Nabi Sayeth: Why Are We Doing What We Do?

Nabi Sayeth: There is a story I heard some time ago from a man who had been hospitalized while suffering a massive hemorrhage. The man is a well known and respected member of his parish community. After spending several days in an overflow area of the hospital due to crowded conditions, a Doctor friend and fellow parishioner entered his room to visit. After some small talk the Doctor asked the man the name of the illness for which he was being treated. His response was “I don’t really know because no one has told me but it almost resulted in my death.”
The Doctor asked if he could “take a look” at one of the wounds to which the man replied, “Certainly”. One peek and the name of the disease, an odd name, immediately rolled out of the Doctor’s mouth.. The man then asked, “Why does no one else, including the Doctor treating me seem to know what you just said?” “I dunno”, was his response. The man asked the Doctor if he would pass his information on to the attending Doctor, also a parishioner, and his response was shocking: “Well, I don’t want to ruffle any feathers. I know he is a good Doctor and I don’t want to make him mad.” “But”, asked the man, “Isn’t the goal to get me well so that I can get back to living my life and doing my work?”

Nabi Sayeth: Of course it is! Disease causes people to get sick and Doctors work to help them get well. That’s the “Why” of the practice of medicine. But in the course of professional practice, some professionals often forget a most important question…”Why are we doing what we do?”

-Doctors get so busy following protocol and practicing medicine that sometimes they forget “Why” they are using certain treatments for their patients…  

-Lawyers get so caught up in defending established legal principles that they forget at times “Why” they are arguing their position…

-Plumbers get caught up in finding a solution to a problem using certain methods that are expensive and elaborate without asking “Why” they are doing so at the home of a 91 year old on fixed income...

-and bishops get so caught up in the secular dimensions of the administration of their dioceses that they forget they are shepherds called to lead and guide the flock...that Public Relations experts and Diocesan attorneys may be useless tools when it comes to dealing with problems resulting from sin…

Nabi Sayeth, This became painfully clear at last week’s fall meeting of the Catholic Bishops of the U.S. in Baltimore. Here are some of the “interventions” made by various bishops from throughout the country:

-Cardinal Roger Mahony, who has been barred from public ministry in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles for the mishandling and cover-up of abuse cases involving minors and priests there, opened up the comments from the bishops, urging them to seek a greater collegiality amongst themselves as “brother bishops.”
-In his intervention, Bishop Michael Burns of Guam asked about “meaningful constraints” on bishops accused of abuse, such as his predecessor Bishop Anthony S. Apuron, who was found guilty of sexual abuse of minors by a Vatican tribunal, but who has asked for an appeal.
-In his comments, Bishop Robert Daniel Conlon of Joliet, Illinois, said he agreed with an earlier suggestion of Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago, that the remedy for the abuse crisis and accusations against bishops may already be found in the bishop’s charters and laws. “People say the Church is hung up on sex, this is evidence of that,” he said regarding the debate about the sex abuse crisis. “We are capable of malfeasance in many other areas as well,” he said, and urged the bishops to consider more broadly the ways bishops may have gone wrong.
-Bishop Andrew Cozzens of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis said in his following intervention that he wished to see more fraternal correction among the bishops. He asked that bishops seek out the counsel of the bishops in their region if they are considering resigning, and also that bishops fraternally correct bishops in their region if they believe they should resign. 

“I dream of a day when we as brothers are strong enough to say – we think you should resign, even if he’s not ready to hear that,” he said. “Those are difficult conversations to have, nobody wants to have them, but they can be very important.” 

-Archbishop Cordileone of San Francisco said he has found that Catholics tend to fall in one of two camps regarding the abuse crisis: the first camp believes that the Church is not talking about the real problem, which is the prevalence homosexuality among the clergy and its correlation with abuse, he said. The second camp believes that the real problem is an all-male hierarchy, “because women would never have allowed this to happen,” and therefore women must be invited in to all levels of the clergy.

-Bishop Thomas Daly of Spokane said he had heard from many concerned, faithful Catholic parents who want to encourage vocations in their children, but are growing impatient with a lack of answers on the abuse crisis from Church leadership. It is a concern the bishops should “take very seriously,” he said. “My feeling is judging from their conversations, they’re running out of patience.”
And while numerous bishops were offering their opinions about the nature and effects of the sexual abuse scandal on the Church in the United States, only one really spoke about the “Why” for the crisis….
-Bishop Joseph Strickland of Tyler, Texas, a “small rural area” with a minority Catholic population, gave a notably strong intervention, in which he asked the bishops to consider how McCarrick got to be in the positions that he was “if we really believed that what was going on was wrong?” 

“It’s part of our deposit of faith that we believe homosexual activity is immoral,” he said. “How did he get promoted if we are all of one mind that this is wrong? Do we believe the doctrine of the Church or not?” Strickland said that while homosexual people are “children of God who deserve great care” and not personal condemnation, THE Church SHOULD TEACH CLEARLY THAT HOMOSEXUAL ACTIONS ARE SINFUL AND HELP PEOPLE MOVE FROM SIN TO VIRTUE.

(All quotes from The Catholic World Report 11/13/18)

Nabi Sayeth: James Carville, an election strategist for Bill Clinton once famously said, “It's the economy, stupid” in a speech he gave in order to educate, energize and give a sense of focus to campaign workers. Bishop Strickland by way of analogy was revealing to his fellow bishops: It’s about mortal sin, stupid! The Catholic Bishops of the U.S. will never understand, and therefore, be able to treat the huge scandal infecting our Church until which time they identify and humbly admit to the root or “Why” of the problem, namely, the violation of long held Catholic teaching resulting in mortal sin.