Scandal revisited: from appearance to substance

2003 words, 10 minute read.

[WARNING: This post deals with topics that are unsuitable for minors and may be traumatizing for others. Please, approach it with caution.]

I have written about the topic of scandal three years ago here, focusing on its meaning and origin and reflecting on the asymmetry it has when applied to others versus oneself, when read in function of Jesus’ new commandment of mutual love.

Today I would like to look at another feature of scandal, which stood out to me when reading the McCarrick report that chronicles the institutional knowledge and decision-making that allowed for Mr. McCarrick, formerly Cardinal and Archbishop of Washington, to rise to the highest levels of the Catholic Church while being a serial perpetrator of sexual abuse as well as abuse of power and authority. There would be a lot to say about this report and about the events, (in)actions and attitudes it describes, but I would here like to focus on only one – namely the distorted concept of scandal underpinning many of the decisions detailed in its 449 pages.

The following will not be a summary of the McCarrick case and will necessarily be incomplete by virtue of being mono–thematically about scandal, and I would therefore like to make it clear at this point that focusing on scandal is in no way meant to imply a lesser importance of other features, paramount among which is the sexual and psychological abuse itself that McCarrick perpetrated on priests, seminarians, young men and children that lead to Mr. McCarrick’s laicization. I would therefore encourage you to read some summaries of the case (e.g., this high-level one, or this more in-depth one) and ideally the entire report (which I recommend wholeheartedly) before proceeding.

Among the prolegomena it is also worth mentioning why I read the report at all and why I have just recommended its reading to you. The reason for this is simple: the suffering, anguish and damage caused by sexual abuse, and in a particularly grave way by sexual abuse perpetrated by those in positions of religious power and authority, are woulds borne by humanity that cry out for closeness, care and healing. Not turning away from them or pretending that they don’t exist or matter is precisely what Jesus would do today and what he did when presented with suffering, marginalisation and oppression when he walked the Earth 2000 years ago.

Let’s now turn to what references the McCarrick report makes to scandal and look at the role it played in the disastrous decisions that have allowed McCarrick to go uninhibited for four decades. I will first set out that thread {where my in-line additions will be in {} and where emphasis in bold is mine} and then reflect on the distortion of scandal that it represents.

The first mention comes in a 28th October 1999 letter from Cardinal O’Connor to Nuncio Montalvo:

“What, then, would be my overall assessment at this moment? With deep regret, I would have to express my own grave fears and those of authoritative witnesses cited above, that should Archbishop McCarrick be given higher responsibility in the United States, particularly if elevated to a Cardinatial See, seem[] sound reasons for believing that rumors and allegations about the past might surface with such an appointment, with the possibility of accompanying grave scandal and widespread adverse publicity. It has been my personal experience over many years that the truth is very difficult to determine in such complex cases. Obviously, however, while charity must prevail and the benefit of the doubt always given to the “accused”, the good of souls and the reputation of the Church must be seriously considered and the potential for scandal given equally serious consideration. I can not, therefore, in conscience, recommend His Excellency, Archbishop McCarrick for promotion to higher office, should this be the reason for your inquiry concerning him at this time. On the contrary, I regret that I would have to recommend very strongly against such promotion, particularly if to a Cardinatial See, including New York.”

Montalvo then writes in a subsequent report:

“The charges leveled against His Excellency McCarrick appear to be known to some priests among the Metuchen clergy and probably to some of the country’s Bishops. In this hypothesis, which appears true, and to avoid the possibility of causing a scandal of great proportions, it would seem that not only would it be more prudent to not consider S.E. McCarrick for transfer, but that it would be necessary either to leave him in his present office [i.e., Newark] or to think of entrusting him with some other duty outside the United States. It is in fact to be feared that a possible resignation by the Prelate of his pastoral governance of Newark could not occur without causing a serious scandal. All carefully considered, I would be of the humble opinion that it is better, as things stand today, “quieta non movere.” {i.e., “do not move settled things”}”

After receiving Nuncio Montalvo’s report, Substitute Re asks former Nuncio Cacciavillan to review the case, whose 3 July 2000 response to Re then acknowledges the possibility that allegations against McCarrick might resurface and writes:

“a promotion (cardinalate) could be just the moment for somebody and for certain media [outlets] to cause such more or less scandalous news to resurface, whether or not well-founded.”

On 16 September 2005, a canonist collaborator at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith then writes an internal memorandum about one of McCarrick’s victims (referred to as “Priest 1” in the report) in which he states:

“that the priest never intended this information about the Archbishop to be communicated beyond the confidentiality of his Bishop and his counsellor nor did he wish it used to create scandal for the Church. The counsellor makes a strong argument, however, for the credibility of the priest’s statements, even though Bishop Hughes did not feel there was a factual basis for determining their credibility.”

Some months later, on 16 January 2006, scandal is mentioned directly by McCarrick in a letter to Cardinal Re:

“I would never have accepted promotion to Newark or Washington if I thought I would ever be a scandal to the Church. I hope I love the Lord and the Church more than that. My life has always been open. I have always lived with priests or bishops, holy men and wise. For the last twenty-five years as an Ordinary, everyone has always known where I am and with whom I am at all times. This is true today and always has been.”

Re then writes to Secretary of State Cardinal Bertone on 27 November 2006, stating that:

“While everyone recognizes Cardinal McCarrick’s warmth, skill, and political flair, he nevertheless keeps us all on edge for the possibility that he may be involved in sex scandals at any moment. Writings and talk in this regard circulated in the past. […] I know that the Cardinal chose an attorney for his own defense; it is to be hoped that this time as well, whether with a lot of money or a little, he succeeds in obtaining silence.”

A few days later, on 6 December 2006, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò (at that time Delegate for Pontifical Representations within the Secretariat of State) wrote a memorandum related to Nuncio Sambi’s letter, including:

“Si vera et probata sunt exposita [if what is asserted be true and proven], it would require an exemplary measure that might have a medicinal function that would soothe the serious scandal for the faithful, who nevertheless continue to love and believe in the Church.

For once, it might be healthy if the ecclesiastical authorities were to intervene before the civil authorities and if possible before the scandal erupts in the press. This would restore a little dignity to a Church so tried and humiliated for so many abominable behaviors on the part of some pastors. In this case, the civil authority would no longer be required to judge an Eminent Cardinal, but a pastor in whose regard the Church had already taken the measures it deemed most opportune. S.m.i. [Salvo meliore iudicio]. {“I defer to wiser judgment”}”

In a letter Nuncio Sambi then recorded having said the following to McCarrick during a meeting at the Nunciature on 15 December 2006:

“no one believes in the truth of the accusations, but in the USA today to create a scandal involving a cardinal and one that damages the Church, the truthfulness of the facts is not indispensable.‘”

On 27 December 2008, Nuncio Sambi then sends a report to Cardinal Re including the following observation:

“Mindful of the instructions given by your Dicastery to Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, Archbishop Emeritus of Washington, following the recurrent accusations against him (most recently last April, during the visit of the Holy Father to the USA) of unacceptable moral conduct: accusations that in all likelihood are unfounded, but that can become the explosive material of a grave scandal in the hands of the mass media.”

The above is essentially a complete set of references made to scandal in the McCarrick report (only omitting a small number of repetitions of the above points made in other places). Reading them closely allows for a reconstruction of what is meant by scandal by the various parties involved in these exchanges. First, and most seriously, all of the references to scandal here consider it as not having happened yet – as a potential threat that is to be avoided and where silence is the desired outcome. Second, the locus, the place where a potential scandal could come about are the media, the press. It is the news that has the potential to be scandalous, to cause scandal, and the mass media who are the subjects capable of bringing about scandal. Third, even measures that would respond to the abuses perpetrated by McCarrick, such as his resignation, could be causes of scandal. In summary, no scandal has taken place and the potential for the media to be the authors of scandal is to be avoided, for the good of the Church.

This is a deeply flawed and perverse mutation of what scandal means in the Hebrew Bible, in Jesus’ words in the New Testament and in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. In McCarrick’s case the scandal – the “leading another to do evil” (Catechism of the Catholic Church §2284-2286), the “caus[ing] one of these little ones who believe [in me] to sin” (Mark 9:42), the “put a stumbling block in front of the blind” (Leviticus 19:14) – happened when he sexually abused children, young men, seminarians and priests. That is the scandal by which he drew and coerced others into evil and by which he visited suffering and torment upon their heads. That is what his superiors and his superiors’ superiors should have fretted and agonised about. Not whether it will get discovered and publicised! By the time they worried about a potential future scandal, the horse has long bolted …

I would like to finish on a quote from St. John Paul II’s address to the Cardinals of the United States on 23 April 2002, which to my mind perfectly expresses the nature of the scandal that McCarrick perpetrated (and which is quoted in the McCarrick report itself). If only the Cardinals and Bishops had listened more carefully to his words and if only he had not been taken in by McCarrick’s web of lies:

“Like you, I too have been deeply grieved by the fact that priests and religious, whose vocation it is to help people live holy lives in the sight of God, have themselves caused such suffering and scandal to the young. Because of the great harm done by some priests and religious, the Church herself is viewed with distrust, and many are offended at the way in which the Church’s leaders are perceived to have acted in this matter. The abuse which has caused this crisis is by every standard wrong and rightly considered a crime by society; it is also an appalling sin in the eyes of God. To the victims and their families, wherever they may be, I express my profound sense of solidarity and concern.”