12-18-2021
In my own spiritual life, I am working towards integrity in emotion, thought, and action. I am striving for a greater level of honesty to myself and others, and I seek to align my inner and outer life. This is not to say that I am currently living as a con woman. I think this is something everyone deals with to one extent or another. Sometimes we live in denial. We lie to ourselves and then get used to those lies. We present ourselves in certain ways to achieve a certain reception in the people around us. If we are not careful, we can sometimes lose sight of the truth of our thoughts and emotions. The thoughts and feelings can sometimes change as well. We speak out of habit, presenting beliefs that we once had but no longer do.
This is not to say that we must lay bare all of our thoughts and emotions. Often it takes years to sort through a complex situation. It is good to keep some aspect of ourselves to ourselves. However it is also critically important that we do not openly betray our inner life with our outer life. We do not need to share everything, but we should never live in a way that tears down our private journeys. Likewise, our inner lives should not betray what we say and do outwardly. If there is a significant discrepancy, we need to take pause and figure out how to realign our inner and outer lives.
This transparency is important not only for ourselves but for those around us as well. When a mother expresses a strong emotion, her toddler will immediately study her face. He is trying to learn what expression goes with what emotion. He is developing his emotional intelligence. As children grow, this continues. Naming and acknowledging emotion is a skill that even many adults struggle with. They often struggle with it because they were sent mixed messages as adolescents.
What does this have to do with the church?
In our church, we often focus on dogma. We are cautioned against leading others astray. In Matthew 18:6 we read: “If anyone causes one of these little ones…to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck…” This leads many to have a “better safe than sorry” kind of attitude. They may disagree with the church on certain moral issues, but they spout off the appropriate sound bite so as to be in line with church teaching. They may not follow church teaching in certain parts of their lives, but they keep quiet about it, thinking it is a private matter.
This is a tricky thing. It takes time to figure out our own lives, and we don’t necessarily want to be public about all of our discernment. However I tend to think honesty is the best policy. Otherwise we start to have a church (and society) full of people whose inner lives diverge significantly from their outer lives.
Take the case of Monsignor Burrill. He resigned from his position as the top administrator for the USCCB when The Pillar ran a story based on cell phone data showing frequent use of the Grindr app over the course of several years as well as location data showing he visited gay bathhouses. (https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/pillar-investigates-usccb-gen-sec) In his position with the USCCB, Monsignor Burrill helped coordinate the U.S. bishops’ response to the sexual abuse scandals that erupted, once again, in 2018.
This has been analyzed numerous times across different segments of American society. Some focus on the homosexual nature of Monsignor Burrill’s activity. Some focus on the violation of privacy involved in collecting location data to investigate the private life of a priest. Some focus on the lack of journalistic ethics involved in painting a simplistic picture of this man’s life without context.
To me, the issue is not Monsignor Burrill’s sexual activities per se. It is not a question about the morality of homosexual activity. It is not about promiscuity as long as it truly does involve consenting adults. The issue is the lying. If you actively teach a certain ethic and are held up as an example to millions of people as a way to live this ethic, you have a responsibility to them. If you blatantly violate this ethic for years on end all the while allowing yourself to be upheld as an example? This is where the most harm is done.
And what about the bishops who hired Msgr. Burrill? They participated in this deceit. The Roman Catholic Church hold itself up as a moral authority for the world. It not only claims authority over practicing Catholics, it claims authority over all humanity on a number of issues which are at the center of people’s lives. Consider a phrase from the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “…every action which, whether in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible is intrinsically evil.” (CCC 2370) Think about the phrase intrinsically evil. This is not a teaching concerning how practicing Catholics can choose to develop discipline. It is not saying that some people may give up birth control the way others give up candy during lent. It is saying that any human being using contraception is engaging in an evil activity.
This is such strong language. It is such a strong claim of moral authority. But over the past few years a question has popped into my head over and over: Do the leaders of our church even believe what they teach? I think many are confused at best and blatant hypocrites at worst.
I do not believe that The Pillar wrote this article about Monsignor Burril for entertainment purposes. The article was a manifestation of the deep pain and helplessness felt by many laity and low-level clergy alike. We see the hypocrisy, but there is no way to address it. We see that those in power and those charged with ensuring both our spiritual and physical safety are not at the helm. The lying, the coverup, the attitude that loyalty is more important than truth-these things are the very crux of the sex abuse crisis itself. That Monsignor Burrill would have a leadership role in addressing the recent sex abuse crisis is solid proof to many people that the Church is not looking out for their spiritual or physical well-being. The trust is gone.
This is a tragedy. It is a tragedy for the laity. It is a tragedy for priests who lack spiritual guidance from their superiors. Most significantly, it is a tragedy for Monsignor Burrill and other men like him. Hypocracy erodes spiritual life. Hopefully Monsignor Burrill will do the hard work of figuring out how to live with integrity so that his inner and outer lives do not exist in such contradiction. Whether he recommits to celibacy or openly lives as a sexually active man, there is at least a virtue in honesty.
This is painful. Many people struggle mightily to follow church teaching. Many people struggle even if they seriously question the teachings concerning topics such as sexuality. Couples abstain for decades to avoid pregnancy because they refuse to get sterilized. LGBT folks will lead celibate lives, trusting in the teachings of their church. Victims of divorce (those abandoned by their spouse through no fault of their own) live out the rest of their lives alone, refusing to remarry. People leave or otherwise get shunned from their church communities because they simply cannot manage, no matter how hard they try, to follow the teachings of the church.