Submitted April 3, 2005

Response to Mr. Hanley on Church Governance, etc.

I thank Mr. Hanley for his March 29 response to my March 22 article on this website. While I disagree with his views, he provides more dialogue about key questions concerning Orthodoxy, including the misconduct problem and Church secrecy. That is valuable, because so few people in Orthodoxy are willing to talk about these matters.

Mr. Hanley’s basic position seems to be that laypeople should not raise questions or speak out about concerns in the Church because bishops can be trusted to take care of things and their authority should not be questioned.

Is he not aware of the massive and horrendous abuse of children that took place in the Catholic Church – under the authority of bishops? He writes in bold type: “… I do not need to know the facts.” Does he really mean that? He seems to be saying that he only needs to know some headlines, not the details.

(What does the Catholic abuse experience have to do with Orthodoxy? As I have written in a previous article, Orthodoxy may not have the magnitude of problem that the Catholics have, but it does have the problem, and, in my view, the clerical culture is similar: secrecy and cover-up are prevalent in both.)

Mr. Hanley is apparently willing to live within the embrace of Church authority. Some may think that admirable. I would say it becomes questionable when it allows one to ignore the wrong-doing that may occur in the Church. He writes that if the Church just informs him of the disposition of certain matters, such as the suspension of a priest, this will be enough and will enable him to know there’s a problem and he can then “…pray for those involved.”

Prayer holds a sacred place in our lives, but in my view it is not a substitute for responsible Christian action in the face of wrong-doing in the Church.

He also writes that “…the full disclosure of events such as the suspension of clergy, excommunication of individuals, or other decisions of spiritual courts in the Church will serve only to further scandalize the faithful and cause additional harm to any and all victims.”

I would strongly disagree. I would contend that the faithful “can take it.” They should not be treated like children who cannot be told certain things. And, they should certainly be made aware of situations that can help them protect their own children from possible abuse. The light of more information is far more preferable to the darkness of Church secrecy.

I guess Mr. Hanley would not have wanted the current news about the Greek Orthodox parish in Corona, New York to be made public (where a Spiritual Court has excommunicated individual members). Not only would people like myself want this kind of information to be made available; we would also question the use of a Spiritual Court itself. These are not supposed to be the days of the Catholic Inquisition. I find it very objectionable that the Church has used this kind of “Court” to intimidate laypeople about a matter that could more properly have been handled by a Dispute Resolution process.

This website has recently been full of news from Greece and the Middle East about various allegations of serious misconduct in Orthodoxy. Would Mr. Hanley prefer to erase those articles so the faithful won’t be “scandalized”? (The Catholic bishops also kept the abuse quiet because they didn’t want the Church to be “scandalized”, and the result was that even more children were molested.)

The greater harm comes from lack of information, I believe. In another current example, the Greek archdiocese has borrowed $1.5 million to pay settlements on abuse cases, but it won’t tell us the names of the priests involved. Presumably, bishops – and lawyers – are making that decision. Does Mr. Hanley think this cover-up is acceptable?

I wrote in my article that if the bishops showed more Christian accountability to the faithful, they would be discussing such matters as the sexual misconduct issue with the people. Absent that, it is certainly proper for laypeople to speak out about these matters. As the Boston Globe editorialized about child abuse in the Church, these are not just “pastoral” matters, they are crimes. And, people in a free society have a legitimate role in addressing these issues. They cannot just be kept within the Church. We don’t even discuss them in our parish life. When the Greek archdiocese created its Clergy Sexual Misconduct Policy in 2002, it announced that it was very serious about this matter. But there’s been very little discussion of any kind about it and it has never been required that the parishes discuss it.

Yes, Mr. Hanley, I do know how the Church governs itself and I question that form of governance. (My overall view of Church governance can be found in an article I wrote last year, available in the April 6, 2004 issue of this website.) Mr. Hanley seems to say that one must simply accept how the Church governs itself. While, with our separation of Church and State in this country, the Church enjoys a special freedom, it is not immune from the views of citizens and the laws of the larger society. We have seen this in the Catholic situation where Church records have been subpoenaed, for example, and in the recent New Hampshire decision where a court ruled that the state “…can conduct a thorough and independent review of the diocese’s policies”, according to The Union Leader newspaper in Manchester.

How did this case come about? The Union Leader reported that “Admitting its past handling of sexually abusive priests could have resulted in a criminal conviction, the diocese struck the agreement with the state to avoid prosecution under the state’s child endangerment statutes.” Contrast this reality with what Metropolitan Isaiah wrote to Houston parishioners. This was in the letter I referred to in my previous article. He was writing that he could not place the Church under any civil authority, and said: “For if I were to undergo civil arbitration, I would in essence place the Patriarch and the whole Church under individuals who represent worldly society.”

Some in Orthodoxy act as though the Catholic experience has been occurring on another planet. Government intervention could also take place in some Orthodox dioceses, I would contend. That’s why I find it so disturbing that Metropolitan Isaiah, for instance, makes no response when legitimate questions are raised about the Fr. Barrow case or about his chairing the Clergy Sexual Misconduct Board. Mr. Hanley would apparently have us remain silent, except for prayer.

I’m afraid I have seen enough to say that I cannot trust the bishops to serve the best interests of the faithful.

Am I engaging in “witch-hunting”? I don’t think so. What I and others have been seeking for several years now is answers from bishops and a closed system that doesn’t want to give answers and continues to “stone-wall”. The news stories that Mr. Hanley thinks I should be satisfied with were not written because the Church wanted them written. There are still many unanswered questions and it is proper and Christian to pursue them.

In the case of Fr. Greer, I would stand by what I wrote and emphasize again that the people of the diocese have a right to know why a priest has been suspended. Fr. Greer came into the Greek archdiocese from another Orthodox jurisdiction. If he goes to yet another jurisdiction, his new community also has a right to know why he was suspended.

In the case of Fr. Barrow, he had been dismissed by the Antiochian Archdiocese some years before he was brought into the Denver diocese of the Greek Archdiocese. (In previous writings, I have questioned how this took place.) The people of the diocese – particularly parents - had the basic right to know about his background, and to have had the opportunity to object to his assignment. The bishops of course claim the “exclusive right” to assign priests. In view of the abuse revelations of the past several years, that right can be questioned, in any Church. In the meantime, the bishops have an awesome responsibility in properly screening a priest before he is assigned to a parish; but in the kind of church that I and others want to see, laypeople could also assist their bishop in such a process. Would Mr. Hanley agree that there is a legitimate role for the laity in these matters?

The quote from Metropolitan Isaiah was not taken out of context, it was taken from the letter he wrote to parishioners of the Annunciation Cathedral in Houston, referred to above.

Mr. Hanley writes that all of the situations mentioned in my article were surely “…brought before the attention of the Eparchial synod.” Surely, Mr. Hanley cannot be serious about that. But if they were somehow, then where was the communication with the people about any of these issues?

I understand that Mr. Hanley is an Orthodox seminarian. I hope that he will be willing to modify his views as time passes.



Volume 7 Number 14 - Tuesday, April 5th, 2005	A Publication of the ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN LAITY