Justice Anne M Burke
Future Church
Cleveland, Ohio
Thursday, January 20, 2005

Good evening. Thank you for that kind introduction and welcome. I am delighted to be here in Cleveland – a local Church of deep faith and nobility.

I am honored to have an opportunity to speak in the context of this forum on Future Church. “Future Church” is a concept of singular Catholic necessity, born out of those things that always seem to refine the spirit of the Church – historic adversity, ecclesial mayhem and the fear that the ground on which we stand is wearing away.

I hope that everyone here this evening has enough of a grasp of Catholic history to recognize the fact that we have faced trying periods of heartbreaking difficulty in the past and survived. The good thing is that we are always transformed by the process. I am beginning to think this is how the Spirit of the Lord really engages the Church.

Forty years ago, the Bishops and theologians gathered at the Second Vatican Council recognized that the glorious ideas and fresh understandings that were thick in the Roman air at that time were unleashing a new era of change – a true revolution of thought. Being so close to the issues of surrounding this change – whether that was something about the nature of the Church, or the style of the liturgy, or our understanding and use of the scriptures, or the role of the clergy and laity in the Church – I think their nearness to those issues introduced a certain intellectual comfort about what change entailed. I am beginning to think that the real change has taken forty years to surface.

As demonstrable and effective as those intellectual changes were following Vatican II, I think that when we look at the condition of the Church today we see the need for a new expression of change, a further revolution. Given the dire consequences surrounding the recent scandal involving the sexual abuse of minors by members of the Catholic clergy, we are just beginning to understand the need for change on a wide and sustaining basis in our Church. Perhaps as you reassess the causes that brought about that scandal, and the institutional ineptitude of Church leadership in covering up the long list of criminal acts involved, you may agree with me that change is no longer an intellectual issue, but rather a practical necessity to prevent future moral, financial and legal destruction in the Church. If we want our Church to have a future, some things need to change. I believe that we need a fresh accountability from the hierarchy in this nation. We need a furthering of their commitment for transparency, truthfulness and a commitment to the American legal system. We need a deepening of responsibility of the treasure of our Church, fiscal accounting about our ecclesial economic future. What is presently underway in our nation makes any concern for Social Security pale in comparison. The fallout from issues unearthed by the abuse scandal will be with us for a long time. We are in this together, you and I - and the American hierarchy. I think both our faith, and our human reason, necessitates a new sense of partnership that can sustain a future for us all.

I will be honest with you. After two-and-a-half years of non-stop efforts with my colleagues on the National Review Board of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, retirement from that board has its distinct advantages. Contrary to what you might suspect, the minutiae of Catholic-centered issues was never my cup-of-tea. The more distance I get from the nuanced intricacies of ecclesiastical agendas and Episcopal intrigues, the better I like it. I say that so you might appreciate my reasons for accepting your invitation. There is enough going on in my life in Chicago to provide me with all the drama I need (my husband and I have a nine year old at home who is a handful and his Third Grade Math is beyond us).

Over the 30-plus months during which I served on the NRB, I expended far more time than I would have ever dreamt possible working on the issues pertinent to our board’s investigations and reports. But after all that time, if I have come away with one clear unequivocal certainty about the Church in our nation, it is this – the Church needs to be reborn and it needs the heroic service of the laity of our nation to do it.

I believe with all my heart that the gut-wrenching issues unearthed in the scandal around the sexual abuse of minors by members of the Catholic clergy are just one expression of the need for change. They are a symptom of larger issues. Issues, I suspect, we all believe will not go away. So! This is why I have come – to engage you with these issues. It is worth the trip from Chicago. It is worth the full force of the journey that discipleship entails.

If I were to write a book about my experiences concerning my tenure on the NRB, I think I might call the book – Asleep at the Switch, or maybe, Who’s Running this Joint?

The cataclysmic failure of responsible leadership more than any other single issue is the real culprit behind this crisis. Of course, the sexual abuse of minors by adults vowed to protect them is the civil and canonical crime here, but those awful individual episodes of abuse would not have continued, for the most part, if worn-out strategies of self-protection and institutional arrogance had not first created an environment in which the worst of sins became indulged for the protection of the institution over the well-being of the most vulnerable young people in our midst. I do not think there is any reason to mince words. Bad leadership, institutional malfeasance and a disjointed understanding of human sexuality all combined to create a permissive climate in which the intolerant were tolerant of the unimaginable. It was pervasive. It was ineffective. It was wrong.

The most serious crisis in the history of American Catholicism flowed from the top down. It was not a result of permissive thought on the part of the laity. It was not the product of the errors of heterodoxy. It was not the product of too much reform. It was not the failure of the faithful laity to live up to their responsibilities or commitments. It was the refusal of institutional authority to act with justice. It was the failure of many bishops to defend the laity - their families, children and homes. It was the failure of the hierarchy to know how to act rightly and, ultimately, to be the stewards they are meant to be.

I say this without prejudice. I have no ax to grind in the affixing of blame. That day is done. When dioceses are filing for bankruptcy and church property is at risk because of the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on legal actions and settlements thus far, the issues become concrete.

When the details of individual cases of clerical sexual abuse are examined, as you can imagine, it is a highly emotional experience for all involved. Dead archbishops can offer a meager defense to history. Living ones have little ground on which to make a defense. In the face of the crimes, the cover ups, the humiliation of victims and their families and the secret negotiations to silence the scandal, the institutional Church - represented by individual dioceses and archdioceses – has still come away from the experience un-chastened, I believe.

Of course, that is unless they have hundreds of millions of dollars to pay out, teetering on the edge of financial ruin. Just ask the people in Los Angeles, Boston, Portland and Tucson; or the Diocese of Santa Rosa in Orange County. It appears that the human damage is less easy to understand than the cold reality of financial ruin. As awful as the effect of this scandal has been to thousands of families and young people, it is less visually concrete to the eye than the closure of churches and schools and the wearing away of the patrimony of hard-working immigrants from the last century who shaped the physical contours of the Church in the United States.

I would like to believe that the contrite words of present-day members of the hierarchy are trustworthy when they say they are dedicated to ensuring that this will never happen again. And I do believe many of them. But I have also experienced first hand the Byzantine intrigues of others who, no matter how contrite they might appear, remain worried that this whole episode should be done with by now so that they can return to a style of authority and control that for my money hatched the scandal in the first place.

The news media, of course, always examined the issue of the scandal in the context of its sexual nature; but that is only partially true. It is merely one dimension of it. The sexual issue is easier to identify, and even change, than the less obtuse nuances of Episcopal authority, diocesan leadership, the quality of Episcopal appointments, financial accountability, lay involvement in diocesan affairs, collaboration of the laity at the local level beyond the rubber stamp and the real nature of the demoralized state of American Catholic clergy today.

In addition to everything else, the American clergy is in crisis. I have always felt compelled to say a special word about the priests of our nation, the truly good priests, who are also victimized in this scandal. At best, many of them feel abandoned by their bishops and misjudged by their people. I have heard many say that after a lifetime of work and service, they feel despondent over the shattering of confidence among the laity. Local bishops, I have been told, are unable in many instances to adequately respond to the hurt and disillusionment experienced today by many priests. When was the last time you honestly heard a bishop address the truth of this issue? What does this tell us about the future of our Church when our leaders remain in a state of denial? I think this is an area where, once again, only the laity can restore a sense of health, dignity and respect. I hope each of you here will you do something to touch the hearts of these valuable men who serve in our parishes and other ministries. They need your care. All of this is a morass out of which, I fear, sometimes, we may never come. That’s the bad news!

On a more positive note, I also believe, that to even know this much information is itself a healthy sign of maturity and hope. Another way I have come to see this is – it’s not the bishop’s Church; it’s not the laity’s Church; it’s Christ’s Church. So, there are grounds for hope. Or as someone else once stated – “If you want God to laugh, just tell him your plans.”

Now, lest you think I have come away from my experience jaundiced, cynical or just ready to throw my hands up into the air, let me spend a moment telling why I think I am still a hopeful American Catholic – and by that I mean something besides my wild Irish madness that got me into all of this in the first place.

I do believe that when faced with the trauma of the abuse crisis back in 2002, the bishops meeting at Dallas did find themselves at a rare juncture in American Catholic history. And I like to think that it was one of those moments when people do something for one reason and set in motion, at the same time, a whole series of inevitable secondary causations that are really more important. Let me say something about Dallas. The adoption of the Charter for the Protection of Children and Youth – a document that I believe is a cross between the Magna Carter and the Rosetta Stone – did something that will have consequences for the life of the Church in our nation for many years to come. By their acceptance of that Charter, the bishops opened the doors on a fresh spirit of uncompromising change.

I say it’s a Magna Carter because it truly is a declaration of liberty for American Catholics; because it is, first and foremost, a binding agreement for transparency and justice in how the instances and accusations of sexual abuse of minors by the clergy are to be dealt with. It catalogues a policy of uniformity for the entire nation, every diocese and archdiocese.

I am no Church historian, but I learned this much during my tenure, there are very few nationally binding agreements among the dioceses of America. Each one – each bishop and diocese- is sacrosanct. Bishops have always been free to opt in or out of any non-doctrinal piece of legislation adopted by the bishops’ conference. There was, however, no opportunity to opt out of the Charter. It remains binding on every local bishop in the church in our nation. But let’s be honest. Even as we speak, there are those bishops who would gladly let this document die a quiet death. This cannot happen. And it will only happen if you and I permit it to.

I also call the Charter a Rosetta Stone because I believe that through it we are beginning to come to understand a new way of communicating within the Church. The minute the Charter was adopted, it needed the laity to make it real. The bishops alone could not have brought about either a deeper understanding of the issues in the sex abuse scandal - specifically what brought it about or what the full extent of the damage had been. To really get to the bottom of the causes and context of the scandal, only an independent group of lay Catholics could have any real credibility. The bishops may not have wanted us, but they knew that they needed us. And there are larger lessons to be learned in this.

Our board relied heavily on the Charter for our mandate. It was the source of our authority to investigate the scandal and hopefully construct a process through which we could ensure it would never happen again. In a power structure that was almost exclusively hierarchical and clerical, the independence of the laity, ironically, was the last best opportunity of attempting to bring about some reconciliation in light of the horror of the scandal. I still find the level of national outrage mind-boggling. When I think that it ultimately brought about the resignation of Bernard Cardinal Law of Boston, I think I am still in a state of wonderment.

Ultimately, for me, the true measure of the significance of the Charter can be found in the work of the NRB. Two remarkable areas of effort are miraculous as far as I am concerned. First, we interviewed over a hundred of people across the country in an attempt to discover how this crisis came about. We spoke to Cardinals, Archbishops, Bishops, chancery officials, attorneys, victims, victims’ families, perpetrators, law enforcement officials, and even high ranking members of the curial congregations of the Holy See.

On a very practical level, we established the Office for Child and Youth Protection at the USCCB in Washington. We interviewed extraordinary people to lead it, ultimately selecting Kathleen McChesney, formerly the number three in leadership at the FBI. Dr. Kathleen McChesney brought with her into this work the former FBI Deputy Director of Counter Intelligence, Sheila Horan. Both Sheila and Kathleen have recently left their posts. A search is presently underway to fill those posts. They were outstanding professionals and did not let much get by them. I can only imagine what their presence was like for some of the un-reconstructed members of the American hierarchy. It makes you proud to say you’re Irish!

Through Kathleen’s efforts, National Review Board set in motion a historic first, the first of a series of on-going audits of every diocese and archdiocese in the nation, measuring the effectiveness of child protection and safe environments in the local church. I might add that the audits were conducted by teams drawn from some 55 former members of the FBI who actually did the interviewing. I always say, the FBI knows how to ask a question and get an answer.

With the audits now a continuing process, “business-as-usual” will be harder to bring back in the administration of any diocese. But, I will have to be honest and say that some bishops are more responsible than others. Could you even imagine that a small cadre of bishops was actually conspiring to see to it that the second set of audits would be done away with before they even began?

Just this past week, I have read the results of the 2004 audit. And though it was thorough and far reaching, I still have concerns when I see that dioceses remain slow to act in rectifying areas of concern unearthed by the audit. In one major Archdiocese, for instance, the same issues and concerns raised in 2003 appear to be unmet. Though failing to fully implement a safe environment program and expedite background checks on clergy from outside dioceses working in this large Archdiocese, as well as training of local priests and deacons on issues of safe environment, the local Archbishop was able to avoid serious chastisement by finally beginning the necessary process (some two years late) which then permitted him to get a pass on the violation. He was able to wiggle around the issue. What does this tell you about his commitment to the spirit of the national policy?

Late last year, when our board members discovered some chicanery was afoot among some of the Episcopal enemies of the audits, those who were attempting to “deep six” the future of the audits, we had a very frank discussion of nuclear proportions with USCCB leadership. We drew “public” attention to the fact that failure to bring about the second series of audits would be the final nail in the coffin of any trust and credibility the bishops might still have among the laity. Most bishops were horrified at the behavior of some of their Episcopal colleagues and saw to it that the audits went ahead. But you and I know what this kind of consistent road-blocking means. Perhaps they will be more successful next time. What can be done? – raise some hell for a start. Be vigilant. Be outspoken. Demand transparency. Know the Charter.

Another part of our work as a board that without question was of incalculable significance was the findings of the study that we commissioned conducted by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. This was the first-ever statistical analysis about the scandal from within the institutional Church. The John Jay people gathered their own vast collection of data from each diocese; data I should say had never before been collected on a national level.

Their study looked at the nature and scope of the scandal and required detailed interviews of microscopic proportions. We met with both welcome and reluctance in this endeavor – sometimes perplexed when we realized we were often running up against the bad faith of the very people who asked us to take on this responsibility in the first place.

I say this tonight because I do not want you to think that we were somehow engaged merely in some intellectual exercise or feel good Church rehab project.

Quite honestly, I must also say that in the more than two-and-a-half years that I was involved in the work of the NRB, I have been transformed. I believe that engaged in the struggle to get to the bottom of this crisis, I have had a life altering experience. “No more passive Catholics,” is my mantra now.

When this journey began for me, I had only a very meager acquaintance with the clergy abuse issue. It was something that, on occasion, sparked my legal interest – something about a certain case in the news, or some incident of which others may have spoken. But, by and large, I had no involvement.

Beginning in June of 2002, however, that all changed for me. As a result, I think I can say that today, I have come to understand the Church in a whole new way. I have come see the Church’s leadership through a new prism. And most importantly, I have come to a whole new understanding of the critical role that the laity must play in helping the Church to be all that it can.

During the two-and-a-half years since the Dallas 2002 meeting of the American bishops, the NRB set out to quickly put in place the strategic resources necessary to combat the effects of the abuse tragedy. Among those was to commission a study on the causes and context for the crisis. For the NRB this meant that we had to better understand the issue, therefore this meant interviewing people across the country – victims, perpetrators, bishops, Archbishops, Cardinals, chancery personnel, experts-in-the-field and concerned Catholics.
Our three initiatives – the two studies and the establishment of the Washington office, involved the members of the NRB in very concrete ways. On one level we had a great deal of personal time with people. We had time to speak to many members of the hierarchy. We had time to intimately interface with the institutional Church. We encountered many people of good will, especially among the hierarchy.

At the same time, we also observed at close hand, the less than up-front demeanor of others. I witnessed, personally, individual members of the hierarchy who were angered by our presence, resentful of our mandate to investigate; and others who were fearful of what we might discover.

I also came to know Cardinals, Archbishops and Bishops who are deeply grateful for the sacrifice made by each member of the NRB. Often they were the individuals who felt the deep pain of abuse victims and grieved at the way in which their predecessors bungled the incidents of abuse in the past. I encountered holy men, heartsick at the extensive damage that people have suffered and angered at the arrogance of those who contributed to the scandal.

One man who has become a symbol to me of how good Episcopal leadership can be the Bishop of Fort Wayne-South Bend, John D’Arcy who is a leader in the battle to create safe-environments for young people in the Church. You may not know that Bishop D’Arcy was a priest and, later, auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of Boston. And I don’t think I am telling tales out of school to say that he shined a light over 20 years ago on the scandal that ultimately erupted in Boston. His concerns went unheeded by those in power and he eventually watched in horror as all that he had exposed finally saw the light of day. He is a champion for justice in my book. And in the Diocese of Fort Wayne South Bend, he has taken wide leadership in ensuring his diocese is doing every thing it can to be transparent and responsible. He is a great and gentle soul and a friend. For me he was a breath of fresh air in a choking environment, often keeping me from discouragement at times. I really believe it is important to recognize such essential leadership.

I have to say that I also endured the suspicions of some other bishops, and the downright vengeance of others, who continue to see leadership in the Church as both exclusively male and clerical. Ironically, though, some of our biggest critics eventually turned out to be our staunchest defenders once the results of our data were published.

I would be less than candid if I did not admit how deeply this experience touched the hearts of each member of the NRB. I am certain it has left deep fissures on my soul. Like most of life, it was an opportunity to see great virtue and great sin.

Initially, I must say how uncomfortable the issue of the abuse itself made me. It was not a subject anyone relished discussing. It was also too much at times, particularly when we were confronted with the details of much of the abuse. At moments you doubted your own sanity, so incongruous did the entire topic of abuse seem in the context of ministry and the Church.

There was no end of sadness. Pain abounded. But, there were also expansive expressions of virtue displayed, particularly by lay Catholics. In the continuing commitment of believers, the true grace of God could be seen.

But on another level, nothing – and I will say this again - nothing could have adequately prepared me for the encounter with the politics of the institutional Church. And I say that having a husband who has been an elected public official in the Chicago City Council for the past 36 years. I am no wallflower. I have been around Chicago politics for a long time. I have known Chicago’s most colorful politicos, as well as national political leaders from the White House to the State Department. But the machinations we encountered in the ecclesiastical version during this period of fear, perplexity and suspicion were at times medieval.

But, amazingly, on two separate journeys to the Holy See, in meetings with at least four curial cardinals, an archbishop and several Monsignori of the very highest level – let me be clear, these individuals were easy to engage. I found them willing to listen; sharp-eyed; courteous, deeply concerned; willing to act, and most of all, open-to what we came to discuss. They were far more open than some members of the American hierarchy even to this day. I was recently heartened to learn of the Holy Sees planned visitation of American seminaries in 2005, a recommendation made by the NRB in our report.

I speak with interest in the pragmatism of the Curia not to annoy you, or anger you, but to perhaps give you hope. Maybe it is the steady diet of pasta “al dente” and good Frascati, but those curial cardinals we encountered at the Vatican demonstrated a willingness to confront the scandal and understand it that was dramatically forthright.

At no time during our work did anyone from Rome attempt to pull the rug out from under us or attempt any behind-the-scenes shenanigans. But there were plenty of moments when members of the American hierarchy were deliberately less than candid about their reactions to our work. Some, sought to neutralize our efforts, others sought to disparage us, personally, while others sought to stonewall our investigations and ensure that our commitment to end “business-as-usual” would be thwarted at the first opportunity.

So how did we survive? I think the answer is a lot more old-fashioned than anyone might guess. I believe it was the virtue and valor of people we encountered that always sustained our hope. And I also believe that each member of the NRB brought great virtue with them to the harsh tasks we were given. My colleagues were seasoned professionals, whether in the White House, the highest levels of academic life, legal life, judicial life and business life. Each brought to our work big hearts, redemptive humor, high skills for organizing and most importantly, an abiding faith and love for the Church. And at every juncture we reminded ourselves of this. When confronted by an angry member of the hierarchy or a devious bureaucrat, a punctilious monsignor, or an incompetent administrator – we reminded each other for whom our work was being done – the young people of the Catholic Church. Safe environments and zero tolerance might sound like buzz words, but for us it was a strategy rooted in Gospel faith.

I think we not only survived, but we have thrived, the NRB and the Church. I believe that this two-and-a-half-year process has been a critical juncture in the life of the laity in America.

None of us deluded ourselves into thinking that we were not being used to reverse the effects of a grotesque moment of history in the life of our Church in America. We knew that it was precisely our personal national reputations that were so appealing and valuable to the members of the USCCB. And to be blunt, once the studies and audits were published at the start of 2004, just a year ago, many bishops appear to have felt that they had successfully dodged the bullet and they could go back to the way things used to be --NOT ON YOUR LIFE!

In the final months of my service on the NRB, my colleagues and I conducted strenuous dialogue with the board of the USCCB. We could not have been more direct in our criticism and concern that any return to the procedures of the past would be a national disaster for Catholics in our nation. I believe that when these concerns were understood by groups of laity around the country, their reaction was both emphatic and resolute – things cannot be as they were before.

I hope this is a message that the bishops understand. People will not tolerate the ineptitude and the criminal behavior that fanned the flames of this abuse scandal.

In another way, this has been a spiritual journey for me. It has been my own “call to action,” a reexamination of the way in which I see myself as a lay Catholic. For me, the days of passive Catholicism are over. This is not so much a political reaction as a spiritual reaction. I have seen first hand the disaster that came about because the hierarchy made decisions affecting the life of the Church that were not only ill-fated, financially ruinous and un-Christian, but they were also criminal in their effect.

None of the horror of the scandal would have gone on unchecked, if the laity had truly a seat at the table. Not only is this a place denied, it is largely unasked for. The laity need to rethink this.

It is Baptism that gives us the right and the grace to live out our discipleship. There are not two Churches, one for the hierarchy and the other for everyone else. I cannot imagine what is going through the mind of the Archbishop of Portland, Oregon, having filed for bankruptcy. And the latest figure placed on the anticipated financial cost to the Archdiocese of Los Angeles is now estimated to be $1.9 billion. This is beyond anything we could have dreamed up. The most die-hard, unreconstructed member of the USCCB has to realize that when you are in jeopardy of loosing your cathedral, and all your financial resources, it is time to look for a new way to operate. The old way does not seem to be cost effective or rational, let alone the loss of reputation and trust with our clergy. All these legal and financial problems raise serious issues of civil authorities control over a Diocese. There’s lay involvement of a new kind.

As sad as this experience has been over the past two-and-a-half-years, it has also been liberating. As a lifelong Catholic, I know that I cannot permit the errors of the past to happen again. This is not peevishness, but grace. This is the life of God working through us, all of us who are nourished by the sacraments. Is this not what the sacraments are to do for us, connect us to the life of Christ in the world? I believe all the sacraments are important, not just Holy Orders. And while the grace of that sacrament confers an indelible character, it does not always bring enlightenment. I introduce the evidence of the last 50 years, the nearly 11,000 recorded instances of the sexual abuse of minors by members of the Catholic clergy, as “Exhibit A.”

We will get the Church we deserve. But, are we are called to do great things in the world – feed the hungry, care for the sick, defend the vulnerable, shelter the homeless and make peace real. There is no mandate to hide the abuser of minors or keep him near the defenseless. We will live for the rest of our lives with the damage from this scandal. But we can also alter the terrain and wider the opportunities for redemption. We must make room for everyone at the table and listen to those for whom the light, not the darkness, is the goal of our journey.

The past two-and-a-half-years have been very spiritual for me. I am grateful for the opportunity that brought this about. Truth is always a virtue. And the Church is always cleansed by such virtue and made strong again by our commitment to the truth.

One hundred sixty years ago, in the tragic aftermath of the American Civil War, Father Isaac Hecker, the founder of the Paulist Fathers set out to transform the spirit of American Catholicism in a moment of national brokenness. The mission he set out to accomplish sought to heal and reconcile America. You may know that he was a convert to Catholicism. Faith for him was a long journey with many twists and turns along the road, not just a text with all the right answers. The impact he struggled to make was among the best and brightest of his generation of Americans. It was something that he had already experienced in his own life. He was a gift to the lay Catholics, especially thinking Catholics.

“The Catholic Church is my star,” Father Hecker wrote, “which will lead me to my life, my destiny, my purpose.” What more could any of us ask?

My friends, I believe that the Catholic Church can be a star for all of us. If I did not I could not stand here tonight and look you in the eye. If I did not believe that, I could not have endured the past two-and-a-half-years as a member of the National Review Board. If I did not believe that the Catholic Church was “my star,” I am quite certain I would not have consented to get to the bottom of the most hurtful and disheartening crisis in the history of American Catholicism. You know I am not exaggerating.

We have come a long way from debating the use of English in the Mass, or the appropriateness of guitars in church – can you remember when these were big issues? Now in the time we have been given, we are challenged to resolve darker issues and darker hearts. Somewhere in it all abides the Advocate, the very breath of God’s Spirit. It is the Spirit who stirs up within us the resources we need to sustain one another. Remember, when things are at there worst, we are at our best.

It is vital that Catholic organizations, like FutureChurch, Voice of the Faithful and the Call to Action, insist on expanded roles of significant leadership for the laity within the Church in our country. We are, after all, a people who believe in the on-going mystery of grace, the life of God at work in human history. In spite of the long litany of horror that has befallen the Catholic Church, we believe that grace will transform the terror of the present, not by magic, but by our willingness to engage the truth. For ultimately, what the Church has been engaged in these past thirty-plus months since Dallas is the embrace of the truth – the often times frightening reality of what humans are capable of creating for ourselves.

The work of embracing the truth is also affirming, enriching and life-giving. I hope that despite the shame, shock, pain and anger, you judge us, the past and present members of the National Review Board, by what we do and say. Only this can free all of us from being prisoners of the past, its paralysis and its failure. We can change things, once we are willing to know them – heartache and all. Thank you for your willingness to listen.