“Thou Shall Not Bear False Witness”
I dedicate this section to the tzadikim, I know
you are out there. I pray for you. You are not forgotten in this mess.
There is a Hebrew story told by a holy rabbi that at any
given point in the world there exists 36 Tzadikim, or righteous ones, and if
even one of them were missing, the world would come to an end. Amen.
Amen.
It was a face I never expected to see on the front cover of
the newspaper. A face of a man who had
been dragged out of his rectory-home in the middle of the night by the police
and hauled down to the station for “processing.” His picture looks like they
roughed-him-up. He appeared quite
distressed. I read the article and shook
my head sideways – this cannot be. And
so I wrote to the journalist, “You are guilty of Trial-by-Media. Every man is due his day in court. In THIS COUNTRY people are ‘innocent until
proven guilty.’” She wrote back to me, “Is
there something I should know?” At that
point, my beloved little Catholic mother would not have approved of what I
muttered underneath my breath.
Be clear about this: Media
exists to Sell media. Good news isn’t particularly
interesting. Something very base in the
human person feeds on the details of the grime of life. It is that grist that sells newspapers,
magazines, movies, etc. If this were not
so, how does the National Enquirer still exist?
We all know it’s a load of hooey.
And yet people pay good money to read it. Baffling. Look at what people are watching on tv: very little graphic injury, violent murder,
appalling crime scene is left to the imagination. People pay for cable TV and streaming all of
this junk often over a hundred dollars a month per household. So, in all points, we have to keep foremost
in our minds: Follow the Money. Where the money is, the story will be. Even if the story is just an allegation. Even if it is not true.
And perhaps you are wondering how I responded to her… what I
said was along these lines: “The man that has been accused is a man I have
spoken to personally in the privacy of my own confession. He is good.
He is virtuous. He is also admittedly
handsome, and with little imagination I could see where a single mother with
kids would be attracted to his grounded-ness and make a pass at him. (I was hypothesizing, I had no information. Genesis 39:7-20 tells a similar story). If he refused, she could destroy him with an
allegation because the reality is, a real predator would be less likely to
abuse children in the same family because one weak link could spill the
beans. The story doesn’t make sense. It is not in keeping with the person I have
always seen him to be.”
Weeks later on the inside of the newspaper in a tiny corner
was a very short statement saying he had been acquitted. Unfortunately, the damage had been done. His reputation was destroyed and he
disappeared. To this day, his name
remains on the 2018 List of Those Credibly Accused. It should not be. The people who wrote in to the letters to the
editor had shredded him up in a million pieces how could he stay in the local
community and re-integrate in any way when his name had been utterly
demolished?
So, here we are in 2023, a couple of weeks after the big
announcement about Justice Payments to Victims and yet another allegation comes
out. My, what impeccable timing. Get it in quickly, just to be sure you get
your million.
A local godly pastor said words to this effect about this recent
allegation: “The Father XYZ that worked
with us has not shown himself to be inappropriate in any way. That is not the Father XYZ that I have known.” I am grateful the pastor said that much. Many would have left those words UNSAID,
which would only build the suspicions in the minds of the people. Also, I imagine that the Good Priests walk a
very careful path to avoid saying anything that may support someone who is
justifiably accused.
But the Bad News didn’t stop there. The mother and young woman have offered
details of the incidents to the newspaper … which were printed. “Nice job.”
It really is the only way you can nail a lid into a proverbial coffin with
no real concrete evidence: build an
image in the public’s mind that paints a person guilty by way of the appallingly
graphic details that would outrage anyone.
Now I ask you, gentle reader, do you, like me, find it
difficult to un-read graphic allegations in the light of proven innocence later
on?
And where was this girl’s father when this was going
on? Why is he silent? Why did it take so many years for this girl
to come forth and, “oh, by the way Mom …”
How old was she when she was texting with him? Is there a record of those texts as
proof?
I ask these questions to enlarge the scope of what we are
looking at. Frankly, in this case as
well, I find it all unbelievable. If for
some reason this is a valid accusation of yet another Bad Actor, I think we are
so far away from stopping this mess we need another alternative. Putting the entire laity through the “Safe
Environment” courses is not working.
Offering Justice Payments and bankrupting every single church in the
diocese is not the answer. Why the
employer of clergy has to take on the lawsuits at all is kind of confusing to
me. But maybe I’m just not that
smart. If I worked for a regular company
and made inappropriate and unwelcome advances, I would be summarily fired. That would be that. Any lawsuits would be aimed at the offender,
not the employer.
By the way, Safe Environment training does not work. Oh, oops, did I say that out loud? Yikes.
A story … from a land far away … quite a long time ago …
I popped in to the parish dance to see how things were
going. There was a handwritten sign on
the entrance door stating, “Authorized Personnel Only beyond this point” or
some such thing. It was put in place by
the lay volunteer who was running the dance.
I walked in the door and was questioned – and had to pull rank and say, “I
am on Parish STAFF, I am definitely Authorized.” Good heavens, save us. But apparently the person running the show
didn’t look too carefully at the parent chaperone sitting at the door, or smell
what was actually in his coffee cup.
Meanwhile inside the dance, the caterer who was an elderly woman was out
on the dance floor with the junior high kids, particularly, the boys. I walked up to another staff member and stood
shoulder to shoulder. I tilted my head
to the side and commented, “Um, yeah, I would keep an eye on THAT situation…”
and I walked out the door. She verbally dismissed
my concerns. My post-event chat with the
pastor the next morning confirmed my suspicions that things were managed poorly
and there had been some fallout. In
Polish we have a saying, “Nie moj cyrk; nie moje malpy.” I think that people, to some degree, only see
what they want to see. I have said since
then to other youth ministers and catechists, “If something feels weird to you,
it probably is. Take the second
glance. Trust your gut.”
I need to wrap this up.
Enough has been said at this point.
Except for this. This morning my
mind stirred up thoughts of the writings of the early American pastor Jonathan
Edwards. He was famous for writing a
piece called “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” He paints a portrait of the sinner, like a
spider, hanging on a thread over the mouth of a cavernous hell. (Much like I picture the predators to be.)
While on the one hand he implores, “And now you have an
extraordinary opportunity, a day wherein Christ has thrown the door of mercy
wide open, and stands in calling and crying with a loud voice to poor sinners…”
he wraps his sermon up with, “Therefore, let everyone that is out of Christ,
now awake and fly from the wrath to come.
The wrath of Almighty God is now undoubtedly hanging over a great part
of this congregation: let everyone fly
out of Sodom.”
Pray for your pastors.
Pray for the leadership. Pray for
our children. And pray for those who
bear false witness, their judgment, I imagine, shall be harsh for they destroy
the name of a good man and the peace of the community.
“For we must all appear before the judgment seat of
Christ so that each may receive his due for what he has done … the good and the
bad.” (2 Corinthians 5:10).
The ridiculousness of this entire situation cannot continue. It must not.
So help us, God.
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