Render Unto Rome_ The Secret Life of Money in the Catholic Church - Jason Berry [49]
Church officials say the sluggish economy slowed donations in recent years and that the trend has been exacerbated by a downturn in the stock market and the sexual abuse scandal that erupted in January.28
The Boston Priests’ Forum was in its own crisis. Formed in 2001 by three clergymen concerned about issues of isolation and overwork, the forum had become an ad hoc support group; its membership surged to about 200 out of 1,250 priests in active service, as the scandal intensified. The forum discussions got past commiseration: the priests were incensed about the betrayal they felt. Bowers felt an aching irony. Like a benevolent lord, Law had put him under no pressure for the unpaid church taxes. But the cardinal who had given him the best job of his life had sold all the priests down the river.
The weight of the scandal bore down on Bowers just as he was discovering the ideal of peace. Peace was measured by the presence of justice—what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called “love in calculation.” To follow Christ in service of the poor was giving love its calculation. Bowers, at age forty-two, was learning the pursuit of that love in the marginal parish where pockets of people who had money made spiritual community with the Other. The chance to live it, he would reflect, with people who were hungry, were aliens, did drugs, lived in violence and fear. It was far from the image of church we so often lived, but it called out the best in the people and in me. His own cardinal and several assistant bishops had squandered innocence, the seeds of peace. Twisted lies from men: power and control. Submerged in the muck of covering it up and protecting what was unspeakable. God, how they turned it all so sour and sick!29
On December 9, 2002, Bowers joined fifty-seven others in the Boston Priests’ Forum by signing a public letter, telling Law he was “so compromised that it is no longer possible for you to exercise the spiritual leadership required for the church in Boston.”30 News coverage of the letter was like a shot across the bow. Four days later, at a private audience with John Paul, Law resigned as archbishop of Boston.
For the Vatican, the resignation of America’s most powerful archbishop, who nevertheless remained a cardinal, meant that whoever followed Law had to be a superb pastor and a good manager. To fill the breach until the new man was named, Rome installed a fifty-five-year-old auxiliary bishop named Richard Lennon with the title of Apostolic Administrator. Untarnished by the scandal, Lennon was loyal to Law, who had basically made him a bishop. Dick Lennon had a prickly personality and among priests was not exactly beloved. But he worked hard and had a commanding sense of his role in achieving whatever needs to be done. As he monitored the negotiations with the plaintiff attorneys, Lennon was drafting a plan for widespread parish closures.
Three days before Christmas, in words aimed at the 552 victims and their attorneys, Lennon announced he was surveying church properties to put on the market “as soon as possible, so we can show our commitment” to resolve the lawsuits; liability coverage by insurers Kemper and Travelers would cover a substantial portion, according to the Globe.31
With all that liability coverage, wondered Peter Borré, why sell property?
Bowers wondered how the struggling parish he had come to love would fare in Lennon’s plan. He asked for a meeting with Lennon, to no avail.
RECONFIGURATION DAYS
The son of a suburban deputy fire chief, Dick Lennon was six foot two; he had grown up a sports-loving kid but with a stutter so severe he rarely spoke in class, fearing humiliation. He entered Boston College, majoring in math. In 1967, after his sophomore year, he entered St. John, the diocesan seminary next