Interesting perspective JD. My only question is... if we start extending the Church law to cover more broadly the Church's life, where do we stop?
It seems like the logical trajectory of the expansion of practical canonical jurisdiction could only eventually stop at any activity of any baptized Catholic. From regulating all clerical activities, naturally, it is applied to all lay employees, and then all laypeople who do apostolic activity (theoretically all Catholics). To be sure, I understand the church's understanding of herself as "a perfect society," and think the Church would be perfectly within her rights to discipline any of her members. But an ever expanding ecclesial penal system justified by the abuse crisis would effectively turn into a tort court for sexual immorality.
And hey, maybe this is the radical solution we need for the reform of the Church... I'm open to it! But I think we need to see the radical kernel inside of a proposal like this, and think through its implications before we leap.
Appreciate the measured analysis that is neither an attempt to provide cover for nor hyperventaling and narrative-crafting. HR-related items are rarely neat and clean.
It seems likely that the Church of the near future will have fewer schools, hospitals, and church buildings under direct control. Putting the pope in charge of every Catholic nonprofit is not the answer. St. Peter responded to the scandal of unfed widows by saying "It is not right that we should abandon the preaching of the Gospel to serve at table." The fewer irrelevant properties, media companies, investment banks, and sovereign military orders that are run by "The Church" the better. They are best run by the Church when they are run by individual members of the Church, whether they are bishops or not.
I read the Chris Damian article and it was very shoddy. I would assess it as bad journalism, as well as being uncharitable as far as I can assess just from what is in the article itself. It may even cross into unethical. Finally there may have been a possible illegal recording as far as I can assess without reading California law. Were the women employees of WOF? even that key fact is not clear from the article
When one of the alleged ex employees wrote on Twitter that he was happy Bishop Barron mistaken thought the victim went public and said her name so that this controversy could be created, I know this was more about his attempt to bring down word on fire than it was for justice to victim. It’s a sad.
The Church is vastly better off being comfortable with creative apostolic arrangements than boxing itself into the the least scandal-prone corner it can find.
A few miscellaneous comments. Prior to VII Catholics always practiced respect for our Saints and Ecclesiastical leaders when speaking and writing by using their proper titles. E.g., Saint (or St.) Joseph, Lucy, etc., and Father Smith, Bishop Jones, etc. Then it became fashionable to call everyone by their first or last name. Parish priests became Father John, then just John! Bishops became Bishop John or just “Jones,” or in this case simply “Barron.” I feel this is a sign of disrespect and should be avoided.
Secondly. I think it is awful how we always attack each other over every little thing, even when we do not know the “entire story.” We, Catholic “conservatives” do such a fine job of destroying each other that the enemy needs to do very little. Transparency is a wonderful (and necessary) thing. But bringing down everyone else does not make us better. And so many of us speak and act like experts even when we are not.
Finally, I enjoyed the Pillar article re: Bishop Barron. It was informative and mostly respectful but many of the “comments” were not. Now I suppose some folks will attack me for these comments. That is why I seldom reply to articles even when I disagree with them. Can’t we learn to disagree with others without attacking them? What happened to being “charitable” towards others?
Google suggests that Bishop Barron's "side hustle" has yielded a personal net worth between $3,000,000 and $5,000,000 including revenues of $350,000 from YouTube videos. How can that possibly be acceptable under either canon law or simple common sense?
As a former journalist of many years, I have to say that this is article is far below your usual standards of reporting and and you have lost my trust in your judgment and frankly, honesty. In your coverage of this story you have repeated, without sources or attribution beyond Damien's original story (which also didn't name sources), innuendo and allegations, many of which were false. You posited both that WOF and the bishop were covering for the accused and then fired him without due process to protect the reputation of WOF. So guilty, no matter what the truth was. No one -- not Sipling, not the other employees on the staff meeting call -- can know or judge what the intention was of those who had to make the firing decision. That's not canon law, that's a basic Catholic moral precept. It's clear that the original source, Sipling, had an agenda and was willing to act unethically to further it, and yet you repeated -- without corroboration -- his claims to intimidation, mismanagement and employee discontent at WOF. You gloss over your sensationalistic reporting with the strange argument that you are justified in repeating these smears because it is an interesting straw man case of a potential lacuna in canonical discipline -- again, implying that there is something here to be investigated, when, in fact, no law was broken and no sexual harassment took place between employees or in the workplace. I know you feel there is a need for extreme honesty and transparency in the Church where issues of sexual predation are involved, and so do I. But you made no effort to affirm that that was in fact the case before you repeated and amplified the charges in the original article. Or if you did, they aren't evident in your reporting. I have no connection to WOF and no personal knowledge of what happened.
"It turned out the alleged victim hadn’t actually made such a social media post, but Barron didn’t know that when Gloor was fired. Still, according to the transcript of the Oct. 13 meeting, some employees told Barron that his handling of the matter made them uncomfortable because they had not been told that Gloor was under investigation, and because his firing seemed mostly a response to the prospect of a public relations problem for Word on Fire. "
The article that sparked this whole thing said the woman did make a social media post. So which is it? Also, said article -- which was big on innuendo and very light on facts -- said four women complained, but only one (the one who made the supposed post) "cooperated with the investigation." As there was an investigation, and it found some rather vaguely described but apparently termination-worthy behavior, I don't see what Bishop Barron was supposed to have done wrong. I'm not a big fan of his, but if an employee is accused of something, you have it investigated, and then fire him because of the results... what's the problem, exactly?
The main thing that I saw people complain about was that no one "believed the victims" when they talked. But three of them did not talk. The fourth did and the guy was fired. So who wasn't believed? When? Who is being assumed to be a victim without making any accusations? Why? the main comment I saw made against the man was that he was a bodybuilder. I agree that his many "jacked" pictures looked odd on a religious site, but I never read anything he wrote or heard any videos he made. Did he say or write anything wrong? No one seems to be saying so. It's sad that some well-known people behave badly in private. But if they do and then are fired for it... what more do people want?
Interesting perspective JD. My only question is... if we start extending the Church law to cover more broadly the Church's life, where do we stop?
It seems like the logical trajectory of the expansion of practical canonical jurisdiction could only eventually stop at any activity of any baptized Catholic. From regulating all clerical activities, naturally, it is applied to all lay employees, and then all laypeople who do apostolic activity (theoretically all Catholics). To be sure, I understand the church's understanding of herself as "a perfect society," and think the Church would be perfectly within her rights to discipline any of her members. But an ever expanding ecclesial penal system justified by the abuse crisis would effectively turn into a tort court for sexual immorality.
And hey, maybe this is the radical solution we need for the reform of the Church... I'm open to it! But I think we need to see the radical kernel inside of a proposal like this, and think through its implications before we leap.
Appreciate the measured analysis that is neither an attempt to provide cover for nor hyperventaling and narrative-crafting. HR-related items are rarely neat and clean.
It seems likely that the Church of the near future will have fewer schools, hospitals, and church buildings under direct control. Putting the pope in charge of every Catholic nonprofit is not the answer. St. Peter responded to the scandal of unfed widows by saying "It is not right that we should abandon the preaching of the Gospel to serve at table." The fewer irrelevant properties, media companies, investment banks, and sovereign military orders that are run by "The Church" the better. They are best run by the Church when they are run by individual members of the Church, whether they are bishops or not.
I read the Chris Damian article and it was very shoddy. I would assess it as bad journalism, as well as being uncharitable as far as I can assess just from what is in the article itself. It may even cross into unethical. Finally there may have been a possible illegal recording as far as I can assess without reading California law. Were the women employees of WOF? even that key fact is not clear from the article
When one of the alleged ex employees wrote on Twitter that he was happy Bishop Barron mistaken thought the victim went public and said her name so that this controversy could be created, I know this was more about his attempt to bring down word on fire than it was for justice to victim. It’s a sad.
The Church is vastly better off being comfortable with creative apostolic arrangements than boxing itself into the the least scandal-prone corner it can find.
A few miscellaneous comments. Prior to VII Catholics always practiced respect for our Saints and Ecclesiastical leaders when speaking and writing by using their proper titles. E.g., Saint (or St.) Joseph, Lucy, etc., and Father Smith, Bishop Jones, etc. Then it became fashionable to call everyone by their first or last name. Parish priests became Father John, then just John! Bishops became Bishop John or just “Jones,” or in this case simply “Barron.” I feel this is a sign of disrespect and should be avoided.
Secondly. I think it is awful how we always attack each other over every little thing, even when we do not know the “entire story.” We, Catholic “conservatives” do such a fine job of destroying each other that the enemy needs to do very little. Transparency is a wonderful (and necessary) thing. But bringing down everyone else does not make us better. And so many of us speak and act like experts even when we are not.
Finally, I enjoyed the Pillar article re: Bishop Barron. It was informative and mostly respectful but many of the “comments” were not. Now I suppose some folks will attack me for these comments. That is why I seldom reply to articles even when I disagree with them. Can’t we learn to disagree with others without attacking them? What happened to being “charitable” towards others?
Google suggests that Bishop Barron's "side hustle" has yielded a personal net worth between $3,000,000 and $5,000,000 including revenues of $350,000 from YouTube videos. How can that possibly be acceptable under either canon law or simple common sense?
As a former journalist of many years, I have to say that this is article is far below your usual standards of reporting and and you have lost my trust in your judgment and frankly, honesty. In your coverage of this story you have repeated, without sources or attribution beyond Damien's original story (which also didn't name sources), innuendo and allegations, many of which were false. You posited both that WOF and the bishop were covering for the accused and then fired him without due process to protect the reputation of WOF. So guilty, no matter what the truth was. No one -- not Sipling, not the other employees on the staff meeting call -- can know or judge what the intention was of those who had to make the firing decision. That's not canon law, that's a basic Catholic moral precept. It's clear that the original source, Sipling, had an agenda and was willing to act unethically to further it, and yet you repeated -- without corroboration -- his claims to intimidation, mismanagement and employee discontent at WOF. You gloss over your sensationalistic reporting with the strange argument that you are justified in repeating these smears because it is an interesting straw man case of a potential lacuna in canonical discipline -- again, implying that there is something here to be investigated, when, in fact, no law was broken and no sexual harassment took place between employees or in the workplace. I know you feel there is a need for extreme honesty and transparency in the Church where issues of sexual predation are involved, and so do I. But you made no effort to affirm that that was in fact the case before you repeated and amplified the charges in the original article. Or if you did, they aren't evident in your reporting. I have no connection to WOF and no personal knowledge of what happened.
"It turned out the alleged victim hadn’t actually made such a social media post, but Barron didn’t know that when Gloor was fired. Still, according to the transcript of the Oct. 13 meeting, some employees told Barron that his handling of the matter made them uncomfortable because they had not been told that Gloor was under investigation, and because his firing seemed mostly a response to the prospect of a public relations problem for Word on Fire. "
The article that sparked this whole thing said the woman did make a social media post. So which is it? Also, said article -- which was big on innuendo and very light on facts -- said four women complained, but only one (the one who made the supposed post) "cooperated with the investigation." As there was an investigation, and it found some rather vaguely described but apparently termination-worthy behavior, I don't see what Bishop Barron was supposed to have done wrong. I'm not a big fan of his, but if an employee is accused of something, you have it investigated, and then fire him because of the results... what's the problem, exactly?
The main thing that I saw people complain about was that no one "believed the victims" when they talked. But three of them did not talk. The fourth did and the guy was fired. So who wasn't believed? When? Who is being assumed to be a victim without making any accusations? Why? the main comment I saw made against the man was that he was a bodybuilder. I agree that his many "jacked" pictures looked odd on a religious site, but I never read anything he wrote or heard any videos he made. Did he say or write anything wrong? No one seems to be saying so. It's sad that some well-known people behave badly in private. But if they do and then are fired for it... what more do people want?