Family

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Gert

She was about 85 and had just taken the leap into assisted living. This momentous transition required quite an attitude adjustment for me as well. I resented the notion that my mother needed assistance with anything!

One day Claudia was talking with Mom a couple states away. Our matriarch — whose parents saw no need for her to attend high school despite the fact she registered the highest score in the county on her 8th grade standardized exam — casually mentioned she was taking a computer class. These half-day sessions scheduled monthly were just one of many conveniences she enjoyed at her new residence.

Incredulous, Claudia objected, “But, Mom, you don’t even know the keyboard.”

With maternal self-deprecation mixed with characteristic self-determination she retorted, “I know … it’s not like I’m going to go out and get a job. I just want to know what my grandchildren are talking about!”

Mom died peacefully just weeks shy of her 98th birthday. Claudia and I were at her bedside along with other family members. She never lost her eagerness to learn. Her admonition to us kids grousing about one thing or another echoes long after her death, “[Fill-in any one of our names], life is pretty much what you make of it!”

Never settled or content with what she knew, Mom was ever curious about what she didn’t know. We learned to expect a well-considered zinger whenever she began with her characteristic, “Y’know, life is strange…” Generally, she nailed it!

Never having the privilege of a formal education, Mom let nothing inhibit her curiosity. Secure in her love for learning — as well as in herself — Mom’s wisdom far exceeded most of the better “educated.” She remains our first and best teacher.

We would all be blessed to finally learn what she knew — remaining ever-curious, always attentive to what we don’t know!

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Guilty as Charged

“Has anyone called you arrogant?” My brother and I were driving south on I-35 south between Minneapolis and the Iowa border when he shot that zinger at me. From anyone else I’d probably be incensed. Coming from him, I’ve had to admit that arrogance is a deeply ingrained trait, especially in the male lineage of my family.

Now we laugh about our shared propensity to such exaggerated self-regard. We still goad one another with the arrogance charge as brothers are wont to do. It’s become sort of a stand-in for expressing our affection — if you haven’t noticed, men are good at code language! It’s guaranteed to make us laugh. As with all good humor, we know that our fraternal jousting is grounded in a good deal of truth.

This all comes rushing back because I just spent eight terrific days with my brother in Florida. Incriminating evidence in something I read yesterday also brought it back with a vengeance. Though I’m no thunder-thinker, I have had the good fortune of a pretty good education, especially in matters theological. Yesterday I was brought face-to-face with my arrogance by being reminded of my gross ignorance.

Inter-religious dialogue — especially among Jews, Muslims and Christians — is a special interest for me. I gravitate to articles on the topic and participate more than most in inter-faith discussions and shared prayer events. While quick to admit my ignorance about Islam, I have blindly presumed I knew something about Judaism.

After all, I have Jewish neighbors and friends. I’ve attended numerous Seders over the years and have been moved by the spiritual richness of Jewish weddings and funerals. I studied the Hebrew scriptures in graduate school. But here is the most dangerous of my assertions — Jesus was Jewish and I know a whole lot about Jesus!

Yesterday I was casually reading, as I am wont to do, an esoteric journal by a Dutch Benedictine monk (that should be indictment enough, right?). Then, here came this zinger: “For many Christians Jewish history ends with the death of Jesus on Golgotha in the year 30 or 33. They know absolutely nothing of the growth and spiritual development of the Jewish people after that.” My ignorance exposed, I stand guilty as charged!

God, like a special big brother, knows how to not-so-subtly lay bare my faults. So it was with even greater intentional ribbing that God seemed to place this bit of wisdom from a 3rd century Desert Father before me this morning:

One day Abba Arsenius consulted an old Egyptian monk about his own thoughts. Someone noticed this and said to him, “Abba Arsenius, how is it that you, with such a good Latin and Greek education, ask this peasant about your thoughts?” He replied, “I have indeed been taught Latin and Greek, but I do not know even the alphabet of this peasant.”

Ouch!!! In my arrogance lies my greatest ignorance. Like my brother’s taunt, God followed with a not-so-subtle poke in the ribs. Do I use my intelligence as a weapon to defend my superiority as well as insulate my pious “convictions”? I shudder to see how easily I presume to be the repository of all truth, especially around matters spiritual.

Yes, I confess my need to be recognized for having “a way with words.” Perhaps the world might be better off if I shut-up more and learned to listen better.

I am also coming to question whether my “male lineage” is the primary source of my fault.  Arrogance seems to be a deeply engrained trait within the whole human family.

We need to get over it.

___________________

The esoteric journal cited is: Sharing Sacred Space: Interreligious Dialogue as Spiritual Encounter by Benoit Standaert, translated by William Skudlarek. Liturgical Press, Collegeville MN, 2003., p 15.

The quote of Abba Arserius is from: Benedicta Ward, trans., The Sayings of the Desert Fathers (Cistercian Publications: 1975), p 6. and was brought to my attention by Richard Rohr’s Daily Mediation for May 8, 2015 sponsored by the Center for Action and Contemplation. PO Box 12464. Albuquerque, NM 87195.

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Progress = Perfection

Okay, I admit it… I deliberately laid a trap to see if I would catch him in dishonesty — let’s not even call it a lie. I was speaking with a dear friend in a life and death struggle with alcoholism. My trap? A simple question: “Are you drinking?”

Honesty carries fresh urgency these days. Denial, deception, white-lies and half-truths abound. We all do it! Maybe that’s why Bill Clinton got off so easy in the Monica Lewinsky scandal. We identified with his squirming machinations. Remember his emphatic assertion: “I did not have sexual relations with that woman!”? We’ve all spouted such half-truths.

We only wish we were as verbally dexterous as the ex-President. What he said was technically correct, but was it honest? If by “sexual relations” we mean sexual intercourse, Mr Clinton is telling the truth. That’s what he wanted us to believe. If “sexual relations” means a range of intimate sexual activity the President’s nose surpassed Pinocchio. And, we all saw his nose grow exponentially!

We all saw it because we all do it. Perfect honesty seems impractical if not impossible. We practice denial and indulge deception telling half-truths. We further deceive ourselves if we let ourselves off the hook just because perfection is beyond our reach or ability. What’s needed is not perfection but progress!

The other thing that’s needed is to set for ourselves a very high bar of personal accountability. My 45 y/o nephew just completed the Boston Marathon. He was uncompromising in pursuit of his bucket-list goal! Extenuating circumstances like rain, wind and temps in the 40s conspired such that he missed his desired time by 8 minutes.

Perfection was out of reach. Post-run photos suggest it wasn’t even pretty! Yet, Dean finished his marathon in 3 hours and 38 minutes and deserves all the accolades that are rightfully his. There was no Clintonian duplicity in his performance, no mincing of words, just raw foot-to-the-pavement pursuit of an illusive goal.

Dean may have completed the Boston Marathon, but Dean is far from finished. As if taking a page from Step 12 of Alcoholics Anonymous, I am confident the point of Dean’s exploit is to take the principles learned in “finishing Boston” and to apply them in all his endeavors. Such persistent progress, not perfection, is a worthy goal for all of us!

The snare I laid for my friend was not meant to be deceptive or a cynical trap. Rather, it was a well-intentioned question about his progress.  Just as finishing the Boston Marathon is a momentous indicator of one’s enduring practices and principles. So too is plain and simple honesty within each of our lives, especially when it isn’t easy or even pretty!

For as every alcoholic knows, it’s ultimately not about the alcohol. It’s about the much fuller, all in-composing “spiritual awakening” that restores us to living once again. Let’s be honest, it’s about taking the wisdom we learn from running our own hellish marathon and applying the lessons consistently across the board.

That sets a pretty high bar. Today I am grateful to both my nephew and my dear friend for showing me that goals can be achieved. In life, persistent hard-earned progress equals perfection!

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As Much and More

Time was when we’d get together and gossip. Sometimes we’d vie for the distinction of who had it tougher. Faults were easily found and fingers pointed. In a family of ten kids that was easy to do, about as easy as hiding behind the sheer numbers.

Certainly older now, tempered by the death of parents as well as six of nine siblings, disguise and diversion are much less satisfying. Now we remember, reminisce and recognize what matters. The impulse to gossip, compete, even complain never completely disappears. But its seen for what it is… navel gazing and a waste of time!

Mom and Dad have come up often during this week with family in Florida. We arrived on the 22nd anniversary of Dad’s death. We share amazement that Mom could now be gone for more than eight years! Strange how adolescent rebellion and adult needs to differentiate ourselves subsides with the passing of years. Neither Mom nor Dad were as objectively wonderful as we now choose to remember them. Perhaps that is the mature wisdom borne of perspective, sobering self-acceptance and irrepressible gratitude.

Mom and Dad weren’t perfect! Truth is the oldest and youngest in the roster of ten had many advantages. Here’s a dramatic example to make the point – false teeth! The three eldest and the two youngest (four of the five are now deceased) “kept their teeth.” The five in the middle all have dentures. Money was scarce during the Depression and WWII, especially for such a large family!  Dental care lost out to more pressing needs.

Some may grouse about inequality and bad luck. But what really matters? Where is the wisdom of years? What is the fruit of embracing mortality, accepting the inevitability of our own death? There is no time for gossip. Keeping score becomes meaningless.

As the youngest of ten, I objectively benefited from my position in the roster. By many standards, I admit my good fortune in receiving “more.” Yet the perspective of years teaches that love is not a zero-sum game – loving my husband does not mean I have less love to share with others. In fact, the mysterious alchemy of love would suggest quite the opposite.

As this week of family conversation and reminiscences concludes, one thing endures… our gratitude for what Mom and Dad gave us, our amazement for what they achieved with their lives deepens and expands.

Yes, not each of us received as much. Some of us received more. Yet, they always gave every bit as much as they could to each and all – none of us can give more!

 

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Give It a Rest

My brother Gene died four weeks ago today. He was the sixth of my nine siblings to die. Some might think a person can develop a skill for saying goodbye or burying a loved one. You cannot! In fact, grief compounds and becomes cumulative. But so does grace!

Although I began kindergarten in Omaha, Gene moved back to our family’s hometown and married a woman from Hartington, NE in 1961. We gathered at Holy Trinity Church for his funeral, the same church where I was baptized in 1950, the same church where we had gathered for the funerals of our father in 1993 and our mother in 2007. Although they had moved from the town in 1955, such is the significance of this community in the life and lore of our family.

Imagine my consternation when the pastor paraded up the center aisle five minutes before the service was to begin, made a dramatic genuflection in front of the altar, then turned stage right to the sacristy for vesting. Honest to God, he was wearing a full-length black cape and berretta, that square, stiff cap with a tassel-like fur-ball on top that used to be worn by ecclesiastics in the Catholic Church. I gasped, then gulped. I should not have been surprised when he appeared from the sacristy attired in black vestments. I was more disheartened than shocked.

This was my brother’s funeral. I had some pretty important decisions to make. It was attitude adjustment time. This was not the first time I’ve had to hunker down in the face of such clerical falderal. But, this is the funeral of my brother — the stakes are singular and significant. Somehow I resolved not to allow this hierarch’s clerical peculiarities to steal this moment of prayer from our family.

Something happened! Grace? Actually, the priest’s homily was quite good for someone who had come to the parish so recently and had few opportunities to really get to know my brother. When he prayed I found that I could readily pray with him. When his ridiculous black cape billowed in the frigid February wind atop the cemetery hill I discovered compassion — aspiring to gratitude — for this innocently naive cleric.

Since, I have been thinking a great deal about the differences between conformity and community, between unity and uniformity. How my ego craves for what I know to be right, true and best.  How I squirm when not in control, when things are not done my way!  Grace nudges me to recognize the broad assortment of ways to be Catholic, no less Christian.  This, as God wills it to be!  When my stubbornness and pride rail as they will, I must ask, “What really matters?” Now I ruminate about how Gene would answer that question today.

This is the church into which I was baptized. This is the community in which our roots run deep. Here I find family, home, communion. We now have four generations buried in that cemetery. My plot is right next to my parents, twenty feet from our grandparents.

In the end, I would want it no other way. It is here that someday I will finally be laid to rest.

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The Real Reason I Left

July 24, 2014

Open Letter to My Family and Members of the Church of St. Luke:

In February 2002 I wrote letters to you announcing my plan to take a leave of absence from the Jesuits. This meant that I would no longer be your pastor and would be giving up priestly ministry – two roles I cherished.

I regret that shame, fear and deep pain prevented me from being more forthcoming with the truth. The real reason I left Jesuit priesthood is this: I was sexually abused by a Jesuit superior. The abuse occurred on five occasions over a period of eighteen months. In addition to his role in my life, the man had held numerous roles of authority and remains highly esteemed in the Jesuit province.

In my letters to you I explained that I desired “a life that includes deeper relationships and experiences that are not now an option. An important part of this is a desire for greater stability in relationships and the freedom to have a ‘home’.” Although factually accurate, these were not my real reason for leaving. You deserve to know the truth and this rather lengthy explanation gives you the full story.

My personal journals from those years – long before I came to St. Luke’s – are boxed away in storage. They would give exact timelines and many more specific details. Suffice to say, the fifth and final “time away” with this man was the lowest and most humiliating experience of my life. Devastated is too weak of a descriptor! Resolving this would never happen again, I was determined to reassert moral discipline and tight control over my life. Despite my best efforts, what’s buried alive stays alive!

About a year after the abuse ended I initiated a meeting with the new provincial to “manifest my conscience” (a peculiarly Jesuit term meaning to come clean about what’s really going on). He was quiet and thoughtful. In asking “Do you think he has done this to others?” I got the impression that he understood the gravity of the situation. Soon I received a welcome new ministry assignment in Washington, DC. However, in all future meetings with him as provincial he never once initiated any conversation or inquired about the sexual violation I had brought to him.

In addition to this early overture to the provincial I reached out to no fewer than five others – four men and one woman – who held various positions of leadership in the province during the following years. Every victim of abuse knows what incredible strength it takes to break through the shame, secrecy and intimidation that holds us locked in fear and silence. In a letter dated December 2, 1997 I confronted the man himself – not for the first time but by explicitly naming his behavior as abuse. His response was apologetic but hardly satisfying.

All the while I felt like I was spewing out my guts, emotionally hemorrhaging in front of people who should be in positions to help, struggling to get through the anguish and to regain some vitality for life and spontaneity in ministry. In every case, the person to whom I reached out was empathetic in the moment. But no one followed up with any expression of personal, pastoral or practical assistance. In a conversation shortly before I officially left the Jesuits I was able to ask one with whom I had shared my pain in the context of my annual retreat, “Why didn’t you do something?” He said, “I thought it was only once.”

There was one shining exception, Brad Schaeffer who was superior of the Jesuit community in Washington, DC where I lived immediately prior to being assigned pastor for St. Luke’s. Brad had been provincial of the Jesuits of the Chicago Province. His experience obviously served him – and me – quite well.

Brad cut to the heart of the matter with an explicit question, “What do you need from the Society?” My response was immediate, easy and simple… “All I need is for someone in authority to tell me that I am valuable and valued; that what happened to me was wrong, should never have happened, and in the name of the Society, he is sorry!”

I moved to St Paul on May 1999 knowing that “someone in authority” could only be the Jesuit provincial. How hard could it be? He had already heard the core of my story years earlier! Right!!! If you believe that any of this can be easy you don’t understand the cold, tight grip in which a culture of abuse keeps its victims paralyzed.

The steep learning curve of becoming a pastor and getting to know the community of St. Luke’s provided a welcome distraction from the pain buried just beneath the surface. Winter 2000 turned into Spring 2001. We’d be getting a new provincial in June. I could delay no longer. On May 7 I mustered sufficient courage to phone the provincial to explain what I needed – an explicit apology in the name of the Society that what I had experienced was wrong and should not have happened. In that conversation the provincial said we would meet when I came to Milwaukee for a province assembly at the beginning of June.

Suffice to say what I was led to believe would happen did not. Again at my initiative I had to intercept the provincial between Morning Prayer and breakfast on the second day of the assembly or our conversation would never have occurred. I returned from Milwaukee feeling ignored, used and taken for granted once again. I left for a two-week vacation experiencing the festering wound of abuse as something not simply perpetrated by one who violates sexual and emotional boundaries. Abuse is compounded many times over by others in an abusive system of defensive denial and acts of omission.

Sexual abuse is a “structural sin” imbedded within a culture that either believes denial will make it go away or is hell-bent on protecting the organization’s prestige, privilege or power. This has intensified and prolonged the violation I have felt. A deep pain in this sad scenario is that I still want to believe the Society of Jesus, at its core, is better than all this!

I have concluded that people in these dysfunctional systems are like fish – they don’t have an awareness of, nor can they acknowledge, the water in which they swim. Though far short of acceptance or comprehension, I remain a victim if I cannot compose some explanation for how this could happen. If this is not part of a healing process, talk of forgiveness or any future reconciliation is out of the question.

I’m not fully there yet. Yes, telling my story out loud and in public still frightens me. The first of two superiors of the Jesuit community in Washington where I lived immediately prior to coming to St. Luke’s – the one before Brad Schaeffer – faced allegations of sexual harassment from a young Jesuit under his supervision. The story broke on CBS 60 Minutes in 1999. The Society of Jesus fought hard in Federal court to stifle litigation. After a successful appeal to have his case heard in open court, the evidence was never presented. The Jesuits settled with the claimant out of court for an undisclosed sum.

Jesuits speak of being Companions in the Lord. “Companionship” is the heart of Jesuit identity and is strong, real and rich. It also has its “shadow” side. I remember the “circling of the wagons” among Jesuits immediately after the 60 Minutes expose. I have never met our superior’s accuser but I heard plenty of nasty character assassination and charges of being a “gold-digger.” Some who knew the young Jesuit said he was a willing accomplice and even basked in the erotic attention. The culture of abuse was very much in evidence – blame the victim!

I simply don’t know – I never met the man and evidence was never aired in court. Yet, he was shunned, shamed and called a liar by people who had no knowledge of the case. Jesuits are called “the Pope’s Marines” for a reason – you can count on them to rally to the defense of any perceived attack from outside their tight brotherhood. Most often this is a blessing. In this case of alleged harassment, I silently sided with the claimant and witnessed a bludgeoning. Who wouldn’t feel intimidated?

In the spirit of transparency I should say that I do know the difference between sexual activity between consenting adults and sexual abuse. After many years of “living the letter” of my vow of celibate chastity, I became involved in a sexual relationship with a Jesuit peer and colleague in ministry. I sought counsel and help from the man who would later violate my trust. I went to him because of his roles in my life, his position of leadership and reputation for spiritual wisdom. Rather than offering assistance I have concluded that he interpreted my overture for help as an indication of availability.

Fast forward again to June 2001… I returned from vacation after the Milwaukee assembly clear in my determination to seek a leave of absence. I called the newly installed provincial early in July to inform him of my disposition. Through all the months leading up to my leaving St. Luke’s and the Jesuit community on March 1, 2002, I never had a face-to-face meeting with the provincial or anyone on the province staff. It seemed strange – then and now – that something so significant would be handled with a few phone calls and a series of emails. Was I not more valued, more valuable? I have concluded that, yet again, they did not take me seriously or believe what I was saying.

My hope that the pain and reality of sexual abuse would be left behind with a leave of absence was soon dashed. Archbishop Rembert Weakland, OSB of Milwaukee had long been my hero and icon of the great churchman. I eagerly attended his 8 a.m. Sunday liturgies at the Cathedral whenever I was in town. His leadership with the US Conference of Catholic Bishops in drafting their pastoral statement on the US economy epitomizes episcopal leadership and the church’s social teaching at their best. I was honored to have been ordained priest by Archbishop Weakland in 1988.

Imagine my heartache upon hearing the report on national news in May 2002 that Weakland had resigned after it was revealed he had secretly used $450,000 of diocesan funds years earlier to prevent a lawsuit for sexual assault. The payment had been made to hide his relationship with a 30-year-old male graduate student. Does the pain and reality of sexual abuse ever go away?

On January 6, 2004 an email arrived that flashed me back into exasperation and initial disbelief. The province was looking for a new pastor for St. Luke’s and the name of the Jesuit who had abused me was frequently surfacing as one for consideration. The insidious nature of abuse is that it continues to resurface and poke its ugly head into one’s face again and again. At first, the email message sent a stab of pain and the price of loss washed over me again.

That evening I consulted with two members of St. Luke’s with whom I had worked closely and in whom I had confided the “whole story” when I was deciding to take a leave of absence. After sleeping on the matter I chose to focus on the positive and interpret the fact of being asked my opinion to be made in good faith and showed growing sensitivity, comprehension and respect. Nevertheless, I clearly expressed to the province the two parishioners’ thoughts – as well as mine – about the prospect of having this man as pastor of St. Luke’s. To say they and I would have a serious issue with such an appointment would be a gross understatement!

My reply quoted letters from March and May 2003 to the provincial which stated that my “experience of sexual abuse has so eroded my trust in Jesuit superiors and the Society’s ‘cura personalis’ [care of the person] that I no longer choose to be a Jesuit.” Still, this was a huge step forward. Now, a member of the province staff expressed “a deep down hesitation” about an appointment they had the authority to make.

The email asked whether “given [my] history and experience, should a position of leadership, especially in the same city, even be considered?” It went on to say they “want to be respectful of [my] experiences.” Though my first response had been that of a victim whose pain is again flashed before him, my current perspective chooses to focus on good intentions, growing comprehension and the sincerity of the gesture.

I don’t know the technical definition of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. I do know that depression and anxiety can arise seemingly from nowhere. Events in the news have and continue to send me into a tailspin. Such was the case in Spring 2010 when stories of abuse being reported in the media sent me back into therapy. This time I decided to write the Jesuit provincial to inform him of my lingering pain and the recurring struggle with which I live. His response, hand-written on Jesuit community stationery, said in part:

Thank you for letting me know about your return to therapy to address the ongoing consequences of your experience of sexual abuse that led to your departure from the Society. I also appreciate your helping me to have a better understanding of the effects of such abuse. I will keep you in my prayer both that what you hope and wish for me and others sharing your experience will be increasingly realized and that your recovery and healing will be realized as well.

Though an expression of gratitude and assurance of prayer falls short of what I have wanted and needed from Jesuit leadership, the fact he made the effort to respond at all and to name my experience “abuse” was deeply appreciated. Especially from the perspective of today, the note tells me a new generation of leadership is beginning to “get it.”

So, why now? Why am I telling my story at such length? Why not now? Essentially, within the past eighteen months I have felt an emotional loosening, an ability to breathe, and a gentle impulse to let-go, to let down my defenses, a resolve to smile more authentically. A growing sense of strength and freedom cannot help but express itself out loud!

Yes, my physician tells me that I will likely need to be on my anti-depressant for the rest of my life. And, I now keep six Klonopin on hand to forestall another 2 a.m. trip to the ER for panic attack. But without knowing the day or the occasion, I have moved from feeling like a victim to that of being a survivor. That difference need not be fully in place for me to recognize the change as dramatic.

My pain has mutated over the years through grief and deep sadness into something approaching acceptance. News in February 2012 that Scottish Cardinal Keith O’Brien resigned after initially denying accusations by four priests of sexual exploitation seemed like “old news” and all too familiar. The fact that he was dis-invited from participating in the conclave that elected Pope Francis and was forced to resign carried a refreshing element of vindication!

Parenthetically, Pope Francis is not an anomaly. He is one expression of many really fine Jesuits who are very much the norm rather than the exception. Neither is the story I tell here to be interpreted as an indictment of all Jesuits or a distraction from the tremendous good the Society of Jesus does globally and through the Wisconsin Province. Ignatius wanted “a few abnegated men.” I believe he would be proud of what he’s got today. I choose to believe the abdication of responsibility and complicity in abuse described here is the real anomaly to the Jesuit norm, especially today.

Yes, I still get angry hearing stories such as Oprah Winfrey’s July 17 interview of Jerry Sandusky’s son. Matt Sandusky tells of his father grooming of his victims and his subtle forms of manipulation. Matt’s story is his story – but I recognize its truth and fully appreciate the years it took him to tell it. Something I also understand is his father’s continuing protestations of innocence. I have no doubt that Jerry Sandusky truly believes he did nothing wrong and was simply engaging in good-natured child’s play with his son and his other victims. That’s part of the tragic pattern of abuse.

One important lesson in all of this is about consequences. I still hold Rembert Weakland in high esteem and admire his leadership as international leader for all Benedictine’s in the world and then as Archbishop. His ground breaking work on behalf of economic justice endures. I truly grieve that he has lived the past twelve years alone in an apartment in Milwaukee and was informed last month that he is not welcome to return to his home abbey in Pennsylvania. Behavior has consequences. I concede he did not set out to hurt anyone. But behavior, the kind we call misbehavior, has tragic consequences for oneself – and others. Believe me, I know!

Again, what prompts my disclosure now? An important prompt was the self-disclosure by Washington Post writer Steven Petrow in his April 28 column. A friend had slipped a novel by Carrie Brown into his mailbox. The novel tells the story of Ruth, now in her “twilight . . . look[ing] back on a harrowing childhood and on the unaccountable love and happiness that emerged from it.” Petrow hung on a single line from near the end of the book: “If I can’t ever tell anyone the true story . . . then no one will ever know me.”

Petrow had been writing an essay about his life and the self-blame he’d long carried about having had cancer. But he stopped his writing, snagged in that very same way as when he had come upon Ruth’s admonition. Would he include a certain seven words: “I had been molested as a child.”? He went on to explain his experience of being sexually molested by his paternal grandfather. I have been hanging on Petrow’s disclosure since April. Like him, I do not believe in coincidences. There is a reason his story crossed my path at this time in my life. “If I can’t ever tell anyone the true story . . . then no one will ever know me.”

The sad news of Fr. Pat Malone’s death arrived yesterday as I was finalizing this “open letter.” I was soon reminded of a post Pat made on his Caring Bridge site during Holy Week 2010. He reflected on the sex abuse scandal roiling the church he loved with his decades long battle with cancer. Pat expressed outrage at clergy abuse of minors but I am encouraged and consoled by his wisdom:

What has most rattled the world, believers and non-believers, is not that an organization has criminals and disturbed individuals within its ranks, but that those who could put the individuals out of harm’s way did not always do so, sometimes until a public outcry demanded it. The way forward was to conceal. There is a place for discretion, especially when it helps the wounded find a new normal, but secrecy too often feeds on itself: it makes it easier to stay clandestine the next time, and the next time. When we do not speak of the corruption, we do not stop it. Secrets keep us ill. They perpetuate shame… Worst of all, secrets convince us that we either do not need redemption, or its beyond our reach.

Pat was a superb Jesuit, of which there are many. He was a beloved associate pastor for St. Luke’s. I trust that he would endorse this truth-telling.

Unquestionably, another powerful motivation has been the decades-long cover-up of clergy sex abuse in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. Minnesota Public Radio broke open the horrendous story more than a year ago. It now finds expression in at least forty law suits against the Archdiocese working their way through the courts. MPR aptly titles its July 14 webcast, “Betrayed by Silence.” This 59-minute radio documentary meticulously recounts the efforts of three successive archbishops to hide clergy sex abuse, failures to comply with protocols enacted by the US bishops in 2002, and stone-walling investigations by law enforcement. Tragically, the “structural sin” of systemic abuse is very much in evidence.

The most immediate and by far the most powerful impetus for my disclosure is a story first broke on July 1 by Commonweal magazine. Since the end of 2013 Archbishop John Nienstedt of St. Paul and Minneapolis has been under investigation for “multiple allegations” of inappropriate sexual conduct with seminarians, priests, and other adult men. Upon receiving complaints last year the Archdiocese has hired a law firm to conduct a full and independent investigation. In the past this would have sent me into a tailspin of depression, perhaps back into therapy. Today I choose the opposite of burying my feelings – rather, I choose to use a newly empowered voice to tell my story out loud and in public.

Regular readers of Kneading Bread know that I have frequently reiterated what rank-and-file Catholics know all too well… the root cause of our sex abuse crisis in the church is the culture of clericalism, hierarchical arrogance and preoccupation with protecting power and privilege. Now you know from where the passion and forcefulness of my conviction is coming. You now better understand the personal price and outrage beneath my words!

On July 7 – still outraged by the story about Archbishop Nienstedt’s alleged misconduct – I wrote on this blog: It’s long past time for more than a little honesty in our church. We are in urgent need of changing the sieve that keeps secret the tragic truth poisoning our church family. Honest confessions are long overdue. Telling my story is holding myself accountable to what I truly believe.

Actually, we need far more than “a little” honesty. I have become exhausted by holding my secret. More and more I am finding my voice – shame simultaneously dissipates. Confession is long overdue! Only now do I feel strong enough to add mine to the long roster of public confessions that still need to be heard in the light of day.

Finally, my family and faithful friends from St. Luke’s deserve yet another expression of gratitude. Your ongoing affection and practical support continue to nurture and inspire me. Over the last few months our paths have crossed at graduation celebrations, retirement parties, birthday recitals and other family get-togethers. We have shared losses and expressed grief as well as joy and achievement. Again without effort or awareness on your part, you remain a tremendous gift. When we have hugged and reminisced I have increasingly left with this conviction: You have a right to know!

Clergy sex abuse is perpetrated by a culture that holds its victims hostage within silence and secrecy. You have been victimized by this culture of abuse as well. As our paths have crossed this summer, especially in light of the scandals currently being exposed in this Archdiocese, it has seemed an injustice to you not to disclose the truth of my departure. Paraphrasing actress Ellen Page’s coming-out statement, “I am simply tired of lying to you by omission.”

You need not be a careful reader to see that I have deliberately not named names. Some in whom I have confided believe I should. But my purpose is not to seek revenge or retaliation. Yes, an undercurrent of anger, pain and grief flows through these pages. I have tried for too long to bury or disguise it. What’s buried alive stays alive. No more! I can achieve what contributes to my healing without saying more than I need to say.

One thing anger has taught is that it can be used to hurt or to heal. I sincerely want the hurt to stop – disclosing names just feels hurtful and stopping short of naming names feels right. I seek healing, for me and for all victims – not naming names seems like an appropriate way to express my strength and direct my anger toward that goal.

A composition of this length warrants a crescendo close. The only one that comes to mind is the quote from the Greek poet Aeschylus made famous by Robert Kennedy when I was seventeen and too young to fully comprehend its import. RFK concluded his remarks on the day Martin Luther King was assassinated:

“Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.”

But this composition is not history nor mythology – it’s my story, my life! Truly, it has become a story we share. It is our story! I am incapable of crafting a fitting conclusion alone. No longer do I presume to carry the responsibility of crafting that conclusion by myself.

Healing comes when we are open and honest, when the fullness of our lives is given as gift for others.

 

 

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A Story, a Sonnet, a Song

Our family’s deepest roots in America reach to May 7, 1842 with the arrival of Timothy Hannon at the Port of Boston. He was the son of Daniel and Mary Hannon born in Ballinadee, County Cork Ireland on August 10. Conflicting records indicate his year of birth as either 1818 or 1822.

Timothy married Julia Mahoney who had been born in Ireland in 1823. Their modest, unsung lives portend a quintessential American family story.

Timothy and Julia’s wedding was celebrated on February 18, 1849 at Sts. Peter and Paul Church in South Boston. They became American citizens on December 17, 1850 with the filing of Timothy’s naturalization papers.  The 1850 census states that neither Timothy nor Julia could read or write. Each would die of tuberculosis — he in 1860 and she in 1885.

Coincidentally, it was in 1885 that Hugh O’Brien was sworn in as Boston’s first Irish-born mayor. The city had long been controlled by native-born “Yankees”—most of whom had a stereotypical view of Irish immigrants as poor, ignorant, undisciplined, and under the thumb of the Catholic Church.

But the Irish-born population of Boston was exploding, growing from 2,000 in 1820 to 7,000 in 1830. By 1880, more than 70,000 Irish lived in Boston. The year Julia Mahoney Hannon died and Hugh O’Brien was elected mayor, the Irish were over 40% of the city’s population — the largest group of foreign-born residents and outnumbering the native-born Yankees.

The Statute of Liberty, iconic symbol of immigrant aspirations and America at our best, was dedicated in October, 1886. Even now, the sonnet by Emma Lazarus that graces the base of Lady Liberty expresses the sentiment of every family seeking a brighter future in America:

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Finally, [here] is a link to the Cantus rendition of Oh God of All the Nations. Set to The Finlandia hymn by Jean Sibelius, the lyrics were written by American poet, Lloyd Stone. Sometime during this holiday weekend treat yourself to the two-minute You-Tube video link above.  It has become my favorite patriotic song and has been known to bring me to tears.

Happy Birthday, America!  May we be true to our story, our promise and our best selves.

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Love you, Bro!

My hero, my mentor, my big brother died one year ago today.  Yes, I miss him daily and would give anything for just one more “Villa Run.”  Yet, in stark contrast to other deaths I have grieved, I am consoled by Jerry’s enduring presence every day.  This presence transcends fond memories prompted by photos in the TV room.

Sixteen years my elder, I traversed that stage of rejecting whatever anyone tried to tell me about how to live my life.  Now, one year after Jerry’s death I spontaneously depend on his wisdom to show me what my life, what human growth and maturity — life fully lived — should look like.

Life on life’s terms!

Let go!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

I could do no better than to put into practice what Jerry lived.  I can do no better than to again share the eulogy I offered one year ago…

My brother’s life can be explained in three words. …just three words: Jerry loved Marilyn! She was his best friend, trusted confidant, spiritual soulmate, …his beloved. I know, I was there at the beginning! Some of you knew Gert, our dear mother! She believed this too. More than once Gert is known to have said: “You know, Marilyn is the best thing that ever happened to Jerry!” And that’s a mother speaking!

Yes, my brother’s life can be explained in three words – and the mirror of these three words is the other side of the equation: Marilyn loved Jerry. Marilyn has a tremendous capacity for love! Yet everyone in this room who holds Marilyn so dear … in our many unique and special ways … knows without question that Marilyn’s love for Jerry was always first, singular and unqualified.

And I’m here to tell you that loving my brother like that is no easy feat. Burbachs come with a double dose of certain character defects – especially Burbach males. All of you know, probably better than we who are in it up to our eyeballs, that we tend to be hard-charging, opinionated, stubborn and can boast of a good dose of unbridled pride to bout. Jerry was no exception – yet we love him. We love him.

We have witnessed a remarkable transformation in Jerry over the years, especially over the last ten years. And it was not just – or even primarily – about Alzheimer’s! Hard-charging became more gentle. Opinionated softened into acceptance and inclusion. Stubbornness began to morph into patience. Pride began to show glimmers of genuine humility. Then there was gratitude – tremendous gratitude: “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.” Yes, Jerry’s thirty years in AA working a 12 step program certainly contributed to his spiritual transformation in character defects. But that’s not the real explanation! Jerry loved Marilyn. And the other half of this truth is: Marilyn loved Jerry.

As spiritual soulmates, Jerry and Marilyn lived and experienced their very special love as deeply Sacramental – a living sign, a tangible expression – here and now – of how God loves… even unto death. We have experienced their love in hospitality, compassion; as generative, life-giving — most conspicuously we have them to thank for Matt and Chris! But, we are all richer because of the other-centeredness of Jerry and Marilyn’s love.

The explanation for my brother’s life, for his ability to let-go of all that ego-stuff with its bells and whistles, his ability to embrace life-on-life’s-terms, his willingness to step courageously, even if regrettably, into the mystery of Alzheimer’s; finds its source – and salvation – in the steadfast, singular love Jerry and Marilyn shared with each other. We are all witnesses to this truth. And, we are all the better for it!

Jerry you will always be my hero, my idol, my BIG brother! Thank you for teaching all of us how to live, how to love and how to die. We, all of us, “love you, bro!”

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Scripture Blesses Same-Sex Marriage

Twelve years ago I proudly marched in my first Gay Pride parade. Yes, I was afraid! A lifetime of being vilified within American culture and condemned as “inherently disordered” by the church I love and served would not easily loosen its harsh grip.

A few short months before that Sunday in June 2002 I had been the pastor of the Church of St. Luke – an iconic institution a block down Summit Avenue from the Governor’s Mansion. I had been a priest for thirteen years and a Jesuit for twenty-three. The stark contrast between preaching and presiding at Sunday liturgy and now marching in the Pride parade down Hennepin Avenue could not have been more acute.

I have come to believe what I only intuitively knew twelve years ago – the turmoil and debates in Christian churches are not ultimately about my sexual orientation or even sexuality in general. Our biggest fight is really about our understanding of Scripture and its use in exercising authority and maintaining order in our communities.

If it were really about sexual orientation and behaviors there would be more than enough “inherent disorder” among heterosexuals to keep the defenders of moral rectitude busy! As Luke Timothy Johnson – distinguished professor of New Testament at Emory University and father of four – incisively points out, a relatively small set of same-sex behaviors gets singled out for moral condemnation while a vast pandemic of sexual disorder goes ignored.

It’s a moral duplicity as old as the human race! The LGBT minority offers a convenient scapegoat onto which the cultural majority easily projects its own moral failings. Righteous indignation often compensates for the human state of powerlessness. Long ago I learned to be especially wary of any who would sit in moral judgment – what is so out of control in their own lives that they feel the need to control mine or the lives of others? From my way of reading the Gospels, this resonates with what Jesus preached. And for that, he was scapegoated by those who claimed seats of authority.

As Luke Timothy Johnson convincingly asserts is an essay cited below, a moral obligation confronts those of us who experience God at work among all persons and in all covenanted and life-enhancing forms of sexual love. Believe me, those who are gay understand fully that the authority of Scripture and of the church’s tradition is scarcely trivial to us.

At the same time, we must honestly ask when has Christianity ever been lived in precise accord with the Scriptures? Forget about reconciling war with Jesus’ Scriptural teachings of nonviolence, I am regularly exasperated with Catholic bishops who wantonly ignore its own Just War tradition while giving tacit approbation to whatever military action our government chooses to deploy.

Scripture and tradition are conveniently and regularly set aside by bishops no less those of us who populate the pews every weekend. What about divorce? Even under another name such as “annulment”, Jesus explicitly prohibits it! And where would we be if Christians ever faithfully observed the exhortation in Leviticus to put adulterers to death?    Must wives be submissive to their husbands to have a good Christian marriage?

Yes, something sacred is at stake. The authority of Scripture and of the church’s tradition is scarcely trivial. As Professor Johnson demands, our responsibility is to take our tradition and the Scripture with at least as much seriousness as those who use the Bible as a buttress for rejecting forms of sexual love they fear or cannot understand.

Again relying heavily on Johnson’s compelling insights, our situation vis-à-vis the authority of Scripture is not unlike that of abolitionists in nineteenth-century America. All abolitionists could point to was Galatians 3:28 and the Letter of Philemon, while slave owners had the rest of the Old and New Testaments which gave every indication that slaveholding was legitimate and necessary. Scripture explicitly sanctions slavery as a God-ordained social arrangement, one to which neither Moses nor Jesus nor Paul raised any fundamental objection.

So how is it that now, in the early twenty-first century, the authority of the scriptural texts on slavery and the arguments made on their basis appear to all of us, without exception, as completely beside the point and deeply wrong? The answer is that over time the human experience of slavery and its horror came home to the popular conscience.

Eventually, though begrudgingly, we came to recognize that every human being is created in God’s own image. Once that experience of their full humanity and the evil of their bondage reached a stage of critical consciousness, this nation and our churches could neither turn back to the practice of slavery nor ever read the Bible in the same way again.

Those of us who call for full recognition of gay and lesbian persons within the Christian communion find ourselves in a position similar to that of the early abolitionists. We are fully aware of the weight of scriptural evidence pointing away from our position.

To justify our resolve, we invoke the basic Pauline principle that the Spirit gives life but the letter kills (2 Corinthians 3:6). And if the letter of Scripture cannot find room for the activity of the living God in the transformation of human lives, then trust and obedience must be paid to the living God rather than to the words of Scripture.

Paul struggled mightily! Ultimately he recognized he could not force the God of Jesus Christ into the framework of his community’s previous understanding of what it means to be a people in covenant relationship with God. Instead, he called others to reread and reinterpret all of their Scripture with new eyes and a transformed heart. We too journey to Damascus and are at times startled to recognize Christ in those we previously rejected if not persecuted.

Quite simply, we would not revere the New Testament as sacred if the first believers had not been willing to obey the living God disclosed in their own stories and experiences more than the prescriptions contained in their sacred texts —writings we, as did they, cherish as holy and inspired by God.

It is extraordinarily important, as well, that we who assert convictions based on the graced experience of our lives not just accept “cheap” or “easy” grace – as if whatever feels good is morally acceptable. What grounds our Scriptural defense is our own lived experience of those profound stories of bondage and freedom, longing and love, shared by thousands of persons over many centuries and across many cultures, that help define us as human.

Our obligation, therefore, is to name what constitutes virtue and vice in sexual behavior. A good start would be applying the same criteria on both sides. If porneia among heterosexuals includes promiscuity, violence and exploitation, then the church must condemn similar forms of homosexual activity. Similarly, if holiness among heterosexuals includes fidelity, chastity, modesty, and fruitfulness, we should celebrate and praise the same virtues whenever and wherever present in same-sex love.

The creative, redemptive work of our living God never ceases. The Spirit blows as and where she will. As people and as the People of God, we continue to be shaped as imagio Dei every day of our lives in ways that can surprise and even shock us. This fact cuts to the deepest truth revealed by Scripture itself—namely, that God does create the world anew at every moment, does call into being that which is not, and does raise the dead to new and greater forms of life.

In this perennial struggle to come to the fullness of faith, brave witnesses like Paul refused to force their experience of the Risen One into the “old wineskins” of any dogmatic or literal understanding of Scripture. Instead, they followed the invitation to give witness to Christ alive among them. In the light of that experience, they began to reread and reinterpret all of their Scripture as prophecy that reveals God in ways they had not perceived before—and could not have perceived before.

In short, we would not have the New Testament as Scripture if the first believers had not been willing to obey the living God disclosed in their own bodies more than the precedents provided by their most cherished writings—writings we also, by the way, consider holy and inspired by God.

Jesus reserves his harshest judgment for the Pharisees’ willful narrowing of God’s initiative and intentions. They obstinately clung to their own sense of righteousness rather than acknowledging God’s prerogative and propensity to work in ways their moral categories could not contain. In this we see that human history truly does reveal salvation history!

Yes, much has changed in the last twelve years. Much more needs to change – and this by God’s design and initiative. This Sunday morning I don’t know if I will be at the parade or at church. It will come down to how the Spirit moves me!  My hunch is I will be in the pew at Christ the King Catholic Church.

In any case, let’s all celebrate where we’ve been, where we’ve come  and where we’re headed — with parades and in our churches. Happy Pride!
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This reflection is largely an edit and synopsis of Luke Timothy Johnson’s superb essay, “Homosexuality & The Church: Scripture and Experience” that first appeared in the June 11, 2007 issue of Commonweal magazine. In writing, I made the judgment that extensive citations and quotations would be distracting. Nevertheless, I must express my esteem for and indebtedness to Professor Johnson. I enthusiastically encourage you to read his more extensive and compelling essay [here].

 

 

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Good Grief

Grief softens, taunts us into familiarity, befriends us over time and — though uninvited — comes to settle in with us as a respected companion.

At least that’s my experience from the perspective of having lost five of nine siblings. Today is the third anniversary of my brother Art’s death.

You would have liked him — I honestly do not know a person who did not! Of the six brothers he clearly inherited our Dad’s gracious charm and ease with people. He was incorrigibly kind, generous, self-effacing, optimistic and happy. That was quite a feat given our genetic disposition and his ten-year battle with lung cancer.

Art loved cars as did our dad, his namesake. One of my most vivid childhood memories was his purchase of a sleek, white, 1959 Pontiac Star Chief sedan — it belongs in the Smithsonian! Just having it parked in our driveway gave this nine-year old immediate, and fully exploited, bragging rights.

Art’s fascination with cars endured but also signaled a fundamental shift. No longer needing to flash an icon of a financially flush bachelor, over time Art became quite skilled in car repair. He embraced a new focus, new goals. Modesty and frugality became his obsession as Joyce and their three kids became the locus of his pride and uncontested priority.

Always the financial wizard and astute investor, Art became as selfless as is constitutionally possible for a Burbach male. His many sacrifices and deep reservoir of faith in God and other people has been validated in terrific children with whom I am proud to share the family name.

One last, parting gift endures. Honored to be among my brother’s pallbearers, I was unprepared for what I was asked to carry.  Lumbering up a slight incline at Calvary cemetery proved more than I could manage. I buckled under the weight — others had to come to my rescue.  Thus, my brother’s legacy continues to work its way with me.

Being the youngest of a large family is a profound gift. Perhaps I learn from some of their mistakes, though plenty of evidence suggests the contrary. Certainly I profit from their example and wisdom.  I am growing more accustomed to not being the leader, content — perhaps blessed — to follow.

More than ever, I am coming to appreciate what T.S. Eliot expressed so well:

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
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T.S. Eliot’s famous quote is from the conclusion of Little Gidding, the last of his Four Quartets.