Karl Keating
August 6th, 2018
IT’S TIME TO DECIMATE THE BISHOPS
Last night I finished reading Graham Greene’s “The Tenth Man.” The story begins with German guards telling prisoners that one in ten would be killed in the morning in retaliation for German soldiers having been killed in the nearby town.
The title and story make me think that a good way to start the cleansing of the Church in America would be for every tenth bishop to resign (or to be booted out).
Since there are almost 300 bishops in the U.S., that would mean about 30 resignations or bootings.
The term “decimate” comes from Roman times.
If a military unit had been guilty of a serious offense, such as mutiny, it was punished by killing every tenth soldier, the survivors thereafter likely being more obedient.
In more recent times “decimate” has come to have a softer meaning, but it still connotes getting rid of a tenth of something.
I think it would be good if we got rid of a tenth of our bishops.
As a start. It wouldn’t be difficult to come up with a list of 30 American bishops who deserves to get the heave-ho.
There are some, such as the entirely unlamented Theodore McCarrick, who, with moral certitude, are guilty of serious offenses. They top the list.
There are far more who either knew or should have known what the likes of McCarrick were up to. They covered up, either intentionally or negligently.
If intentionally, then we can say they were complicit in the moral crimes of the McCarricks and deserve to go.
If negligently, then we can say that, out of incompetence, they shouldn’t be permitted to exercise any level of authority higher than that of an assistant manager at a burger joint.
They equally need to go. (I realize that there no doubt are far more than 30 bishops who fall into these two categories.)
Concurrent with this initial cleansing effort I’d like to see a national investigatory panel that has full “subpoena” powers.
By that I mean that no diocesan file would be outside its reach.
The panel would consist entirely of laymen, with a few priests–such as from the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars–serving as outside consultants.
No bishop would be permitted to serve on the panel, since the bishops would be the chief objects of investigation.
But bishops and priests would be obligated to testify before the panel, as the panel deems necessary.
In all instances in which the panel determines that there has been substantial grounds to believe that a bishop or priest has been a predator, the investigatory files would be made public, with necessary redactions of private information about the victims, if the victims so choose.
And, in these cases, the offending bishops and priests would be laicized.
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