DIALOGUE WITH THE DIOCESE
The Chicago Drama

Making the Decision:  Five Chicago affiliates gathered together late 2005 to discuss the benefits of forming a Chicago Affiliates Council to unify the communications and actions within the Diocese.  Because we were functioning independently, we agreed that we needed to form critical mass, sort out priorities, work in tandem and grow membership.

Benefits were numerous but we were strangers to one another and while our missions were the same, the methods of achieving those missions were quite varied which freed us to make some decisions on how we wanted to function:

• We would support the three national goals, the VOTF Mission Statement using a prayerful voice, attentive to the Spirit, through which the Faithful can actively participate in the governance and guidance of the Catholic Church in all our actions.
• We were dedicated to using our skills of collegiality, collaboration, cooperation and fostering community to interact with one another and within that spirit with our Cardinal where and when that was possible.
• We were free to function as independent affiliates with open communication to the Council as needed.  Should one affiliate not choose to follow the aggregate, they were free to act as they saw appropriate as long as all parties were informed.

The Crisis Hits:  Almost to the day of our first “get acquainted” meeting, the media was filled with stories of Daniel McCormack and interviews with the Cardinal.

We realized soon that the relationship/community building that was an internal priority paled by contrast to the need to make a decision on next steps.  For a period of time, I believe it was 6 weeks, we met weekly to “unpack” the media coverage and to have dialogue about these egregious events.  To say we were overwhelmed at the onset was a clear understatement.

We discussed the following actions we could take:

1.  Demanding that Cardinal George resign 
2.  Issuing a press release or hold a press conference stating that we had a “no confidence vote” on Cardinal George’s leadership in light of the fact that he was one of the authors of the Charter to Protect Children, and
3. To slow down this train and examine root causes (optimally with the Cardinal) to move to resolve this loss of trust in the Archdiocese.

Difficulty in Functioning but Sticking to the Agreement:  There was vigorous debate, couched in a great deal of prayer and meditation to listen for God’s voice in this debacle.  We met regularly and dependent with between 12-15 regulars present.  We debated about the right course of action to help seek needed solutions and move the Archdiocese into a potential model of contrition and healing.  We were clearly focused in our goal.

Majority agreement after great debate that asking the Cardinal to resign would not effect any change in leadership.  We then discussed the “no confidence” alternative which we felt was middle of the road and we discussed that it would bring attention to the Archdiocese with media pressure and we discussed at length a petition campaign to help raise awareness of the pew Catholics.  This alternative had appeal to some because it highlighted the leadership element.  The minority opinion was to ask for a meeting with the Cardinal and to work on this option until it was potentially exhausted.  This option created friction in the group.  We prayed, discussed, discerned and came to the following consensus:  the three actions we selected could be viewed as sequential: a meeting first---taking the high road, dependent upon the meeting/no meeting we could call for the “no confidence” action and lastly, and the one we were all assured would change nothing (partly because of the man and partly because of who was requesting it).  With that conclusion, we contacted the Cardinal’s office.

We were told that the Cardinal would indeed meet with us with one stipulation:  we were to wait until the Defenbaugh and Childers reports were in and made public so that our discourse was more a fruitful one.  Both reports were commissioned by the Cardinal and were an attempt on his part to look at root causes and because of this framework, we felt a wait was justified.  Within 10 days of this notification, the reports were released and were eye openers.  We all got copies of the reports, studied them and met again to discuss what they had to say and what points we wanted to make as a result.  We were then ready to ask again for a meeting date.

As we waited for the date, we did some role playing on the issues we wanted to bring to the table and did so with someone who’d been on the Cardinal’s Diocesan Pastoral Council.  Because the gentleman had been on the Council for some time and knew how the Cardinal thought and behaved, we were assured that this would be our dress rehearsal. 

The Meeting:  There was nearly a month’s wait but we secured the appointment for May 12, 2005 and when the day came, nine of us attended. We wanted representatives of each affiliate present to reduce the potential of miscommunication to affiliate members.  We were told that the meeting was scheduled for one hour. 

The Cardinal entered the room and appeared visibly agitated and we were uncertain whether there were other causative issues of whether he was agitated to meet with us.  The reason soon became apparent.  His hands were shaking and his words were measured and he appeared red in the face.  While we had an agenda and had it submitted in advance, it was clear that Cardinal George had something to say.  We deferred to him.  He immediately said, “You asked for me to step down from the USCCB!”  We clarified that that action was taken by the national office and was in conjunction with his handling of the McCormack debacle and that they’d also asked for Bishop Skylstad to resign as well because of some pending allegations yet to be proven.  That said, it was clear that Cardinal George didn’t know what VOTF stood for as he asked why we called ourselves Voice of the Faithful when we clearly did not represent all of the faithful.  He was clearly in a contentious, discrediting mood.

I responded that Voice of All of the Faithful was too large for our letterheads.  We explained our three national goals and when we came to Goal #3, he turned to us and said “That’s stupid!”  We asked why and his response was that structurally the Church was never going to change their position on Papal Succession.  We responded that in the real world we were talking about systemic change so that debacles similar to the McCormack situation would never occur again.  He responded, “Why don’t you say that then?”

He then relayed a story which backed up his request not to be quoted by any of us as a result of our meeting.  He laid the ground rules: we could comment on what happened, our feelings about what happened but were not to quote him.”

We were well prepared for that meeting and the exchange moved from contentious to cordial despite the fact that the Cardinal danced around some of the issues we pressed him on.  One serious exchange was around our question, “Why wasn’t McCormack removed when he had had a prior arrest and was already being monitored?”  The Cardinal responded after a moment’s deliberation, “I can’t remove priests willy nilly!”  The attorney in our group jumped on this response post haste by saying, “With all due respect, Cardinal, an arrest is not a willy nilly issue!”  The Cardinal appeared to be very uneasy with this exchange but said, “Don’t you think that I suffer every night when I go to bed thinking about what I could have done?”
The exchanges moved from highly contentious to a level of cordiality that had the Cardinal repeat many times over, “I can see that you people really love this Church!”  The meeting lasted nearly double the time we were originally allotted.  As we left all agreed that a follow-up meeting was in order and we were to develop an agenda to his office on the topics we wanted to discuss.

Following the Meeting:  We did that a few weeks later believing that we had a breakthrough meeting.  We received a letter from the Cardinal that the agenda we submitted did not justify a follow up meeting because he’d formed an Ad Hoc Committee to recommend solutions to him based upon the Defenbaugh and Childers reports.  We asked to be part of the Ad Hoc Committee.  The reply was that the committee was formed and we would be privy to their report prior to its becoming public.

Complications to a Sustained Relationship:  In the summer of 2006, the Cardinal was diagnosed with bladder cancer and was scheduled for immediate surgery the next day.   While there was a post surgery concern, the cancer was confined and had not spread.  Physical therapy was in order and it was projected that the Cardinal would not resume his regular duties until after Labor Day.  As a result our request was handled by the Chancellor, Jimmy Lago, which was anything but polite.  Lago told us that the Cardinal was out of order telling us that we could receive the report or that it would be made public.  The response was brusque and definitive.

Months later, the Cardinal fell and broke his hip.  His medical issues continue to recur.  It was then clear that internally we became divided on approach.  Some of us wanted to merely confront the dysfunctional system head on and others who continued to want to correspond with the Cardinal.