I Support Father McCarrick
Archbishop McCarrick, as expected, has been laicized. Unfortunately, most reporters have adopted the infelicitous and somewhat inaccurate verb “to defrock” to describe what happens when the Church, as a penalty, reduces a cleric to the lay state juridically. We may need to unpack a few things about that means.
Firstly, the status of a “cleric” is a juridical category. That is to say, a person under Church Law who possesses rights and obligations by virtue of their status. In the Pio-Benedictine Code (1917), a tonsured seminarian was considered a cleric, and he was generally expected to continue up to Holy Orders proper. In the current code from 1983, only persons in Major Orders are considered clerics, since the Minor Orders were suppressed by Bl. Pope Paul VI in 1972’s Apostolic Letter Ministeria Quaedam. The Code has since made a strict one-to-one correspondence between the receiving of the clerical state and the receiving of Major Orders. This reflects also an evolving understanding of who has in fact received Sacramental Orders, since the 1917 code was forged when Neo-Scholasticism was still predominant, and several medieval theologians, including most famously St. Thomas Aquinas, held that the Minor Orders were sacramental in nature.
Many voices have opined about the benefits and detriments of making a strict correspondence between the juridical state of cleric and the status of having received Holy Orders. Yet, because of this strict correspondence today, it may be lost on most people that there is a true distinction between the Sacramental Character of the Sacrament of Holy Orders and the Juridical State of Clerics.
The tension between our ancient understanding of Sacramental Character, and our need sometimes to preserve discipline in the Church, is one of an enduring nature. In essence, our treatment of men in Holy Orders is analogous to the Church’s treatment of men and women united in Holy Matrimony. No power on earth can dissolve a validly contracted and consummated marriage. Likewise, no power on earth can remove the Sacramental Character from a Deacon, Priest or Bishop, any more than one’s Sacramental Character as one of the Baptized and Confirmed. However, it is foreseen and tolerated that perhaps a married couple may separate from each other without attempting remarriage. The marriage bond remains objectively intact, but for whatever reason, the couple may decide to live apart. In the context of a Deacon, Priest or Bishop, the question is a little more thorny. A validly contracted and consummated marriage is intrinsically indissoluble, yet can end when one of the parties dies. Sacramental Ordination, however, is indelible. This is one of the reasons that the Church is so adamant about the wearing of clerical attire for the Priest, because his external wear ought to reflect his internal and eternal configuration to Christ. A Priest should not, and cannot, pretend that he can go back to what he was before. He is, as we say, a Priest forever.
There is a sense, then, that the juridical penalty of laicization is a legal fiction, because it attempts to practically erase what is essentially permanent: to command that a man, eternally made an alter Christus, return to what he was before, so that the Church may both protect herself from harm (by that I mean both the faithful and the institution), and also protect the integrity and good name of Priests in general.
Historically speaking, the penalty of laicization, also called deposition, degradation or dismissal from the clerical state, depending on the term preferred by canonists of different historical eras and with distinct nuances, is rare. In recent times, certain people, desirous of something a little more melodramatic than the ‘mere’ canonical penalty itself, have dug up esoteric rituals such as the Degradatio ab ordine pontificali, or literally the ‘Degradation from the Order of Bishop’, which involves, among other things, cutting the man with a knife and/or shard of glass in order to signify depriving the man, “to the extent of our powers”, of their spiritual status.
The fact is, as even the sober Catholic Encyclopedia notes, rituals such as these were exceptionally rare, and even then the degraded cleric was still obliged to celibacy and the recitation of the Breviary in the old code. Often times even under the new code, they are so obliged. Moreover, such a penalty was imposed only “when [previous] deposition and excommunication have been applied in vain, and the culprit has proved incorrigible.” If this then was done, the man was then handed over to the ‘secular arm’ to be judged for whatever crime he committed.
I have a lot of problems on a theoretical and theological level with laicization, especially when it is used as a ‘cure-all’ for clerics who commit canonical crimes. We are not even fifty years removed from the action of St. Pope John Paul II, who stemmed the tidal wave of voluntary petitions for laicization which exploded during the Pontificate of Bl. Pope Paul VI. John Paul II recognized that the en masse use of laicization, whether as a rescript pro gratia or a penalty, is a serious problem. In the case of voluntary requests for laicization, the Priest typically had several years of Seminary to prepare to receive Sacred Orders and to exercise its obligations. This is far more time, obviously, than even most married couples have to prepare for their own lifelong commitment. The Church should not be eager to release such a man from the obligations of the clerical state, especially if the man is open to being spiritually and morally fortified by programs or assignments for the sake of his well-being.
Mutatis mutandis, a cleric guilty of canonical crimes (delicta), it seems to me, should not be automatically reduced to the lay state without very serious considerations, some of which I have written about before. The number and gravity of the crimes are one consideration. The contumacy of the cleric is another. Also, much like in a civil court, demonstration of remorse or desire for reform is another consideration for applying a penalty.
A Canon Lawyer may say that this is already done in most cases, and I would probably agree with them, if only I had not seen how some Bishops around the world seem to pursue laicization, not for the sake of the Church and of the Priest himself, but mostly because of a desire to avoid bad press and financial responsibility. As I have written about before, there are cases out there where men are not guilty of any delict strictly considered. For instance, let’s take as an example a Priest who, after having surgery, was given opioids for pain. If the Priest develops an addiction to the drugs, obviously that Priest probably is not fit for ministry. But it seems to be a penalty of singular cruelty, granted that such an addiction can happen to good people anywhere, that he should be coerced, whether formally or informally, to seek dismissal from the clerical state, or even worse, to have it imposed upon him as a penalty. Or, let’s use the example of a Priest who is cleared by civil authority from any crime, yet who cannot seem to secure an assignment, or who is treated as if his legitimate rights did not exist under the law. To summarize in a sentence, this is, to put it mildly, a very inconsistent era (antinomian, if you will) in the Church in terms of the application of her laws. Yet regardless of what the practice of individual bishops have been, I think it is more in keeping with the mind of the Church historically that laicizations should be kept, to quote a slogan on another issue, “safe, legal, and rare.”
That brings me to McCarrick. McCarrick is already an octogenarian living in relative obscurity in prayer and penance. In comparison, what springs to mind here is the final years of the late Fr. Marcial Maciel, who died in 2008 after having been ordered to conduct a life of prayer and penance. His sins and crimes were also of a nature which became well known as they exploded into the public forum. He was also a public figure well trusted by a reigning Pontiff. Yet his case, in my judgment, was well handled, in that it considered both the delicts, the status of the perpetrator, and the applicability of the penalty.
I think it may be safely said that justice is only truly justice when it is impartial. Judgments rendered for ulterior motives, outside of the established facts of the persons and the cases involved, often are motivated more by politics, public relations and vengeance than out of reason and justice. They ultimately do more harm than good.
Archbishop McCarrick has now been reduced to the lay state. I object to this. This is why I say that I support Father McCarrick against Mister McCarrick: this man doubtlessly has done a lot of terrible things throughout his life, and he has created the circumstances for disorder to reign even after he has gone to his eternal reward. Yet, to reference Archbishop Viganò, there is one great thing that Archbishop McCarrick is still able to do, one thing which may yet save his soul and greatly heal the Church: to publicly repent. And not only to publicly repent, but to publicly repent precisely as a Priest. His sins and crimes were done largely while possessing the sacerdotal dignity, which makes me believe it is fitting that his penance be done precisely in that state, by which he may offer (hopefully) whatever contrition he has in his private Masses, his recitation of the Church’s Office, and him accepting without complaint the humble and simple life, befitting a man about to leave behind all earthly concerns.
Dismissal from the clerical state, as a juridical penalty, occludes the reality which we profess theologically that a Priest is a Priest forever. Although I most certainly accept that that penalty exists with good reason, I think it really should only be imposed on the most perfidious of public sinners, who may yet do more harm. In other words, not to a man who, now at the close of his earthly life, may yet do some good, both to the Church and to himself, by being a model of penance. Some may say that McCarrick eminently (irony intended) deserves laicization, as he was obstinate, contumacious and to date unrepentant of his actions, but it is difficult to know with so much secrecy over the process.
Pope Francis in the past has shown himself at best to be magnanimous, at worst permissive, in regard to his treatment of clerical offenders of various types. Quite frankly, there is no rhyme and reason to any of it. Famously, he said “if someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?” I wish people paid more attention to the subordinate clause in that sentence, “if…he searches for the Lord and has good will.” A few years later he says to the same group, “Be celibate or get out.” One thing, however, seems to be certain: the Pope protects those whom he considers his friends, or at least those whom he considers useful. Archbishop McCarrick has long since ceased to be either of these.
On a purely political level, the laicization of Archbishop McCarrick is an example of Pope Francis’ perennial Peronism, the primacy of short term expediency over long term stability. I feel, in my darkest thoughts, that this penalty has nothing to do with the good of the soul of McCarrick or the Church, but has everything to do with giving a pound of flesh to the media at the upcoming emergency synod. If McCarrick still possesses his faculties, one wonders whether he may be willing or able to take action against the Pontiff who brazenly used and then discarded him. It seems exceedingly rash, from a purely Machiavellian vantage point, to take ‘off the payroll’ the very man who is capable, should he talk, of bringing down many powerful men. Pope Francis thus in my mind is not only making a pastoral error by laicizing McCarrick, but also a political one.
It is my opinion that, all things being equal, the penalty of prayer and penance should be more frequently enforced rather than laicization. There is a lot of good that can be done by having Priests, especially those guilty of a lifetime of transgressions against the law, both divine and ecclesiastical, to go do penance for their sins. Laicization in the context of Archbishop McCarrick feels more like a political trophy, or a public relations stunt, than a move to seriously humble a long-time element of the Church whose influence is only outpaced by its arrogance in the Francis Era. Prayer and penance would also help highlight for the faithful that this is a particular time when both are necessary not just for hierarchs, but for all. We are living in a time of great corruption and confusion. Manifestations of prayer and penance on the part of the Church, especially by those who have gravely wounded her, would be an extremely important salve, both spiritually and symbolically. It would also avoid the extremes of punitive vengeance on the one hand, and laxity on the other.
So yes, I support Father McCarrick, Bishop and Priest. The prayers of such a man, truly repentant, could do the whole Church great good even now. May God so grant him the grace, for the edification of all.
