Two abrupt changes in the worldwide episcopate happened recently. Neither got a great deal of coverage in the English-speaking press, but the ripple effects of each could make themselves felt throughout the Church.
A troubled bishop in Brazil
One involved a bishop in Brazil, Tomé Ferreira da Silva of São José do Rio Preto, who resigned after a compromising video began to circulate on the internet earlier this month, showing the bishop in a state of undress and apparently engaged in self-abuse, in the virtual company of another man. A few days later, Pope Francis swiftly accepted the resignation.
If that were all there is to it, then Pope Francis would get at least a cheer and a half for the alacrity with which he handled the business. Only, not so fast. It turns out, Bishop Ferreira had several accusations against him, going back several years, which included mishandling of allegations against clerics accused of abusing minors. News reports mention other alleged wrongdoing, ranging from racy texts between Ferreira and a young man to a sexual relationship with his driver.
The Vatican had reportedly investigated some of those claims, and Bishop Ferreira had resigned a regional coordinator’s position with the Brazilian bishops’ conference in 2018, in connection with the coverup allegations.
What difference does it make?
So, the thing that made the difference this time was apparently that the video capturing the bishop in flagrante happened to leak and go viral. In other words, the swift action came after long inaction — or years of foot-dragging — and in response to something that was already a very bad day in the press and bound to get worse.
Whatever else that is, it doesn’t appear to be any sort of praiseworthy alacrity in handling a malfeasant shepherd whose malfeasance has just come to light.
“I want to know how this video came out of my cellphone and into the Diário,” Bishop Ferreira told Brazil’s Diário da Região, which had shown him the video in mid-August. “Who passed it on?”
“It’s my image,” Bishop Ferreira confirmed for the Diário. “I want to know who passed this on, because it could be someone I live with,” the Diário further quoted him as saying, and added that he declined to identify the other party on the video call recording.
Whatever else that is — whatever else Bishop Ferreira may have said — it is not apparent contrition, or even natural shame.
Where does this leave us?
When it comes to systems of accountability, all the paper laws in the world cannot save leaders from themselves. When it comes to reform of leadership culture, the case of Bishop Tomé Ferreira shows just how far there is to go. On both the structural and the cultural sides of Church reform, the bishops continue to be their own worst enemies.
A bishop cozy with gangsters
The other involved Luigi Renzo, formerly the bishop of Mileto-Nicotera-Tropea, Italy, whose erstwhile personal secretary, Msgr. Graziano Maccarone, is accused of mafia-style extortion along with another priest, don Nicola De Luca. Don Nicola had served as regent of Our Lady of the Rosary in Tropea. Both have declared themselves innocent of wrongdoing.
Italian prosecutors say Msgr. Maccarone made an off-book loan of roughly €9,000 to a local fellow in order to help him settle an outstanding debt, then used scare tactics to get him to pay up. Prosecutors say Msgr. Maccarone flaunted his familial ties to the Mancuso crime family as part of those tactics.
Don Nicola’s supposed role in the affair is not entirely clear, but reports in the Italian press suggest he more-or-less knowingly facilitated Msgr. Maccarone’s criminal machinations.
Italian press reports quote Msgr. Maccrone as telling the debtor, “My cousin is Luigi” (i.e., Luigi Mancuso), “the capo dei capi,” or supreme head of the crime syndicate and a major powerhouse in southern Italy’s ‘Ndrangheta crime syndicate.
Prosecutors also say Msgr. Maccarone sent thousands of sexually suggestive messages to the debtor’s disabled daughter, and that he arranged an encounter with her in a hotel — the encounter reportedly never took place — as part of the debt settlement.
The diocese and the bishop escaped criminal indictment, and called the accusations against the priests baseless. Msgr. Maccarone continued to serve as Bishop Renzo’s personal secretary until Renzo’s resignation on July 1.
A rock and a hard place
One understands Church leaders’ reticence to bow to pressure — whether through raunchy videos leaked to the press or on social media, or through the “secular arm” of justice in the civil sphere, or through some combination — but that is not an argument against taking swift and transparent action when there is the appearance of wrongdoing.
The Church has a long memory and recalls with unease the great battles — literal and figurative — fought to secure the immunity of the Church from secular intrusion in the ancient regime, when the Church was a constitutive element of society and an integral part of the state. Churchmen in Rome especially recall — whether consciously or as part of the cultural memory — the settlement reached in the wake of the French revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, which held for a while and is now showing signs of unsettling: basically, that the Church would stay out of politics and the secular sphere would leave the Church well enough alone.
In Italy, where the vestiges of the older arrangement remain visible and palpable in the national discourse and part of the cultural default, churchmen may well be less than fully sensible of how irrelevant their ecclesiastical status has become. Their awakening to reality has been slow, and may prove finally to be very rude.
In any case, Italy’s circumstances are peculiar. It is a mistake for senior churchmen in Rome to think of the rest of the world as though it were an extension of the curial back yard. Even the curial backyard isn’t the curial backyard anymore.
What’s at stake?
Each in its own way, the stories of Bishop Ferreira and Bishop Renzo show how business as usual is untenable. The former shows — yet again — that truth will out. The latter shows — again — that the old arrangement is failing even where it once held strong.
What if churchmen in São José had been confident their concerns would get fair hearing and swift action from higher authority? What if the accusations against him in 2018 and before had received properly thorough investigation and properly transparent resolution?
What if Bishop Renzo had felt from the outset that getting to the bottom of the business with his secretary and don Nicola was in his own best interests and that of the diocese? Then, maybe he did feel it was, but also felt himself fenced in by rules of etiquette and protocol made for an age long since passed.
That we are still asking all the “what if?” questions does not bode well. Church leaders around the world should pay heed to how things are playing out and recognize that they do not have to wait for change to come from the top. They are still in time to decide on their own to do things differently and better.
They will make mistakes if they do, but the faithful are not likely to be more patient with business-as-usual than they are with reasonable, good-faith efforts to do better. Caesar is another story, but fearing his sword more than they fear the wrath of God or his people will not keep them from feeling either. It will lead to mission failure.
This is an unsettling time. In such times, there is one constant, and it is that a business-as-usual attitude must lead to disaster.
Christopher Altieri writes from Connecticut.
