Excerpt from
Sacred Silence
Denial and the Crisis in the Church
Donald Cozzens
© The Order of St. Benedict, Inc., Collegeville, Minnesota. All rights reserved. No part of this may be reproduced by any means, without the written permission of The Liturgical Press, Collegeville, Minnesota 56321.

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Part One: Masks of Denial

Chapter One: Sacred Silence

Chapter Two: Forms of Denial

Part Two: Faces of Denial

Chapter Three: Sacred Oaths, Sacred Promises

Chapter Four: Voices of Women

Chapter Five: Religious Life and the Priesthood

Chapter Six: Abuse of Our Children

Chapter Seven: Clerical Culture

Chapter Eight: Gay Men in the Priesthood

Chapter Nine: Ministry and Leadership

Part Three: Beyond Denial

Chapter Ten: Sacred Silence, Sacred Speech

Notes

Index

INTRODUCTION
“What are we afraid of?”

The question was put to me by Roger Mahony, the cardinal archbishop of Los Angeles. It was, of course, rhetorical. He knew we Christians really have nothing to be afraid of if we place our faith and hope in the Gospel, in the promise of Jesus Christ to be with his disciples to the end of time. On anther level, Cardinal Mahony’s question is anything but rhetorical. There appears to be a great deal that many Christians, and especially church leaders, are quite literally afraid of. This book is an attempt to answer the question, “What are we afraid of?” and to address the deeper questions, “Why are we afraid?” “Why is the institutional church so defensive?” “Why is it so controlling?” How is it that a church that is the bearer of the Word and the champion of the oppressed can maintain unholy silences while denying that obvious pastoral and ecclesial problems, indeed crises, even exist?

“We are, in church and in society, in big trouble,” writes the renowned scripture scholar, Walter Brueggemann. Few, if any, would question his judgment. In the pages that follow we will examine some of the issues and concerns that are both symptoms and causes of the present crisis—and especially the denial, itself a symptom and a cause—which exacerbates the church’s “big trouble.” (References that follow to the “church,” unless otherwise noted, will be to the Roman Catholic Church.)

The focus of the church’s troubles in the spring 2002 was first and foremost on the ever-expanding clergy sexual abuse scandal. In a number of ways it is unlike previous sex scandals involving priests, religious, and bishops. For one thing, it is unmasking a systemic or structural crisis that threatens the current lines of power that have gone unchallenged for centuries. This in itself is enough to make some prelates and clergy afraid, very afraid. Another is the Catholic anger rising from conservatives, moderates, and progressives alike against the duplicitous arrogance of some prominent archbishops and other church authorities. While angry with priest pederasts, Catholics are especially angry with bishops who have placed the resources of the church and the reputation of the priesthood ahead of the safety of children and teenagers. Added to the repressed anger large numbers of Catholics have been nursing since the publication of Pope Paul VI’s anti-birth control encyclical in 1968 and the unrealized promise of the Second Vatican Council, the current rage is galvanizing the laity into a force to be reckoned with.

The laity, moreover, sense what many church authorities are reluctant to acknowledge—that the present troubles go well beyond the priest abuse debacle. Underneath the mushrooming scandals and the painful polarization shaking the confidence of the faithful, a church stands at the brink of destabilization. How could it be otherwise? A still feudal church struggles to meet the modern world as the modern world merges with post-modern currents of thought that threaten religious belief as we know it. We may not have reason to be afraid, but we have abundant reason to be anxious. And as history makes clear, where anxiety dwells, imagination shrivels, denial thrives, and control becomes obsessive. An anxious church bureaucracy displays precisely these characteristics—denial, legalism, controlling power, secrecy.

The abuse scandals of the past twenty years or so have served as the “tipping point” for a new era of Catholic life. What that life will look like will be determined in the years ahead. The thesis of Sacred Silence is that our first challenge is to break through the wall of denial and silence guarding the present ecclesial order. I argue in the pages ahead that we are in need of a brave, “redemptive honesty” if we are to move in the direction of a healthier, holier church.

In the meantime, both the church and its priesthood are in virtual exile—displaced in our own homes, rectories, and chanceries. We feel the winds of discontent while we stumble tentatively in one direction and then in another, disoriented and discouraged. We know in our bones the present trouble is like no other. We also believe, like our Jewish ancestors in exile centuries ago, that God is with us and that our exile “in place” is pregnant with insight and deliverance.

In exile, where confusion eclipses clarity and once secure identities are blurred, we are thrown back on our spiritual foundations, on our understanding of what matters most. In this land of dislocation we remember that without faith and hope—and honesty, we are lost. As exiles we come to see that we are in the midst of a profound ecclesial transition which demands struggle against old mental habits and institutional inertia if we are to emerge a renewed and vital church. Walter Brueggemann, captures the hope and potential of the exile experience:

[T]he traditions of exile in the Old Testament—remarkably rich, generative, and imaginative—might be a source and indeed perhaps the only resource of speech and imagination that can move us under denial to reality and beyond despair into possibility (emphasis in the original). Ancient Israel understood that unless the loss is processed in order to penetrate the denial and despair, newness will not come. It is not, I suspect, different among us.

Here in exile, then, in this time of passage, we find a fertile place for reflection, imagination, and speech. We find a place where we might move from denial to reality, from despair to possibility. This implies, however, serious soul-work. Perhaps our first step is to grieve all that was good and holy in the old order now passing away, for there is no spiritual depth where individuals and communities do not grieve their losses. Many of us are not good at grieving; we feel it means dwelling in pain or sorrow. To a certain extent, of course, we do give space to our pain, to our losses, but that is only right and necessary. Only after honest grieving can we see the horizon of promise and deliverance.

If Brueggemann is correct, an awakened imagination emerges from authentic grieving which in turn leads to honest speech. With fresh eyes and liberated hearts, people in exile learn how to speak and to “tell the truth in love.”

Finally, a word about the word sacred. Clearly it denotes a silence emanating from a religious source, in this case, the church. I intend, however, to capture the rich ambiguity of the term. The Latin sacer is sometimes translated “sacred” and sometimes “accursed.” Understood in its broadest sense,

The sacred consists of all those forces whose dominance over man [sic] increases or seems to increase in proportion to man’s effort to master them. Tempests, forest fires, and plagues, among other phenomena, may be classified as sacred.

What we cannot control, therefore, may be understood as sacred—sunrises and sunsets, tidal waves, falling in love, cancer, unearned loyalty. Also, that which is beyond us: the divine, the numinous, the mysterious, are referenced as sacred. On clear summer nights, children and the child-like stand in awe, humility, and gratitude looking up at the distant stars. They gaze in sacred silence.

Historian and philosopher Rene Girard, moreover, insists that violence and the sacred are one and the same thing. The scapegoat as sacrificial victim, for example, is separated from the tribe—placed beyond the tribe—in order to be killed for the “welfare of the group.” Both the victim and the sacrificial act become “sacred.” From this Girardian perspective we may perceive silence and denial in the church as the antithesis of the more common understanding of sacred—as forms of violence perpetrated by religious authorities for “the good of the church.” Or, more honestly, for the preservation of clerical structures which serve their own interests.

For too long now, an unholy silence and an unhealthy denial have held sway. Catholics now see this sad reality and they are convinced it simply cannot continue. They are ready to assume their rightful responsibility, in partnership with their ordained brothers, to serve the church they love. As if in exile, the faithful yearn for words of honesty, hope, and direction. In this time of peril and promise, Sacred Silence extends an invitation: Let the conversation begin.

PART ONE
MASKS OF DENIAL

CHAPTER ONE
SACRED SILENCE

They are afraid of offending and making enemies—and all of this because of self-love. Sometimes it’s just that they would like to keep peace, and this, I tell you, is the worst cruelty one can inflict. If a sore is not cauterized or excised when necessary, but only ointment is applied, not only will it not heal, but it will infect the whole [body], often fatally . . . .
        —Catherine of Siena, Doctor of the Church, from a letter to Pope Gregory XI

There is no spiritual life which does not encounter deception and disillusionment, suffering and confusion.
        —Jean Sulivan, Morning Light

The silence, denial, and minimization discussed in these pages have numerous roots—some conscious, others unconscious, some personal, others more properly associated with the collective mindset that binds a people as believers. Exploring these roots may allow us to see what is it that keeps so many alert and intelligent people of faith from addressing with candor and courage the issues and challenges that weigh heavy on our church at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

The present phenomenon of denial and minimization, which I term for shorthand purposes, silence, can be found in every century of the church’s long history. It clearly is part and parcel of the human condition—a human condition whose myths of origin relate startling examples of denial and rationalization. The pattern of refusing to see, of refusing to acknowledge symptoms and signs that beg for attention, study, and reflection has led to many of history’s great blunders. It also has led us to scratch our heads at the puzzling human behaviors that wound, often tragically, personal, family, and societal relationships.

Each of our own stories, of course, each of our spiritual journeys is shaped and directed by defining moments of deception and rationalization. Often occasions for insight and even wisdom, they nonetheless mark those moments when the light seemed unbearable, when we could do no better than pretend that all was well. No doubt the root cause of our personal and collective denial and minimization, of our less than sacred silence, can be traced to the great and enduring wound we name original sin.

Along the way, we have learned that silence postpones conflict and tension and seems to ease the simmering anxiety that floats just below our conscious comings and goings. In our hearts we believe that truth will set us free, indeed, truth will be our salvation. Yet every age, every culture, every religion, provides a shaded lens that allows us live a lie, to hear without listening, to speak without love.

What we examine here is not new. It echoes the follies of ages past. It is, however, timely. Our present resistance to issues and concerns relating to the church in general and ministry in particular is in need of analysis and study. The immediate vitality of our church is at stake and her mission remains endangered if we choose to maintain this sacred silence.

Three themes appear central to our examination of the roots of our present malaise—loyalty, responsibility, and tranquility. Each in turn will be considered here.

Loyalty
Personal experience as well as our collective memory make it clear that to speak the truth as one sees it, no matter that it is spoken “in love,” runs the risk of being perceived as disloyal.3 Certain practices, structures, customs, and beliefs, even if they are clearly open to historical development, are judged by the controlling polity as too dangerous to address. To nonetheless speak one’s truth, even the simple call for discussion of neuralgic issues invites the charge of disloyalty. And when the verdict of disloyalty is passed, the subject under judgment experiences some degree of psychological and social isolation. The human need for being a part of, for belonging, for the respect of one’s peers is threatened. A certain suffering of soul is inevitable.

Why, we may ask, do faith-based institutions such as the church, which we now understand to be in need of on-going renewal and even reform, respond with inertia and resistance when called upon to examine current structures and practices? Often, as we have seen, this resistance is sustained by a misguided sense of loyalty. Over the years, even centuries, historically conditioned practices, customs, and teachings take on the dignity of divinely revealed dogmas. The mere suggestion that they be reviewed in the light of changing times and pastoral experience is determined by some members of the church, especially some of its leaders, to be dangerous, and those calling for such reviews disloyal.

In the eyes of many leaders and members of the church—and here I speak principally of the Latin rite of the Roman Catholic Church—her enemies are seen as numerous, deceitful, and ready to exploit any real or perceived flaw or weakness. To call attention to areas in need of possible structural reform, therefore, such as mandated celibacy or the ordination of married individuals, is seen by such leaders and members of the church as disloyal. The message is clear. The church, still considered by some to be a “perfect society,” does not welcome calls for discussion or review of customs or practices that have proven useful and even noble in times past.

The message is sometimes made explicit, e.g., “The Holy Father or the diocesan bishop does not want discussion about this or that issue.” More often than not, clergy and laity sense their bishop’s discomfort when certain issues or practices are raised. Where this is the case, I suspect that a bishop’s understanding of loyalty to the church is at the heart of his discomfort. He doesn’t even want to come close to situations that may be interpreted by his priests or people as not in complete harmony with the current discipline or practice of the church. When this is the case, not only are important questions and concerns left un-addressed, the spirit and morale of priests, religious, and laity are undermined. The need for control behind this kind of unspoken message tends to shrink the souls of those who perceive it. As The Dogmatic Constitution on Church affirms, competent adults have an obligation to speak about their concerns to church leaders.4 “By reason of the knowledge, competence or pre-eminence which they have the laity are empowered—indeed sometimes obliged—to manifest their opinion on those things which pertain to the good of the Church” (chapter IV, par. 37, 394). To do anything less is to ignore one’s responsibility as an adult member of the faithful. Silence of this sort is disingenuous. In spite of this clear moral obligation to speak one’s truth in love, to speak from one’s experience and reflection respectfully yet forthrightly, even in closed ecclesial settings such as convocations of priests or meetings of diocesan pastoral councils, requires considerable moral courage.

I argue here that it is a sense of loyalty to the Gospel and to the institutional church that often prompts the breaking of an unholy silence, that brings a man or woman to speak respectfully and directly to church authorities and others about what matters to them most. It is a sense of loyalty that prompts members of the faithful—laity, religious, priests, and bishops—to call for discussion of issues that may indeed be dangerous to face but ultimately will be more dangerous to the church if not faced.

Our history records numerous cases of “disloyal-loyalty,” of men and women of faith raising issues that seemed to be out of bounds. Paul speaks directly to Peter concerning the application of Jewish laws and customs relative to Gentile converts; Bernard of Clairvaux and Catherine of Siena speak their truth boldly “in love” to popes, princes, and bishops; Teresa of Avila and Joan of Arc, from centuries past, Yves Congar, Cardinal Suenens, and John Courtney Murray in more recent times, spoke the truth as they understood it out of loyalty to the Gospel and church.

Copernicus and Galileo trusted their understanding of scientific truth to the peril of their very lives. Their personal conviction to what they held to be scientifically true caused them to be judged not only disloyal to the church, but heretical at the time when heresy often led to torture and death. These great minds would have smiled, I believe, at the observation of Karl Ernst von Baer, the nineteenth-century founder of modern embryology, who remarked that all new and truly important ideas must pass through three stages: first dismissed as nonsense, then rejected as against religion, and finally acknowledged as true, with the proviso from initial opponents that they knew it all along.

The silence of which we speak, however, is not so much directed against new and important ideas, but against the modest call for open and respectful attention to issues profoundly affecting the spiritual lives of today’s Catholics. Church authorities to whom the call is made display authentic loyalty to the gospel and to the spirit of Vatican II when they listen with open minds and hearts to the concerns of believers shaped by their pastoral experience and their love of their Christian faith. Beyond loyalty to the Gospel and the tradition of the church, such non-defensive listening is simply their duty.

Responsibility
Few modern Catholics doubt that bishops bear particularly heavy burdens in today’s post conciliar church. Not the least of these burdens is the responsibility to keep the faithful of their diocese in communion with each other and their diocese in communion with the universal church under the unifying ministry of the bishop of Rome. One can easily imagine the weight of this responsibility in an age marked by declining numbers of candidates for the priesthood, an expanding Catholic population, aging clergy and religious, and well educated laity seeking compelling reasons to support the pronouncements they hear from their bishops and pastoral leaders. These and other realities facing the church at the beginning of the twenty-first century have made episcopal leadership an especially difficult and challenging ministry.

Added to their burden is the perception of some Catholics that bishops who are not open to discussion about controversial and potentially divisive issues are jealously guarding their power. They are accused of being more concerned about their authority and other issues of control than of leading their people to a deeper experience of the freedom and light of the Gospel. Without question, there are bishops who delight in the controlling exercise of episcopal power. For these bishops, the exercise of authority provides an exhilarating sense of vitality and power. If we concede that power, in a certain sense, is intoxicating, dulling the anxieties of our human finitude and isolation, it can easily become the cornerstone of an individual’s identity. In our culture, individuals with power are somebodies. Should this dynamic work its way into the pscyhe of a bishop, it is likely that he will feel no real desire to listen to either his priests or the people of his local church. He is the teacher, after all, let others listen.

I believe this is the case with a relatively small number of bishops. Most bishops, I am convinced, are not at all covetous of more and more power, of greater and greater control. And I think they are genuinely perplexed when they hear of conversations suggesting that their main concern is the maintenance or expansion of their authority and power. As the writer Raymond Hedin has observed, “[M]ost men inside a hierarchical system feel much more powerless than those who are even more powerless realize—than women, that is, in the case of the church and many other systems.”8 Still, sometimes just below the level of conscious reflection, positions of power and social status with their accompanying titles shore up one’s sense of being. The sense of limitation and inherent anxiety that are part and parcel of the human condition are numbed—as with a shot of novocaine—and the concomitant feelings of preferment, of being chosen, of being special all contribute to a habit of mind that makes honest communication difficult. Here the unconscious dynamics of power are often at play prompting, on a conscious level, patterns of perception that others easily see as forms of denial and minimization.

Not only has the system worked for these individuals in terms of prestige and status, it has worked to assuage the anxiety so inseparably linked to human finitude. Of course, the soothing effect of power and status on existential anxiety needs constant reinforcement. Like the numbing effect of novocaine, it wears off unless one’s sense of power and status remains clear and unchallenged. For Christians, and especially for Christian leaders, i.e., bishops and priests, the courage to face existential anxiety and to transcend it is found precisely in the self-gift modeled in the self-surrender of Jesus Christ. Authentic discipleship, which is always grounded in the power of the Spirit, subverts the power dynamics manifested in fearful and controlling leaders. And it breaks the grip of denial, minimization, and secrecy.

When such habits of mind and psyche are joined in church leaders who cling to non-historical understandings of theology and church teaching, the result is a tenacious defense of the way things are. Examples of such habits of mind and psyche abound. Church authorities, to name but one, felt the very authority of the Bible was at stake when Galileo announced his revolutionary discovery. Convinced that it was their responsibility to defend the authority of the Scriptures, they denied the scientific evidence before them. With this mentality, the way things are, is the way things must be. Open discussion of issues and patterns that bear directly on the faith life of believers, that might lead to structural or systemic change, threaten the very spiritual and psychic world that gives meaning and purpose to their lives. Denial and silence inevitably follow.

But like the misguided sense of loyalty discussed above, there is a misguided sense of responsibility. It can be observed in the bishop who believes it is his responsibility to listen defensively to every proposal for dialogue or change in church discipline that comes to him. It can be seen in the bishop who welcomes dialogue, but listens only to answer questions or to point out the difficulties of a given proposal. Bishops, like the rest of us, need to be shaped and formed by their sisters and brothers in Christ—by the laity, by their brother bishops, and by the religious, deacons, and priests with whom they live and work. This requires of them a fundamental trust in the men and women who make up the local church, in those who come forward to speak out of their experience as Christians struggling to lead gospel-based lives, and, especially, in their priests and the pastoral ministers who staff the parishes and offices of their diocese. And it requires a commitment to sustain effective communication, effective channels for the open exchange of ideas. Where this is the case, the vitality and health of the local church energizes both the diocesan bishop and the pastoral leaders of the diocese.

Precisely, then, because he is shepherd and leader of the local church, a bishop has the responsibility to listen from the heart to the concerns of his people and pastoral leaders. Bishops who display this kind of openness and trust stay focused on their mission—to bring the light and freedom of the Gospel to our world. They understand that they are to be, par excellence, men of the Word who are responsible for bringing the saving power of the Word of God to their local church and beyond. Their responsibility to church unity and order, to their brother bishops and the bishop of Rome, is only enhanced when they confront tendencies to deny or minimize the disturbing and challenging issues of the day.

Tranquility
In the spring 2000, amidst the controversy that followed in the wake of my The Changing Face of the Priesthood, a bishop who, in my judgment, enjoys a particularly astute understanding of the temperaments of U.S. bishops remarked to me that he believed most bishops accepted the reality of the issues I raised.10 They understood, furthermore, that these issues needed to be addressed. They simply didn’t want to address them, he said, “on their watch.” The bishop’s remark struck a chord.

To the extent that his read is accurate—I believe it hits the mark in more than a few cases—it points to a striking failure of leadership. It also sheds light on the phenomenon of denial and minimization with which many church leaders greet reports of concern and crisis relating to the affairs of their local church and, especially, to the priesthood and ministry. Addressing them, they understand, would surface considerable conflict and might well shatter the tranquility, at least the surface tranquility, of their diocese. When our analysis takes into account the concern bishops have that their people may be confused or scandalized by an open and non-defensive approach to the issues I raised in The Changing Face of the Priesthood, our anatomy of denial offers, I trust, some understanding of the dynamics behind the current sacred silence.

When the desire for comfort and calm matter too much in an individual’s life, the spirit of adventure and the possibility of real achievement are sacrificed. Even tranquility has its shadow side. Consider the wisdom of President John Adams’ wife, Abigail, writing to her son, John Quincy, as he is about to accompany his father on a perilous journey to France:

It is not in the still calm of life, or the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed. The habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties. Great necessities call out great virtues. When a mind is raised, and animated by scenes that engage the heart, then those qualities which would otherwise lay dormant, wake into life and form the character of the hero and the statesman.

Church leaders, bishops in particular, take on, in a sense, the roles of statesmen and patriots. They ought to seek those habits of the heart common to statesmen and patriots—wisdom, prudence, and courage. Nothing less will do in this post-conciliar period of the church. True leaders of every age have shown themselves to be women and men of great heart. They have always been thoughtful, open-minded, and without fear. Many were saints. All, in my judgment, were heroes.

Underneath the desire for tranquility and the avoidance of conflict, I suspect, are fears and anxieties that are not always conscious. If the veil of denial is lifted, the issues revealed will require resolve and most likely some form of action. And the action called for will in turn bring about change. Significant change, we know, is seldom met without considerable fear and anxiety. The personal and institutional discomfort resulting from the mere anticipation of facing and dealing with difficult issues tends to reinforce the denial. Under the guise of prudence and discretion, disingenuous questions are raised: Just where might honest discussion and open dialogue take us? Perhaps this is not the right time to address such complex issues? Fear of being required to make difficult decisions and the fear of having to take timely action can immobilize even the most committed church leaders. The understandable fear, I propose, should be considered with compassion, even though it is difficult to square with a life of deep faith. Failing to draw on the Spirit of God for the courage to lead in the face of fear is another matter.

Finally, from the point of view of the diocesan bishop, raising the curtain of denial and minimization will likely invite criticism from at least some of his brother bishops—a source of some anxiety for any individual who understandably seeks the affirmation of his or her peers. The situation becomes especially acute for the bishop eager to move on to a more attractive or influential diocese.

Official Truth
Echoing Pontius Pilate’s cynical question, though often without the cynicism, people of faith in every period of the church’s history implicitly ask: “What is truth?” And sincere men and women continue to ask: “What is the right thing to do in this particular situation?” “What, in fact, does the Gospel require of me here and now?” For many believers, the answer that cuts through the ambiguities and complexities of institutional life, the anxieties awakened when personal experience is in tension with traditional church teaching, and the ongoing struggle for integrity and moral rectitude, is to turn to the “official truth” proclaimed by Vatican offices and papal pronouncements. There is wisdom in this turn. For wisdom and truth are indeed found, if not in every pronouncement, in what we term here “official truth.” We especially reverence and embrace those teachings of the church that our tradition holds up as dogma, as divinely revealed.

But official truth, as I use the term here, also includes a broad spectrum of teachings, traditions, practices, disciplines, and customs that fall outside the rubric of divine revelation. These are the factors and variables, if you will, that give form to Catholic culture. While not dogmatic in nature, they nonetheless shape and determine the every day lives of believers. To the extent that they are grounded in gospel values and the best tradition of the church, they will support, counsel, and encourage the laity, religious, and clergy in their efforts to live fully the new life they possess in Jesus Christ. These non-dogmatic truths themselves have been shaped and refined by the varied experiences of men and women living the Christian life. They remain normative, I propose, under the validation of authentic human experience.

Whenever human experience, supported by theological and pastoral reflection, stands in contrast to these teachings and practices, however, they require serious discussion and review. But the very nature of institutional life, as we shall see shortly, seems to resist this kind of process. Without fail there will be various levels of fear, anxiety, and tension. Vested interests will be put at risk and comfortable lifestyles will be threatened. When this is the case, defensive attitudes are assumed and the issue at hand is framed in such a manner that individuals feel reluctant to pursue it. Pressure is felt to embrace the “official truth” which may denigrate and devalue the “personal truth” of committed Christians who see a clear need for open discussion and discernment guided by the Spirit. Voices of experience are not heard, or if heard, not taken seriously. Silence follows and denial spreads.

What is needed, I believe, is to understand that official truth stands in dialectical tension with “common truth” grounded in the experience of faithful believers striving to live in right relationship with God, each other, and all of creation. We now believe that the Spirit of God has enlightened both truths. Ultimately, of course, the truths of our dialectical poles are one truth, just as the two ends of a pencil have their own identity due to their participation in the reality of the one and same pencil. The dialectical poles under discussion, here, are really two faces of the same reality. Both, in respectful tension and harmonious communion, make it possible for the pilgrim people of God to discover what God has revealed and what God continues to reveal through the abiding presence of the Spirit. While we as church readily acknowledge the value of human experience, we continue to listen to its many and varied voices with considerable mistrust. The more is the pity. For the credibility of both “truths” is enhanced when each receives the reverence it deserves.

Institutional Dynamics
Elsewhere I discussed the research of psychologists and other social scientists on the effects of denial in the corporate world. Large, successful corporations, the research showed, exhibit the same tendencies to denial and minimization that can be found in rectories, chanceries, and Vatican offices. Sustained growth, financial strength, and stock splits all contributed to a common mentality among the companies’ officers which consistently proved to be insular and elitist. Apparently, their shrewd planning and proven track record lulled them into a state of confidence and triumphalism, which in turn made them less open to ideas and proposals that seemed in conflict with the structures, strategies, and policies that generated such overall success and wide margins of profit. Corporate officials became wary of managers reporting data that indicated the need for significant changes or new directions. They became less and less interested in the opinions and suggestions of their middle managers who were increasingly seen as employees whose main responsibility was to implement the directives of the upper echelon executives.

Such attitudes of senior executives fostered, in turn, a culture of denial. Data of all sorts—marketing reports, trends in foreign sectors, and the like—were not given the weight they deserved. Ultimately this failure in leadership set the stage for staggering reverses.

Growing up in Argentina’s political and social chaos of the 1970s, business consultant Fred Kofman describes the culture of denial that settled on most of its citizens. “We were all assuming that things were fine—and they were, on the surface—and yet we all knew that the country was very ill at the core.” People, he notes, wanted to believe that as long as things looked more or less normal on the surface, they could carry on with their lives.

For a while that worked and the society was operating normally while, at the same time, there were concentration camps, people being tortured and murdered, right in our midst. I was only 14 years old at the time, and it was very disturbing to me because I felt something was wrong, and yet I didn’t know what it was. I developed this tremendous distaste for situations where everything seems fine on the surface, and yet people are suffering underneath. And I associate this state with denial. . . .”

Years later while working as a consultant with various corporations, Kofman discovered a striking similarity to the culture of denial he first knew as a boy in Argentina. While the realities being denied were drastically different, what mattered was putting a tranquil face on interactions with colleagues and superiors, a face that obscured the real issues calling for attention. I was reminded of parish and diocesan staff meetings when I read Kofman’s account a business meeting he had attended.

[P]eople apparently were having a normal meeting—not particularly productive, but I wouldn’t say horrible—and yet I was feeling the same way I was feeling in Argentina. And then after interviewing the people out of the meeting or hearing them speak about what had happened, I realized that the meeting was a farce. But it was worst than that. It was that they knew it was a farce—everybody knew. So it was the same kind of craziness—not physical violence, but people were participating in a charade where everybody knew they were not telling the truth and that others were not telling the truth and they were not talking about the real issues. Everybody knew this but nobody wanted to say that the emperor had no clothes.

Pastoral leaders and church personnel are not business persons, of course, but they have no less a need to be honest about what is really going on, about the challenges confronting the church and its mission. Far too many Vatican, diocesan, and parish staff meetings, I suspect, conclude with the truth left untold and the real issues judged too risky to raise. Better to tolerate the subtle encroachments on one’s integrity than to risk upsetting the powers that be. The vague feeling of guilt and unrest that often accompany the participants as they rise from the table sooner or later begins to fade. They get on with their work, and the culture of denial is reinforced.

Kofman and others remind us that the church, as a human institution, remains subject to the dynamics common to other organizations and institutions. It will be argued, of course, that the church is not the kind of institution that can be compared to the corporate giants of commerce and industry. Without question, there are significant differences. The church, after all, has a divine commission to bring the light and freedom of the Gospel to the entire human family. And it has its own astounding track record. Still, I argue here that the flourishing that followed the church’s humble beginning, the survival of persecution after persecution, the unity and communion sustained by the abiding presence of the Spirit, these and so many other manifestations of grace, do not negate the human, social, and institutional dynamics we have just examined. Its shepherds and pastors, its curial officials and chancery staffers, for the most part individuals of considerable talent and commitment, experience the same pressures, both internal and external, conscious and unconscious, to stay the course taken by their predecessors as their corporate counterparts. It should not surprise us, then, that church leaders tend to be conservative, cautious, and guarded. It is simply the nature of things.

While I concede the inevitable institutional instincts that support a culture of denial and mistrust, I believe it is a manifestation of the church that is far from its best. The church is indeed susceptible to human folly and sin, but it is also the sacrament of Jesus Christ, informed and inspired by the Spirit to reveal the abiding love of the God who remains ultimate mystery. As such, it is a beacon of hope and a promise of salvation for each and every age and culture it encounters. It professes to bear a “word from the Lord,” a message of salvation for God’s people enfleshed in the person of Jesus of Nazareth whom we now confess as the Christ. It is a pilgrim people who walk by the light of the Spirit of God sustained by word and sacrament. When we as church walk by faith, we have the power to transcend our human tendency to put fear ahead of trust and caution ahead of courage.

Fear, of course, is neither a moral act nor an omission. Uninvited, it wells up in the human heart. But cowardice is. Whenever we employ denial and silence out of fear and anxiety, we sin against faith. The very institutional postures we assume to guard our faith, expose our lack of faith.

As we shall see in the chapters ahead, what really scandalizes countless numbers of the faithful is the church’s readiness—tragically exemplified in recent decades by its response to the sexual misconduct cases involving a significant number of priests and bishops—to deny and minimize the depth, scope, and pastoral implications of issues that cry out for analysis and action.