in the best way that I am able within this broken institution.

Does it change the way I affectively feel or the way that I think we need to live culturally as a church in the United States of America after having these things been revealed to us? I think in some ways, yes, because if we're honest, this is an issue everywhere. This issue of abuse of power and sexual abuse is an issue everywhere within our culture. That's not to excuse the Catholic church. Our betrayal is at the height of betrayals. At the same time, if we can be some kind of role model for how other institutions and cultures

can come to some kind of honest confrontation of what's really happening within them, we ought to do that. Have you talked to God about this? All the time. Of course I have. Yeah, this is a deep part of my prayer. Anger, confusion,

conversation with the Lord about that. What's that discussion like, if you don't mind sharing? No, I would love to. And Sean, thank you for asking. Like, that's a great question and I'm grateful for it. Often what happens is I'll sit down to pray. I'll try to quiet myself. And the first thing that I feel inside my heart, inside my mind, is pain and anxiety. And I try to share that with the Lord and say, how could this have happened? How could you have allowed this to happen? Those kinds of different things. I know from my theological training that

blaming God for this stuff is the wrong intellectual response, but it's still my heart's response. And so I just say that to him. I say, Lord, how could this have happened? And my constant reaction is, Jesus does not give me many words, but what he does do is constantly go to people in my life who I know are hurt, some of whom have been hurt by issues of abuse in their own lives, and embrace them without fail and without reserve. Hi, my name is Maria and I'm from Houston.

I was raised Catholic, but recently I've been feeling more and more distant from the church. The level of corruption and hypocrisy is just unacceptable to me. And, I mean, I still believe in God and some Catholic values, but the church is just not really where I want to be anymore. This is Mike from Chicago, and I don't want to hear from a possible pedophile how I should live my life. Whatever peace I need to make with my maker, I'll make on my own, and I don't ever see myself going to church again.

That's it for me. My name is Sabrina. I am in Hartford, Connecticut. I grew up Catholic. I went to a Catholic school for about 10 years of my life, preschool through eighth grade. I've also been struggling with my faith for some time now. Thinking about these abuses have made me feel more removed from my religion and Catholicism, but not from spirituality or belief. For me, it's a sense of hope. It's a sense of self, the sense of a greater purpose. This is how I've learned about life and death and all of those elements that make us human. And that's what those priests are. They're disgusting and wrong and flawed, but they're just human. They're not my God.

My name is Joe Gaylord. I'm a practicing Roman Catholic. This summer, I got married, and many people I knew to be practicing devout Catholics didn't want to come up and receive communion, and I couldn't help but feel that part of that was the fact that the institutional church had betrayed its mission and had actually broken their faith in the religious church or damaged their faith in the religious church. And that's an additional crime in all of this that's terrible, to take away that faith, that gift that Catholics have. My name is Patrick Humple. I'm a lifelong Catholic currently living in Santiago, Chile, and we've had our own fair share of scandals break down here. And I think while I am disgusted, I think I still, you know, go to mass. I still consider myself a Catholic. I still believe in

God because ultimately I know that this is not God. And I also believe, you know, in order for any real reform or real change to happen within the church that we need the laity, the people within the church to kind of push for that. And so I think that, you know, if everyone just leaves, nothing's really going to change. And I, while I understand why people are leaving, I personally, you know, want to stay and push for reform in my own little pocket of the church because I see so much good being done in my little pockets. Thank you. Transcription by CastingWords you can convert between them whenever you like, which sounds pretty convenient. You can try TransferWise out for free at transferwise.com slash today, or you can download their app.