I began attending mass regularly in late 2000 at St. Joseph’s on Capitol Hill. The pastor was Fr. Paul Lavin. I didn’t know at the time, but in the prior decade, a man had accused Fr. Lavin of molesting him as a boy. A couple of years later, after I had moved to the other side of the Hill and mostly went to another parish, Fr. Lavin was suspended after a second accusation of sexual abuse came out.
You’ll find Fr. Lavin’s name on the long list the Archdiocese of Washington just published of local clergy credibly accused of sexual abuse.
After popping around D.C. churches as a rootless 20-something, I finally settled into a parish after getting married and moving to the suburbs. We baptized our daughter there in 2006. The next year, the deacon there, Dan Stallings, pleaded guilty to molesting his step-daughter.
Dan Stallings is also on that Archdiocese list.
My parish today, the first religious community that I ever called home, was inaugurated in 1959 under Monsignor Joseph B. Coyne. Coyne’s is another name on the Archdiocese list of credibly-accused priests.
The list of infamy the Archdiocese published includes men at each of the parishes through which I entered the church.
One name notably absent from that list is the man who approved my confirmation into the church in 2004: Theodore McCarrick, then a Cardinal of the church and the Archbishop of Washington. McCarrick, according to many accusations, used his power to prey on young seminarians. Also, horrifyingly, the first boy he baptized now says McCarrick abused him for years.
My road to Rome was lined with wicked men who profaned the Church that I joined as an adult. At each doorway through which I passed stood a sex abuser.
In 2004, when McCarrick confirmed me, the scandals of priestly abuse were in the headlines, mostly focused on Boston. If anyone questions my judgment in becoming a Catholic, I can’t blame them.
I still recall Fr. Lavin’s homily from 2000 or 2001, while Ted Kennedy sat in the front pew, about complicity in the sins of others. For a moment, I thought he was going to lecture Kennedy on abortion or womanizing. Instead, he lectured us Capitol Hill residents on not doing enough to stop “gay bashing.” Yes, a man who would be removed from the priesthood after repeated charges of sexually abusing boys was lecturing us about violence against gays.
I also recall a homily soon after Deacon Stallings’ arrest, where one parish priest showed some anger, but only to say, “I am sick and tired of talking about that man.” As if the outrage was that people were being held to account.
So how does one join such a church run by wretches? Fortunately, it doesn’t quite work that way. The Church is not the hierarchy. The Church is the Body of Christ, the Bible teaches. The Body of Christ isn’t mostly the apostles or their heirs. It’s all the faithful.
The Body of Christ I encountered when I came to Washington was roommates, bosses, friends, mentors, colleagues. At some point, I looked around and realized that among people I admired most, a disproportionate share were Catholics, including adult converts like my old boss, Bob Novak. Among the mentors whose lives reflected what I most wanted, most were Catholic dads, including my first boss Terry Jeffrey.
The friends who showed true friendship, and who taught me true friendship, were largely Catholics. These great men and women—not the clergy—were what brought me in.
Still, as a Catholic, I pretty quickly developed a habit of obedience and deference to the hierarchy. The idea of publicly knocking my pastors, my bishops, or the Holy Father for their politics or misstatements seemed uncouth to me.
But the last few months have sharpened my focus.
Theodore McCarrick appears to be a corruptor, doing the Devil’s work, seeking the ruin of souls. Cardinal Donald Wuerl, McCarrick’s successor in Washington, appears to have looked the other way at the predations by McCarrick, as well as the predations by some perverted monster priests in Pittsburgh. Wuerl’s unwillingness to show anger over the sins committed by the agents of the Church has shown how far he is from being the good shepherd the faithful of Washington need and deserve.
Wuerl’s nonchalance about these most grievous failings left the faithful—especially those of us who entrust our children to his archdiocese—in the upside-down-feeling position of demanding his ouster.
And Pope Francis didn’t like it. He implored the angry faithful, the justified critics of hierarchy, to “silence.” He kept Wuerl in place for weeks, gratuitously. Even in accepting Wuerl’s resignation belatedly this month, the Pope has left Wuerl in charge of the Archdiocese and sent him off with a letter of praise.
How can we remain in a Church with such a sick hierarchy? Because the hierarchy isn’t the head of the Church. As St. Paul writes in Ephesians, “Christ is the head of the Church.”
In His body—which is all the faithful—there is enough love to overcome the illness that plagues the Church.
