Root Causes of the Crisis in the Catholic Church--A Personal Reflection Originally Published (Version 1.0) on the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi, October 4, 2003 Revised (Version 1.1) on December 4, 2003 By Frank J. Douglas fjd@lostdogtallweeds.com
			When you see a cloud coming up in the west, at once you say that it is going to rain—and it does. And when you feel the south wind blowing, you say that it is going to get hot—and it does. Hypocrites!  You can look at the earth and the sky and predict the weather; why then don’t you know the meaning of this present time? (Luke12.54-56) (Note I.1)    Be on your guard against false prophets; they come to you looking like sheep on the outside, but on the inside they are really like wild wolves. You will know them by what they do. Thorn bushes do not bear grapes, and briers do not bear figs. A healthy tree bears good fruit, but a poor tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a poor tree cannot bear good fruit. And any tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So then, you will know the false prophets by what they do (Matthew 7.15-20)
	In August 2003, I set a 6-week goal to identify, by the feast of St. Francis of Assisi on October 4th, the root causes—the systemic organizational and cultural attributes, attitudes, and practices—at the heart of the current crisis in the Catholic Church. The crisis is more than the sickening scandal of clergy sex abuse of minors and its coverup by many bishops. It includes the shortage of priests, declining Mass attendance, and loss of trust by many in the institution. I met my 6-week goal and distributed the reflection in hard copy form to some friends and relatives. I then decided to share my reflection through this Website, and am in the process of expanding the reflection into a book. The book will discuss church problems in more detail; identify and analyze root causes; "connect the dots" of the root causes to provide a template and baseline for major church reform; and present, for the reader's consideration, a new church order based on an inclusive church that integrates God's revealation in the gospel of Jesus with the principles of the Declaration of Independence and with the knowledge of the world provided by the physical and social sciences. I bring to these tasks my cradle Catholicism, my Catholic education, for which I'm truly grateful, and almost 40 years of work experience. I’ve been a teacher, computer programmer, consultant, project manager, independent businessman, and a specialist in software quality assurance. Part of my quality assurance work involved participating in audits of complex software-development projects gone awry. Auditors work in teams and use a methodology of reviewing documents, interviewing principals, caucusing with audit teammates, comparing notes, discussing and resolving conflicts, driving to consensus, writing the final audit report, and briefing the manager or managers who commissioned the audit. I’ve used audit methodology in this reflection. I worked alone, but consulted many helpful friends. I reviewed numerous books, articles, and Websites. I didn’t interview perpetrator priests or their supervisor bishops, but I've read a lot of what they've had to say. I did listen to seven survivors of clergy sexual abuse. Believe me, the survivors, like Jesus, speak with authority. To get a real understanding of the effect on the lives of survivors of clergy sex abuse, I highly recommend that every Catholic listen to at least one story of abuse firsthand from a survivor (Note I.2). The experience will move you and change you. More than my experience in management and quality assurance, I wanted to bring to this work the common sense captured by the two scriptural quotes above. Understanding the sex scandal isn’t like understanding rocket science or process theology. It’s about things we all know from personal experience: sin, betrayal, abuse of power, denial, lying, and coverup. Use your nose and your own personal smell test. If it stinks like a skunk, it’ s a skunk.       This reflection recaps the current problems that precipitated the crisis; identifies and discusses the root causes of the problems; summarizes the principal ideas and conclusions of the discussions; and concludes with hope in the form of dreams for the future.  The notes at the end are currently incomplete.  As the reflection evolves into a book, I will update them.  I conclude with acknowledgements for many helping hands.   Some will see anger and disloyalty here. Yes, I am angry. Very angry about the rapes and molestations of minors by priests, about a significant number of bishops covering up and enabling these crimes and thus becoming accessories to these to crimes. I must examine my loyalty to a church that covers up crimes and lets those who cover up go scott free. To be 100% loyal to such a church makes me disloyal to the Jesus of the gospels, the Jesus who preached justice for the least of our brothers and sisters and who continually excoriated the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. Yes, I am a critic; I hope and pray that I am or can become a loving critic. At least I’m trying to follow in the footsteps of that good critic from Nazareth. I acknowledge that I too am a sinner, that hindsight is indeed 20/20, and that not all the facts are available, not even now. But each of us has a God-given, unalienable right to freedom and free speech, and a duty to speak out and confront injustice and folly. The thoughts and opinions expressed here are mine alone. With God's help, here I stand, like many before me, unafraid. If you have any comments or suggestions, please e-mail them to the above address.
	PROBLEMS
	The church problems reached crisis if not epic proportions in 2002 with the Firestorm in Boston. As the Boston Globe (Note P.1) pointed out:
		For decades church leaders kept horrific tales of abuse out of the public eye through an elaborate culture of secrecy, deception, and intimidation. Victims who came forward with abuse claims were ignored or paid off, while accused priests were quietly transferred from parish to parish or sent for brief periods of psychological counseling.
	Many bishops sinned and continue to sin by re-victimizing those who were raped and abused. The sinful treatments of survivors of sexual abuse are well documented in the Website (Note P.2) of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP). See especially paragraph 3 of Survivors’ Wisdom. The church speaks of the preferential option for the poor. If those abused by priests are not “poor,” who is?      The percentage of priests who abused minors (Note P.3) is unclear.  In June 2003, USA Today quoted the Rev. Robert Silva, president of the National Federation of Priests' Councils, as saying that Church experts estimated that less than 1.5% of all priests abused minors. In August 2003, the Associated Press reported that the Diocese of Covington of Kentucky said it has "reasonable cause to believe" 8 percent (about 1 out of 12) of its priests sexually abused one or more children and youth in the past half-century. Is Father Silva correct? Or is Covington more accurate? Regardless, there is a major problem. The scandal of sex abuse of minors by priests and its cover-up by many bishops, along with other recent events and trends, add up to the biggest crisis in U.S. Catholic Church history. Some say this is biggest crisis since Martin Luther. Other components of the crisis can be summed up as follows: •        There has been extensive abuse of power by the church hierarchy •        There are no structures of accountability of bishops to the people whose money sustains them     •        Deceit, denial, silence, and cover-up permeate church structures, pronouncements, and behavior   •        Many Catholics have lost trust in the church’s hierarchy, many have left the church , and many have stopped going to Mass weekly •        A significant percentage of the church community disregards the church’s teaching on sexual morality •        The number of priests is declining at an alarming rate, the number of new priests in the pipeline is inadequate, and the priesthood is disproportionately homosexual •        The laity, although largely educated and involved in lay ministry in ever-increasing numbers, is, on balance passive, even apathetic, and powerless. Lost Dog, Tall Weeds.  A friend summed it up well: lost dog, tall weeds. The image of a lost dog, the church, in tall weeds, which have sprung up from the seeds of deceit, denial, and silence sowed by church officials, speaks volumes to me. For now, I'll leave the type (breed, temperament, gender, size, color, coat) of the dog, the ownership of the dog, and the meaning of "lost" to the well-known analogical imagination that Father Andrew Greeley says is a Catholic hallmark. Shame and Hope. The history of the church is full of incidents of shame—the Inquisition, the arrest of Galileo, the failure to speak out and to assist Jews, to name some of the most egregious. Big problems require big solutions; big solutions often require big changes. Yet, history tells us change in the church takes centuries, not years. There’s reason to be depressed or even to despair.   Yet, Christians are people of hope. On the positive side of the ledger, the church has a long history of doing great things—preaching the good news of Jesus and His message of love and salvation, caring for the sick and homeless, educating the poor, championing the rights of the worker, speaking out against evil. Like the victims of clergy sex abuse, the institutional church is a survivor. But clearly survival isn't enough. What are required is a thorough housecleaning and a new church order founded on gospel principles, not outdated feudal structures. The church has implemented effective reforms in the past. So there is some reason to hope. But before we begin to speak of solutions, we need to look at the root causes—the attitudes, practices, and processes—at the heart of these problems.
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