Paul Likoudis is an American writer and commentator on Catholic affairs. He has published many articles, principally on the Catholic view of moral and religious education.

In the following article, he interviews Anne Roche-Muggeridge, a Canadian author well-known for two books analyzing the state of the Catholic Church in North America: The Gates of Hell: the Struggle for the Catholic Church, (1975), and The Desolate City, the Catholic Church in Ruins (1986, 1990) both published by McClelland and Stewart Toronto. Mrs. Muggeridge was born and raised in Newfoundland.

The resignation of Archbishop Alphonsus Penney of St. John’s Newfoundland, following revelations of clerical sexual abuse, is not the comfort to orthodox Catholics that it is to the “radical apparat” in the Newfoundland Diocese.

Newfoundland-born Catholic author Anne Roche Muggeridge offered a unique perspective on events there.

“Archbishop Penney had a reputation for orthodoxy, and he was very sportive of Canadian pro-lifers,” Muggeridge said.

“His resignation is a terrible, terrible tragedy. He was a very gentle, very pleasant and pious man. He simply came from a different time, and didn’t know what to do about this new planet we’re on.”

The Archbishop’s resignation is being used to force radical change in the way the St. John’s Archdiocese operates. Archbishop Penney’s style of leadership and his manner of implementing the directives of Vatican II are being attacked and held responsible for the lack of treatment and support given by the diocese to the priests’ victims.

Recommendations

A Church-appointed commission of inquiry made 55 recommendations that would radically alter the Church in Newfoundland, taking authority and responsibility from the Archbishop and placing it in the hands of lay-controlled committees, councils and commissions.

While most of the 55 recommendations concerned establishment of family life bureaus in each deanery, also suggested are the implementation of sex education and sex abuse education courses in every Catholic school, the hiring of full time guidance counselors (who will not have to teach) procedures for detecting and reporting sexual abuse, evaluations of sex abuse programs and seminars on sex abuse.

Also recommended are strategies to increase control over every aspect of the Archdiocese.

For example, the archdiocesan newspaper was faulted for not reporting on the sex abuse stories so it is recommended that “the independence and effectiveness of The Monitor be ensured through the creation of an editorial board to operate at arm’s length from the archdiocesan administration.” In that way it can effect the “renewed Vatican II vision of the Church.”

It is also recommended that the Catholic Education Council and the Diocesan Pastoral Council be given new power to expand adult education programs, expand the role of the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults and develop more programs for lay leadership of parishes.

Also recommended is a mandatory six-month sabbatical for all priests so that they can “review” their commitment to the ministry; one full year off every seven years for priests; and lay leadership training programs for every parish.

Another proposal is that the “Archbishop join with other Bishops across Canada to address fully, directly, honestly and without reservation, questions relating to the problematic link between celibacy and the ministerial priesthood.

Horror-struck

The inaction of Archbishop Penney regarding the sex abuse scandal, in the judgment of Anne Roche-Muggeridge, is a classic case of being horror-struck. It was not an intentional act to deceive.

“Archbishop Penney is very unworldly,” she said, “and he couldn’t imagine his priests doing the terrible things they were accused of. Its’ the same syndrome that strikes women who know their husbands are sleeping around; when they are presented with evidence, they refuse to believe it.

“I know various people who went to him and he half-believed them and he half didn’t. But he didn’t know how to react. There was no precedent for dealing with this kind of behaviour. I don’t know how the bishops of old would have acted.”

Pederasty

One thing Muggeridge does know is that, while the sex abuse case is being reported as “pedophilla,” (sexual interest in boys and girls), it is “just plain pederasty” (homosexual interest in boys).

“For years people in Newfoundland have known that was going on. For a long time everyone knew that one priest had been keeping most of his collection and giving it to boys. There were priests and boys engaged in organized vice and everybody knew it.

“Newfoundland is a very strange place,” she continued. “It’s half Catholic and everybody knows everybody. It’s like a small town. Everyone knows everything that’s going on.”

“It’s very stratified socially, and the professional classes protect each other. The Protestants protect the Catholics. The upper-class cops and judges protect upper-class Catholics. People cover up. It’s very corrupt, but it doesn’t seem like corruption.

“People say they were shocked when the story broke in the papers and television, but if you know that Irish voice, you can tell when they are telling a whopper.”

Chancery

While the sex abuse that forced the resignation of Archbishop Penney could also force a restructuring of the Newfoundland Church, Muggeridge believes there will be no reaction against homosexuality in the chancery.

“The nuns and lay people in the chancery are very sympathetic to homosexuality. They are part of the faction in the church that feels homosexuality is okay. They approve; they think homosexuality is all right. They don’t see anything wrong with homosexuals teaching in the schools or the seminaries.

“They think that the worst thing that could happen is homophobia,” she stated.

“This radical apparat, you have to understand, wants to break the power of the priests…it all seems so extraordinary, that it happened in the Church I grew up in. We had such good, good, holy men.

This interview appeared in the August 30, 1990 issue of the U.S. weekly paper, The Wanderer.