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February 09, 2005
UChicago priests quits
Cardinal Francis George said he regretted the appointment.
"I will review the process that led to my decision to permit Father Yakaitis to work in college ministry, and will take the steps needed to correct any errors in that process for the future."
Posted by Amy Welborn | Permalink
Comments
It's apparent that Cdl. George can apologize with the best of them, but....both the Cardinal and the other folks who let this priest back into ministry, especially with young people, ought to do something more than just apologize.
More proof that the problem is structural.
Posted by: Jim at Feb 10, 2005 6:57:57 AM
Maybe Eadfrith can comment on this one: how his hero George was slandered by RCF for tolerating homosexuality.
Posted by: stuart chessman at Feb 10, 2005 8:46:26 AM
"I will review the process that led to my decision to permit Father Yakaitis to work in college ministry, and will take the steps needed to correct any errors in that process for the future."
That's a pretty weak apology. Cardinal George is going to review the "PROCESS", as if a process is to blame and not his poor judgment. And those weren't just "ANY" errors, those were HIS errors.
How can anyone take these people seriously?
Posted by: Poppi at Feb 10, 2005 9:05:23 AM
Cardinal George, the hope of the orthodox...
Posted by: Rod Dreher at Feb 10, 2005 9:20:37 AM
Consider another aspect of this which I have seen at numerous campus ministries. Instead of seeing such a ministry as a critical window to the next generation - at an elite university such as University of Chicago no less - it is often staffed by those who have seen the need to exit other ministries for one reason or another.
Just like hospital chaplaincies.
With such incredibly poor management judgement - even from a purely secular perspective - it's amazing the faith has any presence at all on college campuses. Whatever you think, at least Opus Dei has always understood the importance of this ministry.
Posted by: stuart chessman at Feb 10, 2005 9:50:27 AM
Could it be that there *was* a poor process that lead to a bad decision? Naw. Not possible.
Posted by: Mike Petrik at Feb 10, 2005 10:16:57 AM
How can anyone take these people seriously?
It never fails to astonish me how resistant these men are to learning. Really. They just don't learn. After everything we've been through, all the disasters, not only do they keep making the same mistakes over and over, they seem not to have learned how to apologize even. "I will review the process.." Give me a break.
Posted by: Leo at Feb 10, 2005 10:31:00 AM
A couple of comments:
The relationship at the seminary was with an adult, not a minor. Although it was wrong on several counts it does not trigger the procedures in place for clergy who abuse minors.
The relationship at the seminary occurred before Cardinal George was appointed archbishop of Chicago.
Although I do not know this for a fact, I suspect that any Archbishop signs off on personnel matters as per recommendations by the Personnel Board. How this got by the Personnel Board is the Process questions.
Posted by: MaureenM at Feb 10, 2005 11:59:19 AM
No, Maureen, that can't be right. We've been authoritatively told by many people (journalists even!) that, although they've never been in charge of any organization or had to supervise more than a handful of people (let alone the thousands of people employed in an archdiocese), every archbishop must have had personal knowledge of, and must bear direct blame for, every personnel decision within the archdiocese.
I'm being facetious, of course, but that is the mentality of many. Note that I am NOT saying that bishops shouldn't be held accountable when they do have personal knowledge of sex offenders being shuffled around, or when the policies they have put in places have consistently led to sexual abuse. Such bishops deserve ringing condemnation and removal.
It's the "something went wrong so the bishop must be evil" approach that I'm attacking here.
Posted by: Cornelius AMDG at Feb 10, 2005 12:23:34 PM
If a piece of paper goes out of my office and it is incorrect because my secretary goofed and put the wrong document in the envelope, I call up the client of course as soon as I find out about it.
I do not say, "I will review the process." That will get me nowhere, and is dishonest into the bargain. I do not mention my secretary. I am responsible for what happens under my watch. I say, "I am so sorry this happened. Please accept my apology. I take personal responsibility for this, and I will personally do my utmost to be certain that it never happens again."
I'm not calling for sanctity here. That response is not evidence of moral virtue particularly, that's just honesty, good manners and common sense. That's how you apologize when your office makes a mistake.
Is this so difficult for these men to learn?
Posted by: Leo at Feb 10, 2005 12:25:56 PM
Cornelius, well of course the archbishop takes personal responsibility for personel decisions. If he doesn't, who will? The lower-downs, who just say, probably truthfully, "Well I was just following orders"?
Then he goes back to the office, and heads roll at the Personnel Board until the survivors catch on. That's how things get done. That's how mistakes get avoided in the future.
But you don't throw your subordinates to the wolves, either explicitly or by implication. ("I will review the process.") Calling the client (or, talking to the reporter) and saying, "It's my secretary's [vice president's] [Personnel Board's] [janitor's] fault" sounds like the act of a cad because it is the act of a cad.
Jim's wrong. Cdl. George cannot "apologize with the best of them." I could do a lot better myself.
Posted by: Leo at Feb 10, 2005 12:33:28 PM
Just curious, Leo -- you were calling for the resignation of Bush and Rumsfeld over Abu Ghraib, right?
Posted by: Cornelius AMDG at Feb 10, 2005 12:41:37 PM
I didn't "call for" anyone's resignation.
You have a good point, though. I would have liked to see more taking of responsibility at the top in that case too. So far it's teenage soldiers and young officers taking the heat. Where, please, are the indictments of their commanding officers?
Posted by: Leo at Feb 10, 2005 1:00:16 PM
I'm impressed at the ability some of you seem to have to judge the actions and the motives of the Archbishop of Chicago, considering the fact that the article contains a lengthy statement by the priest about his past, an accusation by an accuser that he informed some "superiors" in the "1990s". It seems that it's not asking too much to hold our judgements until we actually know something about what went on.
"No, Maureen, that can't be right. We've been authoritatively told by many people (journalists even!) that, although they've never been in charge of any organization or had to supervise more than a handful of people (let alone the thousands of people employed in an archdiocese), every archbishop must have had personal knowledge of, and must bear direct blame for, every personnel decision within the archdiocese."
Cornelius is right. I'm part of a large organization, and sometimes things happen that everyone regrets. It can be simply a "system issue", not a lack of conern or a lack of orthodoxy.
I used to wonder why the Orthodox have a special feast for the Pharisee and the publican. After reading this thread and the one about rage and "chesty men", I think the Catholic Church needs one too.
Posted by: Tim Young at Feb 10, 2005 1:18:29 PM
Maureen wrote:
"The relationship at the seminary was with an adult, not a minor. Although it was wrong on several counts it does not trigger the procedures in place for clergy who abuse minors."
Now there's some hairsplitting for you! What rational superior would appoint a person to a position of authority at a college when it was known that that person as an adult in a position of authority had previously had a sexual relationship with an 18 year old, male or female.
Maureen, it's your kind of excuse making for the clergy that just deepens the problem. It's sickening to read. The hierarchy continues to exhibit an inability to learn from experience and you just prattle on about internal church procedures.....pitiful, really.
Posted by: Desert Chatter at Feb 10, 2005 1:47:42 PM
What I am saying, Desert, is that the system in place to protect minors from abuse does not work to protect adults from other adults who might harm them. It doesn't mean that the system to protect minors is broken; it means that it doesn't apply in these cases.
We do not know what went into the priest's file after the former seminarian talked to someone in authority (years before George came to Chiago, by the way).
I applaud Cardinal George for stating that he is going to examine the process -- changing the process by which appointments are made is the only way to prevent this from happening again.
Posted by: MaureenM at Feb 10, 2005 2:00:20 PM
"Mistakes were made . . . "
"The 'process' made me do it."
Posted by: ajb at Feb 10, 2005 2:41:11 PM
Where should a priest who has been sexually, but non-criminally, involved with an 18 year old go? Being assigned to a college would seem to throw him in the path of temptation, for sure. Should he be assigned to a parish? Couldn't something similar happen there? Should he be defrocked? I think Barbara and Cornelius raise good points and we are left with these questions.
Posted by: Anna at Feb 10, 2005 2:44:03 PM
On a secular level and from experience if, say, a CPA firm has partners and they have employees doing tax returns and there is an error or mistake, the firm and partners are solely to blame, bear the payment of the fine if there is one.
ISTM, that many in the current batch of bishops at least in the US see themselves more as administrators and yet fail miserably in that position. They would flunk every secular test if it came to CEO capability.
But the administrative and juridical end is not the primary function of bishops if I have understood the teaching of Catholicism. And these bishops also fail miserably if they say they stand as successors of the apostles. To me they seem like split personalities that aren't really quite sure which one of the two personalities is speaking at which time. And the words and actions of those men have also failed miserably.
You can spare attacking me about the dignity of the office of bishop vs the one who claims that office. They are defined as ontologically changed and in direct succession to the apostles. They are NOT just mere humans struggling and who fail as the rest of us do. Those men chose to accept the miter. They will, here or at the throne, answer for their role in that office. Just as the rest of us will answers for our actions. And I don't accept an excuse that the blame is on the laity for whatever reasons (ie. lack of prayer for them, our unfaithfulness etc.) for the sins and failings of these men.
Posted by: Meaghan at Feb 10, 2005 4:52:08 PM
"What I am saying, Desert, is that the system in place to protect minors from abuse does not work to protect adults from other adults who might harm them. It doesn't mean that the system to protect minors is broken; it means that it doesn't apply in these cases."
And what I'd like to say is that we're talking about something much more grievous than the violation of the child abuse guidelines. A man in a position of trust and authority at a seminary committed grievous and perverted sins with a man that he was supposed to be guiding spiritually. He should never be allowed to be a chaplain at a university.
Your response here is just another example of how the bishops have dumbed down the Situation: the big picture is a heinous disgrace, so the bishops would like to nit-pick over niceties of a policy that was designed to do as little as they could get away with.
Posted by: Jim at Feb 10, 2005 5:10:46 PM
Jim wrote: "A man in a position of trust and authority at a seminary committed grievous and perverted sins with a man that he was supposed to be guiding spiritually. He should never be allowed to be a chaplain at a university."
How did he get this appointment? Was there anything in his personnel file that indicated that he had behaved immorally while in a position of authority at the seminary? Was this part of unwritten "institutional memory" that was lost when those who knew moved on to other roles in the Archdiocese? Was the priest expected to police himself and not apply for such an appointment?
What are those who are "in charge" to do with a priest who engages in what might be termed "sexual harassment of an adult over whom the priest has supervisory authority"?
Posted by: MaureenM at Feb 10, 2005 5:42:54 PM
Back to the bottom line: how little will we settle for in the men who are supposed to be spiritual leaders?
How many of you would be excited about sending your children to a college where this man was chaplain? Think this might strengthen your kids' faith? Especially if the chaplain hits on them?
Then we ask ourselves why our college-age children rebel against the church. Oh but hey, that's ok, they're "adults", so what this guy did was perfectly OK, right?
Posted by: Leo at Feb 10, 2005 5:46:40 PM
Leo, I will be the first to say that what this guy (Fr. Yakaitas) did was wrong. He was wrong to hit on a seminarian and try to blackmail him. He was wrong to accept the appointment as chaplain at U of C.
The Chicago Tribune had a much more thorough story yesterday. In November 1991, the seminarian confronted Yakaitis ... the student withdrew from the seminary and continued his studies at Loyola University, he said.
In summer 1993, the student sought admission to St. Mary of the Lake Seminary...
[at that time], he said he notified a number of administrators within the archdiocese about Yakaitis' behavior, including ....Rev. John Canary, then vicar for priests, now rector of St. Mary of the Lake Seminary.
Canary said he told the student the matter would be handled according to the policies set forth in 1992 to protect victims of clergy sexual abuse.
"I assured him that every safeguard would be taken," Canary said. "We tried to do that."
Canary said that when he heard of Yakaitis' appointment to the University of Chicago in 2001, he notified the proper authorities within the archdiocese. He said he was assured that the matter would be investigated.
"That's the gaping hole in this whole incident," the former seminarian said Tuesday. "How could he have been reassigned in almost exactly the same position he had abused me?"
Archdiocese spokesman Jim Dwyer said that although a formal policy is in place for dealing with clergy sexual abuse of minors, none exists for handling clergy sexual exploitation of adults.
"There's not a real formal policy in place," Dwyer said. "We have a more informal policy in place administrated through the vicar for priests office for any misconduct of any kind, financial, sexual."
It seems to me that no one who knew Yakaitis past was in a position to say, "He can't be appointed to U of C" and those who appointed him were in the dark until Canary came forward and was told it would be investigated. That's where it gets dicey, doesn't it?
Would a zero tolerance policy for any member of the clergy who engages in any homosexual behavior be the right move? what about zero tolerance for priests who engage in heterosexual relations?
Posted by: MaureenM at Feb 10, 2005 6:00:28 PM
"How many of you would be excited about sending your children to a college where this man was chaplain? Think this might strengthen your kids' faith?"
i am a student where this man was chaplain. and he has helped to strengthen my faith. he helped me through a tough situation with a friend, and he never hit on me. now, whether that's because i'm female or because he has managed to control his sexual desires to a greater degree over the last fifteen years, we cannot know. i believe that what he did back then has little effect on the good things he did for our campus ministry here; the advice he gave still came from the holy spirit, even if he did make some very bad choices, and even if he was put in a position later on that he shouldn't have been.
Posted by: abby at Feb 10, 2005 6:45:48 PM
Well, you were lucky, abby, congratulations.
As a parent I worry about my kids; I like to not have to depend on luck where the safety of my kids with the chaplain is concerned.
When you have children you will understand.
Posted by: Leo at Feb 10, 2005 6:51:46 PM
