A Snapshot of the Internet

Sharing the Guilt

Bishop Finn has agreed to pay $600,000 of diocesan funds to the parents of a girl abused by a priest under his care in the diocese of Kansas City.  (I've written about this case at length). 

What struck me from this article about the settlement is this quote ...

The second count, which Fenner allowed to remain, accused the bishop and diocese of receiving, possessing or distributing pornographic images of the girl.

Fenner is the judge in the case, who dismissed one count in the lawsuit and let another stand - the count that the diocese was liable not only for a coverup but was COMPLICIT IN THE CRIME ITSELF.

Let that sink in. 

The diocese of Kansas City was not only wrong in covering up what the abuser did, but was  INVOLVED IN THE CRIME ITSELF - by "receiving and possessing" pornographic images of the two-year-old in question, by not turning the photos over to police, and eventually letting the evidence be destroyed so that the priest had a better chance of getting off.

This is mind boggling.

How to Write a Really Bad Play

Since I'm currently a judge in a one-act play contest, I don't want to say too much about the plays I'm reading.  But I have seen enough to know how to write a really bad play. 

And I'm passing that advice on to you, dear reader!

• Make sure your script contains NO comedy whatsoever - nothing the least bit funny, or if something almost-funny sneaks in, make it very predictable and stupid.

• Put a homeless man in it so the audience has someone to feel sorry for.

• Set the play at Christmas or in a foxhole during a war or in an abortion clinic.  Or better yet, at a makeshift abortion clinic in a foxhole on Christmas Eve.

• Handle exposition awkwardly.  For example, in the first few lines, have one of the characters say,  "Remember when that meteorite hit our house and you bravely struggled to pull me out and save our four children and the reporter from the liberal paper made fun of you because you were Christian and -"

• Give someone cancer or write an old and dying character so the audience has someone to feel sorry for.  Better yet, write in an old homeless man dying of cancer who stumbles into the foxhole on Christmas Eve and whose first monologue recalls the abortion he witnessed sixty years prior.  Then send in Santa Claus for the happy ending when the homeless man dies and goes to heaven.

• Submitting your play to a Christian playwriting contest?  Use lots and lots and lots of gratuitous f-bombs and s-bombs.  Make David Mamet look like Walt Disney.

• There is no such thing as character development.  There is no such thing as depth of character.  There is no such thing as a compelling plot.

• There is no such thing as subtlety.  The audience must be hit over the head to get your point.

• Whatever you do, don't make any of your dialogue the least bit literary or poetical or uplifting.  Don't read other plays and get ideas about innovative staging or structure.  Don't take any risks.

Got it?  Now get writing!

Help Wanted: Archbishop of Newark

So you want to be the Archbishop of Newark, New Jersey, do you?  (See Bad Bishops: Same Old Spin - Different Day). Submit your resume and answer the question below.

Given the following scenario ...

• A priest under your control and care admits to having homosexual or bisexual desires. 

• This priest likes to wrestle with 14-year-old boys.  Let me repeat that: this priest likes to wrestle with 14-year-old boys.

• This priest admits that while wrestling with a 14-year-old boy, he grabbed his genitals, on two different occasions.  The second time he did so, the boy became enraged and refused to talk to the priest the rest of the day, at an event for the boy's family.

• The priest is indicted, tried and convicted on a charge of aggravated sexual conduct.  The conviction is overturned on a technicality.  The appellate court orders a retrial.

• To avoid a retrial, you strike a deal with prosecutors, agreeing to remove said priest from any ministry involving youth and from any contact with youth.

Years pass.  Now what do you do?  Do you ....

A. Blow off the deal with prosecutors and allow your priest back into youth ministry and unsupervised contact with youth, without telling any of the parents this priest's history?

B.  Appoint this man as co-director responsible for the Ongoing Formation of Priests?

C. Get huffy and send a letter to all priests in your diocese defending your decision, giving a false impression of the court case by telling only a partial truth?  

***

If you answered D., ALL OF THE ABOVE - congratulations!  You are qualified to be the Archbishop of Newark!

Bad Bishops: Same Old Spin - Different Day

There is a pattern and it's a sick and strange one.

Over the months, I have written at length about Kansas City Bishop Finn's dreadful handling of a sex abuse case in his diocese, and have taken quite a bit of heat from the True Believers, who swallow uncritically the cult-like notion that criticizing a bishop who endangers children is the equivalent of hating Jesus Christ and His Catholic Church.  (If you really want to have fun, read the whole series here).

Archbishop of Newark, John J. Myers

Now we have Archbishop Myers in New Jersey and sex abuser Fr. Michael Fugee.  The case is so much like the Finn case that it's weird.  Frank Weathers and Mark Shea have articles on the case, in which they link to local New Jersey reports, which themselves link to the original source documents at the heart of the matter, including this one, which apparently nobody wants to read.

I won't go into details, since if you're interested you can find the details at this link and elsewhere.  But let me point out a few similarities.

• Bishops, apparently, have unlimited hubris.  Bishop Finn spent $1.4 million of diocesan funds to defend himself from criminal charges that threatened only a few thousand dollars in fines and that could easily have been plea bargained away, but that resulted in his conviction in criminal court.  This is not because Finn was bravely defending the Church, for part of the case, in one Missouri county, involved a plea agreement, in which Finn glibly handed over ecclesial authority to a governmental entity so as to avoid prosecution.  Bishop Myers, likewise, is going to the matt on this one, in a case where a cursory investigation shows he behaved without any regard to the safety of the children under his care and without any concern for an agreement he had made with prosecutors to keep child molester Fr. Fugee out of jail.  Does it appear as if Bishop Myers is standing firm to protect the Church?  No, as in Finn's case, it's to protect his own pride.

• Bishops, apparently, don't give a damn about the truth.  The most liberating words ever spoken on earth are "The truth will set you free" (John 8:32).  But in a February letter to priests, Bishop Myers defends his decision to allow Fugee to disregard the agreement the bishop made with prosecutors by claiming that Fugee was "acquitted" of the charges against him.  Fugee was in fact acquitted of one charge, "endangering the welfare of a child" but convicted  of "aggravated criminal sexual conduct".  While this conviction was reversed on appeal over a technicality, a new trial was ordered and was avoided because of a plea agreement, the terms of which the archdiocese is now thumbing its nose at. In other words, had the defendant indeed been acquitted of the charges against him, none of this would be an issue.

• The True Believers will stop at nothing to defend bad bishops.  They eat up stuff like this: demagogue Bill Donohue of the Catholic League begins his defense of Bishop Myers thus, "Left-wing Catholics, and ex-Catholics, tried in vain to get Bishop Robert Finn of Kansas City-St. Joseph to step down, and now they have their sights set on Newark Archbishop John Myers. Their goal is to bring down a bishop—any bishop."  Well, Bill, I'm no left-winger, I'm no ex-Catholic, and my goal is to reform the Church I love - oh, and to protect children from sexual abuse.  But the card that's played in these cases, apparently, is the "us vs. them" paranoia card.  We see this in America all the time.  Hate your opponent and you don't have to consider his position.

• Again, the "media" is blamed for bias when the "media" can be bypassed entirely.  As with the Bishop Finn case, the original documents are available online.  But the True Believers refuse to read them.  One commenter on Mark Shea's site asserted that the police had forced a confession out of Fr. Fugee.  But, you see, he had not bothered to read the confession, which every person on earth can do by clicking this link.  A less intense interrogation one could not imagine.  But this is just another example of the "us vs. them" paranoia card.  If you don't want to admit that a priest happily fondled the genitals of an under-age boy, then tarnish the police force and the criminal justice system along with it.

And all I can say about this is what I said in Shea's combox regarding bishops who enable child abuse ... 

It is not surprising that our shepherds fall short of the high standards of the Christian Faith. It is surprising that they don't even rise to the low standards of the secular world.