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CNN Sunday Morning

Interview with Chester Gillis, William D'Antonio

Aired March 10, 2002 - 07:19   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, let's turn now to our guest segment. We're talking about the Catholic Church. The list of priests confessing to sexual abuse is growing ever longer. Two priests have been removed from parishes in Portland, Maine, after admitting to sexual abusing a young boy two decades ago. You can add their names to the bat of now defrocked priest, John Kagan in Boston.

In all, more than a 130 people have come forward to say Kagan abused them. Many other allegations swirling around the Boston archdiocese.

And in Florida, a Palm Beach bishop, Anthony O'Connell has resigned after admitting inappropriate behavior with a teenager more than 25 years ago.

Now, joining me from Washington to discuss all this, a pair of prominent religious scholars. Chester Gillis is a professor of theology at Georgetown University. His most recent book is "Roman Catholicism in America." And William D'Antonio is a socialist at Catholic University. Cross-town rivals, I guess. An author of several books on public opinion about the Catholic Church. I will not reveal my allegiances here just yet.

Gentlemen, good to have you with us.

CHESTER GILLIS, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY: Good morning.

WILLIAM D'ANTONIO, CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY: Good morning.

O'BRIEN: I guess I could say Hoya Saxon now. But anyway, let's move on shall we? Let's talk about this because it's such a serious subject. It's such a crisis of confidence for many Catholics to see this story unfold. I'm curious, how serious is it? Is it at the point where American Catholicism is in a full-fledged crisis?

Mr. Gillis, why don't you start?

GILLIS: Oh, I don't think it's at a crisis proportion, but I do certainly think that it's a very, very serious matter and that the credibility of the church is damaged. And it will take a long time to repair the damage that's been done. I think the church is doing things, finally, to address it. I don't think it was necessarily voluntary initially. But they're trying to get all the bad news out as quickly as possible and then... O'BRIEN: But then, that leads...

GILLIS: ... get in place policies.

O'BRIEN: Heretofore, Mr. Gillis, they have been stonewalling, haven't they or at least had that appearance? Threatening "The Boston Globe," for example with lawsuits if reporters tried to speak to priests. Cardinal law not being very forthcoming with details and not willing to resign. That - at least that appearance been a bitter pill for many Catholics, hasn't it?

GILLIS: I think it has and I think this is sometimes the case where the church tries to handle things in an internal forum exclusive of media intervention or knowledge of the gaiety. And it doesn't always work. It backfires. And I think in this case, it backfired seriously.

O'BRIEN: Mr. D'Antonio, the appearance at least is that you get the sense that the Catholic Church feels, in some sense, it's above the law or separate from the law. It's true. I mean the Catholic Church is not a democracy and we do have a separation of church and state. But there clearly have been laws broken.

D'ANTONIO: Yes, there not only have been laws broken, but it is the way in which they have behaved. It really goes back in the tradition really of the hierarchy, keeping things closed, keeping matters under the table if they can do that.

Fortunately, for the church - going back to your opening question about crisis - for American Catholics, at least during the time of our studies over the last 15, 20 years, what is essential to them that identifies them and continues to identify them with the church is not the teachings on sexual morality, but the core teachings for them involve the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, the centrality of the Mass in their live, the Eucharist and the meaning that they give for the idea of the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. Those are the - what I would call, the core elements.

And ever since Romani Didte (ph), the Pope Paul the VI and cyclical reaffirming the Church's opposition to burst control, the Church has lost really credibility in matters of teaching sexual morality. And so...

O'BRIEN: Well...

D'ANTONIO: ... this is just happening although it's exacerbated by the pedophilia crisis.

O'BRIEN: Well, yeah, Mr. Gillis, I suspect the Church has very little leverage to discuss any matters related, bedroom issues, if you will, in the future. Would you agree with that?

GILLIS: Well, I certainly think they've lost a great deal of credibility, of course. And for them, to be preaching to others a certain sense of sexual chastity is going to be a difficult case to make. O'BRIEN: You know, there's a certain dichotomy here among American Catholics; some would same hypocrisy. I've heard the term used before, "cafeteria Catholics." You sort of select which portion of the Church you like and discard the others because you don't agree with the bedroom teachings, if you will. Eventually, that - I mean that doesn't wash. That doesn't make for a healthy religion, does it?

D'ANTONIO: I would say that the real way of thinking about this is that with Vatican II, the Church affirmed the right of conscience, of development of our conscience. And it really represents a break with the pre-Vatican II Church, which may theologically have given the - us the right of conscience but really never focused on it.

And what Catholics are doing today is what just this Anthony Skallia (ph) talked about just two weeks ago when he descended openly on a panel discussing the death penalty. He said the Pope's teaching on the death penalty and the Bishop's teaching on the death penalty is not ex-Cathedra. It's not from the Magistarium. It's not infallible. And Catholics, therefore, are free to use their conscience, their reason, their lived experience and to descent from these teachings. And I would say that that's exactly what we have with regard to the teachings of sexual morality.

O'BRIEN: So...

D'ANTONIO: Ever since, really, the cyclical, which went against the overwhelming majority of the - of Papal Birth Control Commission, which itself was appointed by Pope Paul VI.

I think Catholics and the larger majority of Americans are not aware of what a challenge to credible of the hierarchy the reaffirmation of the traditional teaching was because 51 of the 55 members of that Birth Control Commission appointed by Pope Paul VI voted for change and seven of the eight cardinals appointed to examine the report independently also voted for change.

So in the face of that and in the light of the fact that Catholics had come to expect that change, to reaffirm against such a huge majority was simply a challenge that the Church's authority could not meet.

O'BRIEN: All right, well, let's talk about what the Church should do in your humble opinions because it seems to me, when you go through these lists, whether it's birth control, divorce, premarital sex, American Catholics are just not on board with Rome here. And Rome doesn't seem inclined to do anything about this because you have a very conservative pontiff.

What should the American - I mean in point-of-fact, it's almost a de facto schism in a sense - what is the - what is the Church to do about it? What should the American Church be pushing for perhaps, Mr. Gillis, to try to bring Americans back into the Catholic Church in a full embrace?

GILLIS: Well, they certainly practice selective Catholicism, as you suggest. There's no question about that. But I'm not sure they're so radically different from Catholics in other places in the world.

D'ANTONIO: Right.

GILLIS: Sometimes we talk about American Catholics, but it's still, in essence, is the Roman Catholic Church in America and it takes its cue from Rome as the rest of the world does and sometimes it is in concert with Rome and many times, it's out of step with Rome. But this is not different from other places in the world. The American Catholics are not unique in this regard. So it's not a question of - a problem between simply Rome and America. It's a problem between Rome and the universal church in many places.

O'BRIEN: So what is Rome to do or does Rome not need to worry about this?

GILLIS: Well, certainly, Rome needs to be concerned about it, but of course, Rome is Rome. And Rome was there in the past and it will be there in the future and it knows that. And there's a certain security in that.

D'ANTONIO: I think our data show that the Catholics remain Catholics and identify with the Church because of what the Church represents to them in the Mass, in the life and teachings of Jesus and not in terms of the Church's teachings on human sexuality.

What the Church has to - if I were one of the Church leaders and were really concerned about the future of the Church in terms of the millions of people who still identify - these 62 million American Catholics - I would be concerned that the most loyal generation is the pre-Vatican II generation. That's my generation and we remain the most loyal. And unfortunately, in 20 years, we won't be here at all. And the youngest generation, the post-Vatican II, for whom Vatican II is really a vague memory, history, if it at all, those are the least committed to the hierarchical structure of the Church, yet they still identify with the Church in terms of what Jesus represents to them and what the Mass and the Eucharist represent.

O'BRIEN: All right, William D'Antonio and Chester Gillis. I wish we could talk a little bit more about this. Of course, the time has expired. Thank you, both, for being with us on CNN SUNDAY MORNING.

GILLIS: Our pleasure, thank you.

D'ANTONIO: Amen.

O'BRIEN: Amen.

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