MR. MICHAEL CROMARTIE: Welcome. We’re delighted that Mr. Zogby could be here. By the way, the toughest part of this event was getting all these very busy gentlemen together on the same day, and we’re glad that, in their busy schedules, they could join us. As you know, John Zogby’s the President and CEO of Zogby International, one of the best well-known polling companies in the nation, and even in the world. They did this poll. It was conducted between June 12 and July 1st, 2003, and the results are out now, and we’re privileged to have Mr. Zogby here to summarize those -- that data for you, and then our distinguished panelists will comment.

Mr. Zogby?

MR. JOHN ZOGBY: Thank you, Michael.

There you see the title of the study that was completed during the summer. I’d like to begin by just explaining some of the methodology and sample characteristics and, essentially, what we did was we polled 100 Roman Catholic opinion leaders in the United States. They were chosen at random from a select list that was provided to us by Geoff Boisi and by Frank Butler. We made every effort possible to ensure that there was a balance ideologically, by Mass attendants, and so on. We’ll see the sample characteristics in a second. All the calls were made between June 21st and July. The nationwide survey was conducted, 1,004 Roman Catholics. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.2. These are chosen at random nationwide. We have polled Catholics many, many times in the United States.

Here are the sample characteristics of the nationwide survey. I am going to spare you and not go through all of them, but let me just focus on a few that are particularly noteworthy. We did ask about Mass attendance, and so roughly over half of our sample attend Mass daily or weekly. Then, there’s the almost weekly, 14 percent; monthly, 14 percent; and then down here, we call this group the "Zogby Catholics." Those are seldom or never. That was the lame joke.

Almost mixed by gender. Now, political ideology, about a quarter identified themselves as liberals or very liberal, 29 percent as moderate, and about 40 percent or so identified themselves politically as conservative or very conservative. In terms of church ideology, we had 22 percent on church matters who said that they were liberal or very liberal, 39 percent moderate, 36 percent conservative or very conservative, so I think we had a pretty good balance there.

These are now some of the sample characteristics among the opinion leaders. We saw that four were under the age of 40, mainly between the ages of 41 and 70, of -- about 16 of the 100 were over the age of 70. In terms of political ideology, a quarter were liberal, approximately the same thing as in the general survey, 38 percent moderate, 31, 32 percent were politically conservative. And then, in terms of church philosophy, 18 percent liberal, 43 percent moderate, 32 percent conservative/very conservative. That’s a very important aspect of the survey.

So, here are some of the questions. "Overall, how would you rate the job performance of the U.S. Bishops?" Note that the blue bars are going to be the nationwide survey, the reddish bars are the opinion leaders surveyed. What you see are George W. Bush numbers, essentially. Forty-nine percent said excellent or good, 48 percent said fair or poor, and the general survey a lower vote among the opinion leaders. About a third said excellent or good. Two-thirds said fair or poor.

Now, sticking with that question, we wanted to take a look at what the ratings were in the general survey among Catholics in terms of church attendance, and what we see is a fairly decent amount of unanimity here. Daily Catholics were 54 percent positive, weekly attendees 53 percent positive, almost-weekly 53, monthly 47, those who attend only on church holidays giving the lower rating to the Bishops. However, in terms of these more active, what you see is a pretty decent amount of unanimity and an almost even split, good versus fair or poor. Next.

Again, we’re going to take a look at the same rating. However, among liberal, moderates and conservatives, these now on the left-hand side are the nationwide survey and, again, a pretty decent amount of unanimity. The yellow bars are excellent or good, or the yellow triangles or pyramids. Forty-six percent among liberals, 47 percent among moderates, 52 percent among conservatives in terms of positive. And now, among the opinion leaders, you do have a lower rating. The liberals, about one in four positive, about one in three of moderates were positive towards the Bishops. One in three among the conservatives were positive. Pretty decent amount of unanimity by ideology.

"Are they doing a good job leading the U.S. Catholic Church?" We have asked similar questions in our twice-a-year polls that we do for the Contemporary Catholic Trends with Lemoyne College -- I got that in, (inaudible), president of the Board of Trustees -- okay. But, what you will see is a very interesting trend. Going back to November of 2001, 84 percent agreeing that the Bishops were doing a good job, only 12 negative. That slipped to 69 percent November of ’02. By April of ’03, 59 percent. A slightly different question, we asked agree or disagree, but still the same kind of result. We now are at about a 49/48. So, clearly, a downward trend in terms of how the Bishops are doing.

Now, we then asked a series of questions, how important each of these are in improving the Catholic Church. Again, the blue are going to be the nationwide survey and the reds are going to be the opinion leader survey, and we’re only giving you the positive -- this is a scale of one to five -- the positives, which were fours and fives, the negatives, which were ones and twos, in the middle then neutral we don’t have here. But, how important -- requiring every Diocese to make full disclosure of detailed financial information. Among Catholics nationwide, 66 percent said four or five important. Only 13 percent said not important. Interestingly, among the opinion leaders, it was only 27 percent who said important. Five percent said not important. The rest were down the middle.

Again, with the same question about full disclosure, this is the general survey. And again, we see a pretty decent amount of agreement, daily Catholics, 62 percent; weekly Catholics, 69; 58 percent, almost weekly; 59 percent, monthly. Among the general survey, that’s about as close to agreement as you can possibly get. This is interesting because those of you -- and all of you, I’m sure -- who follow Catholic politics in America understand that, in terms of voting behavior, those who attend Mass more frequently are generally more conservative than those who attend less frequently. In this instance and in several other instances, you will see widespread agreement on these questions.

Again, making full disclosure, this is the general survey. These are liberals, 74 percent; 66 percent, moderates; 60 percent, conservatives who agreed that it was important. Liberals, moderates and conservatives among opinion leaders, 100 percent of the liberals, 82 percent of the moderates, 82 percent of the conservatives - kind of interesting, still fundamental agreement. Next? How about, "How important is greater participation by the laity on Boards to assist in resolving in Diocesan and Parish problems?" This is the nationwide survey. Seventy-six said important. Next?

Again, a pretty decent amount of agreement. These are all high bars, from 66 percent all the way up to about 80 percent who said that greater participation by the laity on Boards is something that is important. Next? Same thing among liberals, moderates and conservatives in the yellow pyramids, a great degree of agreement. Next?

How about increasing the role of laity in helping to clearly define the Church’s overall mission, policies and ministries? You see a substantial agreement there among both the nationwide survey of general Catholics and the opinion leaders at or around two out of three. Same thing. Those are pretty high stats there. These are levels of activism within the Church. Again, majorities everywhere, less among the daily Catholics but substantially higher among all other groups. And these are the nationwide survey and the opinion leaders. You see a huge amount of agreement, three out of four in most instances.

Okay, the emphasis on celibacy within the priesthood. About half of the national survey said it was important. Only about a quarter of the opinion leaders said that it was important. How about those who said not important? Only one in four of the general surveyed, but a majority of the opinion leaders said that it was not important. Here are the levels of activism within the Church, and you see in this instance a split between daily and weekly Catholics, where you have about a third of the daily saying it’s important, but half or so of the weeklies and almost-weeklies. It gets much more important among those who attend less frequently. Next?

Nationwide versus opinion leader, roughly around half of liberals, moderates, conservatives saying that celibacy is important among opinion leaders. It’s much more important among the liberals than it is among moderates or conservatives. How about a person -- rate how it might have contributed most to the sex abuse scandal, a personal lack of moral integrity on the part of church leaders. Sixty percent of Catholics in general said that it was important. Only one out of five said not important. Interestingly, among opinion leaders, only a third said it was important, and little more than a third, two out of five, said not important.

Okay, we can whisk through these. Pretty much unanimity there among the various groups of Catholics in the general survey who said that moral integrity is a problem. A majority everywhere -- next -- and a majority among liberals, moderates and conservatives in the general survey, and less important, one out of four to about one out of three, liberals, moderates and conservatives. A split there.

How important was the desire to protect the Church’s reputation or to shield the laity from scandal? Here you have very high numbers. Very important, 69 percent in the nationwide survey, 81 percent among the opinion leaders; very few, one out of seven or so, saying not important. Very high numbers, majorities among all the levels of Church activism or attendance, and very high among liberals, moderates and conservatives, a desire to protect the Church’s reputation or to shield the laity from scandal; very high, 92/89/74, liberal/moderate/conservative among the opinion leaders.

There is now an appropriate mechanism in the Church. These are agrees or disagrees. Requiring the Bishops to accept responsibility and to enforce proper behavior, two out of three in the nationwide survey agreed. One out of four disagreed. It was an even split, 46/47, among the opinion leaders. You see high numbers in the national survey requiring Bishops to accept responsibility and enforce proper behavior. Look especially at the daily Catholics. Eighty-four percent, but strong majorities among all levels of Church activity. In the nationwide survey, high numbers agreeing among liberals, moderates, conservatives. Among opinion leaders, interestingly, only one out of four liberals giving it a very high agreement, 50 percent among moderates, 56 percent among conservatives.

How serious is each of the problems to the survival of the Catholic Church in the 21st century? A decreasing number of priests, three out of four general survey said very serious, another 20. So, almost everybody said very or somewhat serious. Sixty-one percent said very serious among the opinion leaders. One out of three said somewhat serious. Very few said not serious. No need to go through these. Yes, those are high bars. The next one, very, very high bars. Okay.

How serious is this, low rates of participation in worship and parish activities among young people? You have agreement, very serious, about two out of three both in the nationwide survey and the opinion leader survey. Very few saying not serious at all. Next?

High bars across among the general, high bars across the board, liberals, moderates, conservatives in both the nationwide survey and the opinion leader survey.

How serious is the aging of the population of priests, nuns and other clerics? Agreement again between the nationwide and the opinion leader, two out of three said very serious, virtually everyone else saying somewhat serious, very few in both the opinion leader and general survey, high bars in the nationwide survey among the various groups by activity, and high bars, over 60 percent liberals, moderates and conservatives, and majorities among opinion leaders. Eighty-two percent of conservatives saying that aging of the population of clergy and nuns are important.

How about how serious is the meeting the Church’s mission to the poor? Agreement, about two out of five, of both nationwide survey and opinion leader survey give that a very serious, but almost as many say somewhat serious among the nationwide survey, one out of four somewhat serious among opinion leaders. Opinion leaders, less sanguine about this issue than -- with 36 percent saying not serious than general Catholics. How serious is meeting the Church’s mission to the poor? Some interesting differences, but 55 percent among dailies, 42 percent among weeklies, indicate a pretty high number in the nationwide survey. Liberals, much more likely to say serious or very serious than moderates or conservatives. Same thing with liberals versus moderates versus conservatives in the opinion leader survey.

"How serious is widespread dissent with Catholic teaching among the Clergy?" One out of three of both the nationwide survey, one out of three of the opinion leader survey said very serious. About the same amount, give or take a few points, said somewhat serious, but one out of five Catholics nationwide said not serious. One out of three opinion leaders said not serious. We’ve got to, I think, move along.

Okay. "How serious is adapting to the growth of the Hispanic population and other new immigrants in the American Church?" About one out of three said very serious in both the nationwide survey and the opinion leader survey. About one out of three also said somewhat serious, and approximately one out of three, three out of ten said not serious among both groups. That’s just too complicated to get into right now. Too many bars. Okay, next? There you go.

I just have some final comments. I want you to understand my role here, and that is as an objective pollster. I am a Catholic, but what I tried to do was to not have any of my personal views get involved in the survey, let the numbers speak for themselves. But, here are some -- interpretive analysis. I want to speak as both a consultant and a strategist.

The Church has a problem. To put it in blunt terms, there is not a strong re-elect here. Translated, if the Bishops faced re-election today, they’d be in serious trouble. Almost half are likely now to say that -- to say no than say yes, and it’s a downward trend from the beginning when we first started polling a few years ago. Unlike a political campaign, the problem is not another candidate. Rather, it’s a potential loss of a loyal following, especially among younger Catholics, among parents and among once-a-week Catholics. The laity, those who care regardless of ideology, are at a crossroads, and here are some questions that I feel have to be dealt with.

Number one, what will be the role in composition of the Clergy in the face of serious demographic challenges? Number two, what is the proper role of the Clergy? In a democratic society, those with talent and interest want to be involved in their church. Alienating this eager and willing talent allows the Church to lose valuable expertise and valuable loyalty. Number three, how will the Church’s hierarchy regain trust? If the answer continues to be my way or the highway, it will be a lonelier back road strewn with older Bishops.

Number four, how best to stem the tide and reverse a genuine deterioration of communication between the laity and the hierarchy, between priests and the hierarchy, and between priests and parishioners. Number five, how best to address an outmoded and unworkable governance structure. The scandal laid bare not only a serious lapse in morality and legality, but it also showed or revealed an abominable structure for problem-solving on every level from Parish to Diocese to The Vatican. And number six, how best to understand the tremendous demographic challenges facing the church. How best to reach the young, the Hispanic, the female, the gay and the single population, all growing in numbers. How best to deal with religious illiteracy.

I’m merely a researcher, but I am a Catholic. If I were managing this campaign, I’d have to conclude that Church leaders are losing because the leadership is wrong, the message is wrong, and recent history is wrong. Otherwise, everything else is fine.

Thank you.

MR. CROMARTIE: Father Bryan Hehir is the CEO and President of Catholic Charities USA, and the former head of Harvard Divinity School. In January 2004, Reverend Hehir will become President of Catholic Charities for the Archdiocese of Boston.

Thank you, Bryan, for coming.

FATHER BRYAN HEHIR: Thank you. Thank you very much. I appreciate the invitation to be part of what I regard as a very important session and very revealing set of data and, as I understand it, we have about 10 to 12 minutes to say something about it.

I would like to make some general comments first as a background to the data, secondly, say a word about the nature and content of the crisis that, in a sense generated the data, and then make some comments on the data itself.

I think the first thing generally to say is, obviously, the crisis that we are gathered to think about, at least in specific terms the sexual abuse crisis, is I think a unique event. That is to say it is sui generis, and that is not to overstate the case. And within any time in the Church’s life, it would have a volcanic impact. If one goes back to the 1950s when Catholicism looked to be the absolute picture of stability and unanimity and homogeneity, an event like this would have been volcanic at that time as it is at this time. So, I think that’s the first thing to say, is we are dealing with something here for which there is not a great deal, I think, of historical precedent to give us guidance in terms of how to respond.

At the same time, while it would be volcanic at any time, the context of the moment shapes the framework within which we interpret the crisis and seek to respond to it, and I think that context, that is to say the larger set of themes that were already there in the Church before this crisis erupted, in broad strokes might be summarized in terms of three things. We are now in the 40th anniversary of the second Vatican Council. Councils have systemic impact on the life of the Church. We are still working through this rather extraordinary impact the Vatican Council was.

Secondly, the 25th anniversary of John Paul the Second, who in a sense followed upon the Council and has been engaged in a work of shaping and reshaping the Church from his perspective in light of this large, broad -- of this broad and deep change introduced by the Council. And then, thirdly, there is the context of this local church within which this event occurred and within which it is analyzed and received. Here, it seems to me there are certain characteristics of this local church that influence both what we might be able to do about this and how we understand it. First, just simply the size and diversity of American Catholicism. The numbers, in terms of their degree of agreement on so many points, is striking to me precisely because of the size and diversity of Catholicism.

Second major characteristic I think is the educational level. As you try to deal with these numbers or deal with the commentary that Mr. Zogby offered or that others have made, it is important I think to keep stressing that this is the most educated community that the Roman Catholic Church has ever confronted in its history. If you simply take the median level of education of this local Church, it is different than anything Roman Catholicism has confronted in 2,000 years. That educational level sets certain standards of what is regarded as acceptable explanation of policy, set standards of what’s regarded as acceptable means of teaching and governance.

Thirdly, there are secular standards that arise from people’s professional lives in this society and that they translate into pastoral expectations. This again has to do with the educational level, which then in turn produces people in various kinds of professional careers where standards are set, and they translate those standards into expectations in the life of how the Church will deal with them.

Fourthly and finally, the very central role of women in American Catholicism is a datum that I think is extraordinarily influential in trying to understand how the Church might proceed from here. And by this, I mean the historic role of women in the Roman Catholic Church. I think it fair to say, without religious women, we would not be the Church we are today. And their impact on the educational system -- but even more importantly again, the educational level, the role of women in American society and their expectations of their role in the Church. All of that I think shapes a contextual fabric in which this crisis is "received and responded to."

The crisis itself, it seems to me, was a combination of deep personal failures, substantial leadership failures, and then the institutional setting that surrounded both. Having distinguished those three, you have to distinguish them further. Deep personal failures, deeply rooted psychological illness on the part of some people, that resulted in pedophilia strictly defined -- specifically defined. Secondly, problems of development among other people, psychosexual development, and lack of personal and professional discipline. These, it seemed to me, were at the root of what happened in the sexual abuse crisis.

The leadership failures were both internal and external. Internal, a failure of oversight and immediate response to what by any standard must be regarded as a deep, powerful and systemic failure at the professional level of the Clergy, failure to respond to that by Bishops, and failure externally in our relationship to secular society and our responsibility for this Church’s role in secular society. The institutional setting cuts across many of the comments in the data because, in other words, what is the institutional setting that influences how this was handled? Well, it ranges from the strong emphasis on the notion of secrecy as a style of behavior to organizational and management policies that are defective by normal standards of organizational behavior to disciplinary norms, discussions about questions of Church discipline, and then on even to doctrinal debates, although it seems to me they are less significant as you listen to people’s responses in the data.

Now again, finally responding to the data itself, I think first of all I was impressed by the, I think, overall coherence about defining the problem, both how deeply we have been hurt by the sexual abuse crisis and a good deal of coherence -- of agreement about what the future problems are that the Church faces. Secondly, the judgment on the Bishops. I must say that, while this is not something to be optimistic about, the 49/48 split at the general level is better than I would have expected. My sense of what we’ve been through and my experience of dealing with people, pastorally and in public policy terms, I didn’t think the Bishops would get an overall judgment of 49/48 in the Church. Now, I know there’s been decline from that. I didn’t quite capture the number. Mr. Zogby overwhelmed me with numbers here. There’s been a decline, I realize, in the past year, but I think the decline still left them with a pretty substantial -- with a very close split about yes and no in terms of the overall judgment on the Bishops. I thought it would have been much tougher.

The procedures that are -- the call for reforms that received the most attention, what strikes me about them is that they are organizational and procedural, as I read them. That is to say they certainly involve ecclesiology and thinking about what the nature and life of the Roman Catholic Church, but in terms of what people were calling from -- for, from transparency to factual analysis of failures in the Church to participation of laity on Boards, all of these things don’t involve you in deep doctrinal splits, and that is, it seems to me, a positive fact. Whether they are enough to solve the problem is another question, and here I want to reference -- as I think about my remarks, they may come out seemingly overly optimistic.

But, beneath these numbers, there are some very profound questions, and here I want to reference another document that was presented to you, and that is the report of the discussion that Geoff Boisi sponsored this summer. One of the participants in that discussion is here with us today, Fred Gluck, who is, as I understand it, a specialist and management consultant, had been with the McKinsey firm, and Gluck’s analysis of the depth of the management and human resource problem is stunningly sobering, it seems to me. Let me give you some sense of what he said about the management problem in the Church.

"Human resources, there are two broad problems: insufficient talent and insufficient processes for managing it. Your workforce is rapidly aging, your ability to recruit has declined dramatically, you no longer are the first choice of the best and the brightest, your people are demoralized by internal conflict and public scandal, there is no effective performance measurement at any level, which makes constructive change very difficult, if not impossible. Your traditional sources of revenue are drying up, and your costs are escalating rapidly."

Now, that analysis of what needs to be done, it seems to me, gets beneath the numbers which, as I say, came out better than I thought. So, I would not want to go away with the judgment that, since the numbers were better than I thought, the problems are easily resolved.

My final summary of the basic problem we face, all the numbers as a given, the Church faces I think a double task. It is re-establishing pastoral trust internally in the Church and re-establishing public credibility in the life of American society. I think those two problems are equally important to us. Obviously, the first has an intrinsic priority. We are a Church in which pastoral care is the coin of the realm, and the 49/48, while it isn’t as bad as I thought, is no basis on which one can build the kind of long-term trusting relationship that makes pastoral ministry effective. We’ve got to do much better than that, and it is a process of rebuilding it step-by-step.

Public credibility also, it seems to me, is enormously important. I’m convinced this Church has a moral message about society that is important to be heard in this society. The capability of being heard is a product of both the intelligibility of what we say, but also the moral authority that we are granted to say it, and that needs to be recouped in light of the last two years.

MR. CROMARTIE: Thank you, Bryan.

Professor Alan Wolfe is Professor of Political Science and the Director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College. He’s the author of many books. His most recent is -- and it’s just been out for a few weeks -- it’s called The Transformation of American Religion: How We Actually Practice Our Faith. It’s published by The Free Press.

Alan?

PROFESSOR ALAN WOLFE: Thank you very much. It’s enormously difficult to put all of this really rich and interesting data together, but we’re all giving it our best shot. I just wanted to say that I appreciated Bryan Hehir’s attempt to be optimistic. Not being in the Church, I don’t necessarily have to caution my optimism with some of the qualifications that he offered, and I’d like to offer the most optimistic interpretation of this data that I can because I do think that there’s a positive story here. In part, I’m doing this because it’s just what I do. I always try to present -- I have a bias towards optimism, and almost a professional mission of trying to paint a more optimistic picture of where America is at generally because I see myself surrounded by doomsayers on just about every issue that we deal with. And so, counter-intuitively, I want to be optimistic.

But, I also think that, if we look at the situation that we’re dealing with here in somewhat of a historical and longer-term context, there is reason to be optimistic. Now, in looking through the Zogby report with this bias towards optimism, I came across this little tiny paragraph, one sentence long that I want to read to you. It says this: It says, "Lower income Catholics and those who attend Mass more frequently appear to believe that the Church is on the road to reform. Interestingly" -- and this is the key point -- "Young people 18 to 29" -- that is, like the students I teach at Boston College -- "Who are the most unlikely to attend church at all, seem less judgmental of the Church than older Catholics whose long-time affinity for the Church might now be unraveling because of the scandal."

Now, what I take that to mean is that, for all the unhappiness with Church practices that’s revealed in the data, there’s something much worse than unhappiness, and that would be apathy, and that the -- in contrast to the younger Catholics, who in a sense almost don’t care, the fact that people are so concerned that the negatives are so high, I take to be an indication of loyalty and of dedication to the Church. I don’t take it as a sign or an indication of turning one’s back on the Church, but almost of a redoubling of commitment to it, and there have been a number of important books that have been written about American religion and written about the Catholic Church.

I think one of the most important doesn’t make the Catholic Church at all part of its focus, but is a book that I think everyone should reread who hasn’t read it in the context of this crisis, and that’s the classic work by the economist, Albert Hirschman, called Exit, Voice and Loyalty, which is a book about responses to decline in organizations. Exit, voice and loyalty are meant to suggest options for people who are confronting a situation in which the organizations to which they belong are not satisfying their expectations. Exit is simply leaving the organization, is not what I’m seeing in this data or in reality. I am seeing some combination of voice and loyalty, voice meaning an effort to express oneself, to indicate one’s concern with what’s going on, and loyalty being an even stronger affirmation of what is happening.

I see what’s happening in that sense as one of a series of historical events that have been involving the relationship between American Catholicism -- between America and Catholicism over a long period of time, which have resulted in a series of transformations in the nature of the faith that have, by and large over this period, left both the Church and the United States stronger. This was not an easy marriage to bring together, Catholicism and America. We had Protestant roots in our origins. When -- the Church is much older than the United States.

When Catholics came here, at first they weren’t particularly welcomed by Protestant America, a history that all of you are familiar with. But, the fact that Catholicism is now our single largest religious denomination suggests in itself an extraordinary transformation of both the Church and the United States that almost no one in 18th century America could have predicted. The Church and America influenced each other. Reference has been made to Vatican II, and while Vatican II of course had its own dynamics independent of anything that happened in the United States, there’s also no doubt that events that took place in the United States had an impact on Vatican II, that the role of American Clergy, like John Courtney Murray, was instrumental in transforming the Church -- in transforming the Church away from the Church of the syllabus of errors, away from the Church that viewed liberalism as a great enemy of religion, and toward a Church that was willing to accept that there might be something in the American tradition of religious liberty and the American tradition of religious pluralism that Catholicism could learn from and that could strengthen Catholicism.

So, America in some ways changed the Church, and the Church in some ways changed America. Because of the presence of Catholics in the United States, I believe the moral conversation in America over our history has been strengthened and deepened. One cannot ignore the important role that Catholics like Father Hesburgh played in the Civil Rights movement, or that the work of the Church, including people like Father Hehir, in developing a Catholic ethic of charity and compassion, or the notion of a consistent ethic of life associated with Cardinal Bernadine. I mean, all of these things have been Catholic contributions to American life that I think match the American contribution to Catholic life.

And so here we are, it seems to me, at one other stage in the ongoing story of the ways in which the United States influences Catholicism and the ways in which Catholicism influences the United States. Now, it’s clearly a deep problem. There’s no denying that there is -- as this is more of a breach in some ways than it is one of a series of ongoing transformations. As we look at this data, it seems to me that what it’s telling us is that American Catholics, both opinion leaders and American Catholics in general, are looking for a way not to leave their Church but to strengthen it along the lines that it’s been strengthened in the past.

People in this survey, for example, talk extensively about communication. Communication, I think in many ways, is another word for a particular kind of organization that is not necessarily democratic. I don’t see the voices here saying that the Catholic Church has to become a democracy like the United States. But, I do see the emphasis on communication, on transparency and on participation as pointing toward a model that would be something different than both a democratic or a congregationally-based religion, much more along the lines of a Protestant denomination, but also would not be the kind of hierarchical Church for which communication was not one of its most prized activities that we’ve had so often throughout the past.

So, to me, what’s emerging here is -- in this data -- is a call for some new kind of understanding of both the relationship between the Church and America and some new kind of understanding about the way the Church has to govern itself. Now obviously, a survey like this is not going to tell us what that model is going to be, although I think there are hints in the survey about what it might look like in terms of some of the direct kinds of issues that the Church is dealing with in terms of issues about the nature of the Clergy and so on.

But, it does seem to me that, in historical perspective, Catholics -- and I’m not one of them -- should be, in some ways -- thrilled is probably the wrong word, given the severity of the crisis, but at least should take pride in the fact that the people that -- of the Zogby firm have surveyed care enough to be disturbed, and care enough to want to think that, rather than simply exiting, which is in many ways the American way to do things when you’re unhappy with an organization, to put so much emphasis on voice and loyalty as an alternative.

MR. CROMARTIE: Thank you. Thank you, Alan.

George Weigel is a Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, and I’m very grateful that George is here today because he spent the entire week in bed with the flu, and we didn’t know if he would make it today. Many of you know George. He’s the author of Witness To Hope: The Biography of Pope John Paul II. On this topic, he’s also the author of a book called The Courage To Be Catholic: Crisis, Reform And The Future Of The Church.

George, thank you for getting out of bed and joining us.

MR. GEORGE WEIGEL: (Inaudible). I do want to make clear that I am not a Philadelphia Phillies fan, this cup notwithstanding. Let me apologize at the beginning for how I sound. I got back from New Orleans last week, and the Great Pox of Mesopotamia seized my upper respiratory system, which at least some of you here might think is temporal punishment due to sin, but I too am very happy to be part of this discussion because I learned some things from John’s work, and I find that my general reaction to this data is not at all dissimilar to Bryan’s and Alan’s.

Let me, particularly for our friends in the media here, stress at the beginning that I think what this data underscores is what I and numerous others have been saying for the past 22 months, namely that to refer to this as a sexual abuse crisis doesn’t quite get the full story. This is a crisis caused by the intersection of intolerable patterns of clerical sexual misbehavior married to a profound crisis of leadership in the Church, and I think the data bears that out. People understand that this is a two-sided question here.

The second thing to be said immediately after that I think is exactly what Alan and Bryan were suggesting, that for all the confusion of some of these responses, it seems clear, from these numbers at least and amplified by other numbers -- a recent Gallup poll on how the Bishops are doing and so forth -- that there is a tremendous residue of belief, affirmation of both the priesthood and the episcopate in the Church in the United States. That in itself is striking, I think very striking, after the bludgeoning of the past 22 months.

Another way to put that is that Catholics know that there is a form to the Church, and that that form is given to it by Christ Himself. What needs to be explored -- and here is where we get into some matters we might want to talk about in the rest of our time together today -- is how there can be reform with reference to that form. That form, which includes priesthood and episcopacy, which includes a hierarchically governed Church in which pastoral authority rests with the ordained leadership of the Church, and if that leadership is in some respects seriously failing, how is there to be reform with reference to that distinctive form of the Church? That -- all of that seems to be understood, or that -- at least this data can be read as substantiating that intuition, I think really is the good news in the -- in this material.

My concerns about this I think also touch on something that Alan Wolfe said and that Bryan touched on briefly, and that is that the constant emphasis on structure as the problem strikes me as somewhat shallow, and reflects perhaps more of an American managerial ethos rather than a generally genuinely ecclesial analysis of this situation. A managerial analysis -- focus on structure, how it doesn’t work, what isn’t working, what might be made to work better -- gets us somewhere, but perhaps it does not get us as deep as we need to go. Everyone in this room knows Richard Weaver’s famous bon mot -- that ideas have consequences for good and ill -- I think we all accept that. There’s very little here in this survey about ideas. There’s very little here about theology. Indeed, theology doesn’t really appear on the radar screen here, and there is not -- perhaps in the nature of survey research there can’t be a serious exploration of I think a very interesting point that Alan Wolfe brought up, namely the complex interaction of Catholicism and American culture, particularly at this moment in American culture.

Does that account in some part for this enormous stress on structure? One further point on that: I do find it curious that so many of the respondents -- such a high percentage of the respondents seemed to imagine that the answer to these problems in both dimensions, the sexual scandal dimension and the leadership dimension, is more structure. As those of you who have read The Courage To Be Catholic know, I think I’m quite clear on the point that many Bishops, including some of those most prominently affected by the past 22 months, certainly could have made and should have made far, far better use of lay expertise in handling the psychological, pastoral, legal and communications dimensions of these problems.

But, it does strike me as strange that this constant drumbeat of a call for more boards, more structure, more bureaucracy, comes at a time when most of those of us who are deeply involved in the life of the Church in the United States have the impression many times that the Church is choking to death on bureaucracy and Boards and structure at every level of its life, from the local Parish to the National Conference of Catholic Bishops. So, why in the midst of all of this enormous expansion of structure and Boards and involvement and bureaucracy over the past 35 years, why do people feel unheard in the midst of that? That strikes me as a very interesting question.

The emphasis on structure I think also deflects attention -- needed attention from the exploration of reforms that touch both structure and ideas, that touch both the way we do things and the ideas that guide the way we do things in the Church. Again, this is the nature of survey research--that it can’t get into everything. But surely, the question of how vocation offices and recruitment to the priesthood have functioned in the past 35 years is in need of serious re-examination. Everyone seems to agree that a fresh look at seminary preparation, including education for celibacy, is a necessary part of authentic Catholic reform. We don’t have much on that here, the whole question of priestly life and continuing education.

How has this distinctive thing in the Christian world called the Catholic priesthood been impacted by its interaction with the turbulence of American culture over the past 40 years? What has that done to the idea of the priesthood? What has that done to the way priests live? Is there a need to reexamine that mode of life? All of that surely is needed, and I’m very struck that in so much of this discussion of structural change, there doesn’t seem to be much data indicating an interest in reformed criteria for the selection of Bishops. We hear a lot about process in the selection of Bishops, but what about the criteria for the selection of Bishops? Something self-evidently went wrong in that sphere over the last quarter of a century, and that would seem to me to be something that needs addressing, too.

Let me flag four things that strike me as lurking assumptions in this survey that might be examined. On page 16 of the report, one of the questions -- so now, some questions about the current scandal in the Catholic Church involving incidents of the sexual abuse of children. We all should know by now that, while the pedophilia tag got quickly attached to this scandal because of the Geoghan and Shanley cases in Boston, every bit of available data that we have, everything that is now being suggested about what is coming out of the Lay Review Board studies indicates that this is not in primarily, or even in the great majority of cases in its sexual abuse dimension, a problem of the sexual abuse of children.

That is at one end of a bell curve. It’s the most revolting end of the curve. It obviously draws our attention because this is what broke the whole thing open up in Boston. But it is not in any way the majority incidents of sexual abuse which, as the New York Times material, which I think will be amplified by the Lay Review Board’s material, indicates has to do with the abuse of teenage and young men by Clergy, which is not properly referred to as pedophilia.

Secondly, the tendency to divide up the respondents in liberal/conservative categories strikes me as problematic. I’m never sure what those categories mean in the Church. Surely, one of the things we have learned from what Father Hehir correctly referred to as a catastrophic breakdown of Clergy discipline is that other categories are just as important and perhaps just as illuminating here, namely categories like true and false, Catholic and non-Catholic, etc.

Third, when people are asked in surveys about the Vatican’s philosophy on issues, I think there are a couple of questions that need to be raised there. The tendency in American culture as a whole is of course to look at the Catholic Church on the analogy to a political organization, to a political party in which there are issues, there are positions on issues, there is a general political philosophy. Yet, in fact, the reality, it seems to me, is that the most deeply controverted questions in the internal life of the Church today don’t have to do with Vatican philosophy or even the teaching of Karol Wojtyla. These are matters of reasonably and, in some cases, definitely settled Catholic teaching on which people are certainly free to have their opinions. But, to describe, for example, the Church’s position on sexual ethics, on the ordination of women, on the life issues of abortion and euthanasia as a matter of the Vatican’s philosophy on issues does not get, it seems to me, to the truth of the matter.

Finally, in terms of some assumptions here, let me suggest that we all need to think a little bit more carefully about the American tendency -- and here is again where culture bears on the Church in a very profound way. The American tendency to think that the answers to grave problems often lie, frequently lie, sometimes almost always lie in better process, in a more open process, in a more participatory process, the experience of liberal Protestantism in the United States since the Second World War, indeed the experience of the great Churches in the liberal Protestant tradition throughout the world since the Second World War, seems to me a cautionary tale here. Process is undoubtedly important, but process without a clear doctrinal and moral message -- effectively communicated, well catechized, deeply embodied in the lives of the leaders of the Church -- leads to death. Leads to death, leads to ecclesial death.

Process is not the answer in and of itself. The iron law of the Christian encounter with modernity seems to be that Churches, ecclesial communities that maintain a clear sense of their doctrinal and moral boundaries, flourish. Those whose doctrinal and moral boundaries become so porous that it becomes difficult to tell who is in and who out, wither and, in some cases, die. How that reality, which seems to me to be well-established sociological datum as is available in the complex world of religion, meets the realities that Father Hehir and Dr. Wolfe talked about, which are also true, namely that people who grow up in this kind of a society have a specific set of expectations about how they are to be brought into the discussion. That doctrinal and moral message is a very, very interesting question here.

Finally, the stakes in all of this. I was very struck in Rome last month by a subtext that seemed to be running throughout the discussions of what comes next as the Pontificate of John Paul II draws to its inevitable conclusion. And one of those subtexts was a profound sense that European Catholicism is dying, that the Church in its historic cultural homeland is dying. I think that is also true of much of Catholicism in other parts of the Anglosphere, in Canada, in Oceania, etc. The United States Church, for all of its problems, remains the most vibrant and vital Catholicism in the developed world. If it erodes to the point where it’s publicly irrelevant, then the great project imagined by the second Vatican Council of evolving a Church truly to address the modern world at the deepest roots of the crisis of modern civilization, is in very, very deep trouble. So, there is more at stake here than what simply happens to 65 million American Catholics. If this is not sorted out, if crisis does not become the occasion for authentically Catholic reform, then the larger project imagined by the Council is in very, very deep trouble.

Thank you.

MR. CROMARTIE: Thank you, George. Ladies and gentlemen, let’s thank our panelists.

Let me -- before we -- if you don’t mind, before we call on you to ask questions, see if the panelists would like to make comments about anything any of the others said. Bryan, do you?

FATHER HEHIR: I’d rather go to the floor.

MR. CROMARTIE: Okay, what about you? Alan, do you have anything to add?

PROFESSOR WOLFE: I’d rather go to the floor.

MR. CROMARTIE: The floor is open. Yes, Alan Cooperman? Alan -- where did our microphone go? Here it comes. We want to hear you, Alan. Right here.

MR. ALAN COOPERMAN: Alan Cooperman from the Washington Post for Mr. Zogby. You went through the data pretty quickly, and I wonder if you could go back for us and highlight where you see the most significant disparities between the opinion leader group and the general Catholic population, and how you would characterize or pull together those trends. And also, while you’re doing that, could you tell us a little more about this opinion leader group? I didn’t see in the report what the general population, that number of people they were pulled from, who are they and in what sense are they representative of Catholic opinion leaders.

MR. ZOGBY: I’m not sure if that’s on. Yes, I guess it is. I think -- yes, it’s on all right. Okay. I can be heard, right? Lavaliere.

Okay, lots of questions there. There was some disparity, number one -- the question again between elites, or opinion leaders, versus general Catholicism. Some disparity on the issue of transparency, how important an issue it is. In the sense that, among opinion leaders, you tended to have a large middling group of around 40 percent who only said somewhat important, whereas the Catholics in general were much more likely to say that transparency in terms of finances, for example, were more important.

Secondly, on some of the future issues, on treating the poor, on demographic changes, you had a more acute sense again among the general Catholic population that it was important or serious than you did among the elites. In terms of who the elites were, first and foremost -- a list was presented to us by Geoff Boisi of 250 or so -- and Geoff’s got to help me here -- American Catholic opinion leaders who were invited to the July 7th meeting.

Now, who were those people? They tended to be CEOs, COOs, major corporations in the U.S. They also tended to be well-known faces, some for their religious opinions, some by way of being prominent Catholics. Tim Russert, Dottie (sp) Miller from CBS News, for example, better known people who also happened to be Catholics not necessarily defined by levels of activity. We also got a list from Frank Butler. Those are people who have -- his foundation of foundations -- did I describe that right -- have been in touch with over the years. I suppose you ought to describe that list, but it was a list of several hundred that were given to us, and they included mainly business, academic, some media and better-known opinion leaders. Geoff?

MR. GEOFF BOISI: (Inaudible) of why the survey was generated. The thought was that we would have a larger meeting of leader -- of Catholics who were in leadership positions, and actually we developed a list of almost 600 people from government, from business, from all walks of life. I have no idea who John chose out of those groups, frankly, but these people were from all walks of life and, obviously, all shapes and sizes and beliefs and places on the spectrum. But, their original -- I don’t know how many people you ultimately called, but the original list that we provided was close to 500 names, and I think Frank had a group that -- as well. But typically, these were people who were either on Boards of major institutions around the country who were Catholics. Pardon?

UNIDENTIFIED PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.)

MR. BOISI: Primarily I think the original list that we gave was laity, but I think that there was a broader group that was spoken to.

UNIDENTIFIED PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.)

MR. ZOGBY: And multiple callbacks have been made and appointments set in order to reach these people. Frank, did you want to --?

MR. FRANK BUTLER: -- No, that’s fine.

MR. ZOGBY: When I say something significant, I will.

MR. CROMARTIE: Next? Yes, sir? If you would say who you are, please?

MR. ANDY CANNON: My name is Andy Cannon (sp). I’m a student. And I just want -- on this subject, wanted to know if this was the group that was responded to by a stealth meeting of another group that called themselves conservatives that got together with the Bishops shortly after the June period. Is anyone familiar with the fact that -- okay. So, are we talking about Group A and Group B in that respect as the populations?

MR. ZOGBY: I have absolutely no idea. It was so stealth that it went under my radar screen, so I don’t know. Anyone?

MR. CROMARTIE: Is that your question? Okay, thank you. Next? Yes, ma’am?

MS. CATHY GROSSMAN: Cathy Grossman, USA Today. So, we know why the opinion leader surveys were done. Why then go ahead with the general public survey? Was it just to see if there was a gap between the leaders and the general Catholic public?

MR. ZOGBY: Yes, that was fundamentally it. On questions like this, you just shouldn’t simply rely on opinion leaders. It’s important to get a taste of what they had to say. Sometimes you use opinion leader surveys for agenda setting. In this instance, that was one of the factors, to determine what is important among the elites in the Catholic Church, those who either are elites by virtue of having opinions about the church or those who are Catholics in positions of power. But then, the issue was where is a consensus among American Catholics? Best to do, I think in most surveys like this, not only in surveys of this nature or with this topic. Best to do a combination. And there, then, we have a sense of some agreement, some consensus, and some -- maybe some disagreements as to what’s important. But, I think we’re served well by having the two different levels polled.

MR. CROMARTIE: Yes, Michael Paulson, Boston Globe.

MR. MICHAEL PAULSON: I guess -- is this on?

MR. CROMARTIE: Identify yourself, Michael.

MR. PAULSON: Michael Paulson from the Boston Globe. This is for Father Hehir and George Weigel. You both mentioned leadership failures. I wonder what your sense is of whether the leadership has done anything to -- whether they’ve learned from this failure. They’ve given themselves fairly high marks this week. They just finished a meeting. President of the U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops said they’ve turned a corner on this crisis. I wonder whether you think the leadership is -- has learned from the last couple years and has changed in some way that would lead to improvement.

MR. CROMARTIE: Yes, sir. It’ll work if you do.

FATHER HEHIR: I think there’s documented learning that has occurred. I would not want to make the argument that there’s been enough learning or that, more importantly, that the learning has been translated into a strategic plan that will be adequate to meet the two objectives at least that I see, and that is restoring pastoral trust and regaining public credibility. So, I think, yes, there have been changes, and the changes have been a learning experience. But, I think the jury is out about whether it is adequate. I mean, I think this is really is a very large and long-term problem, and one not too quickly to close the book on the fact that it is solved.

I think secondly, when you try and talk about that, to say a word about a point that George made, I do think we ought not to underplay this management and structural question, and I agree with him that ideas count, and I think structure in the Catholic Church is about ideas and, therefore, it is -- I wouldn’t want to divide the agenda between ideas and management. It is true that you have to bring both secular discipline of management analysis and theological discipline of the nature of the Roman Catholic Church to bear upon it. But, ideas count in structures, and structures at times need to be changed.

Let me conclude with a third point, and that is this question of Boards. Maybe this is part of what I mean about different ways of thinking about these things. In fact, there are a lot of Boards in the Church. My argument would be that there is a big difference between the way Boards in hospital systems and universities operate and the way Boards operate in Parishes and Dioceses. There really is a very different role for the lay leadership that takes place in universities and -- I mean Catholic universities and Catholic hospital systems than there is in parishes and Dioceses. Now, it’s not an absolute chasm, but I think that the degree of effective engagement of lay people, in terms of policy, is much greater at the level of universities and hospitals who are Catholic and who are trying to deal with what it means to be Catholic than what happens in the ordinary Parish Council or even less so I think at the Diocesan Council level.

MR. Weigel: (Inaudible) to say that the learning that is necessary, in its depth, has taken place.

One of the things that struck me about the survey was an item, John, where a substantial number of people were urging bishops to be more challenging to each other.

It seems to me that one of the things that contributes to the leadership failure side of this process, is that the habit of fraternal correction has been lost by and large, within the American Episcopal. That habit needs -- habit being another word for virtue, needs to be recovered.

I take it that the call a year ago of approximately one-third of the bishops for a study of a new forum in which they might meet together to talk about their role as bishops, to receive the authentic teaching of the Church, to commit themselves to the promulgation of that, whether that takes the form of a plenary council or whatever, is irrelevant. But the fact that one-third of that body called for that, seems to me to indicate that there’s an understanding that the structure and process within the Conference itself, needs reexamination.

The fact that there has been, to my knowledge, no serious look at the seminary study that was called for by the cardinals in April of 2002 -- we are now in October -- November, excuse me, of 2003. What’s going on there? Why aren’t we getting more serious about that?

And then to come back to this question of criteria. The bishop said, indeed, everyone of the Church needs to think very carefully about how we bring to the surface a new and dynamic leadership for the future. This does not seem to be on the agenda, at least in public discussion, right now. And that suggests to me that another step up the learning curve needs to be taken.

MR. CROMARTIE: Peggy Steinfels and then Jody Hassett, and then Thomas and --.

MARGARET O’BRIEN STEINFELS: -- Just to follow on -- thank you. To follow on George, you did make a point about the criteria needing reform. And presumably part of that criteria change would have something to do with process, since the way bishops are now chosen, except for an abstract understanding of how it works, is almost a complete mystery to most Catholics.

What do you think those criteria are and what do you think the basis of a new set of criteria ought to be?

MR. WEIGEL: Well, I don’t think it’s a mystery how this happens. Tom Reese, who’s sitting in the back of the room, described it in painstaking detail in one of his books. I outlined five or six criteria in The Courage to be Catholic. Perhaps you didn’t get a chance to look at those before you did the review in The Post, maybe?

I don’t think we would be terribly disagreed on some of them. It seems to me, effective -- demonstrated effective pastoral leadership in a parish needs to be weighed far more highly than it seems to be today. If Bryan is right -- and I think he is, that the two sides of the recovery process are the reestablishment of pastoral trust and the establishment of public credibility, a man who has shown the capacity to do that in a local parish, seems to me to be a good thing to look at.

Similarly, in seminaries. If a man has primarily spent his life as an academic or formator of people, you look at the products of that. How has he produced disciples, if you will, who are themselves effective disciples?

I think the question of public capacity to propose what the Church is proposing, needs to be taken much, much more seriously than it seems to be, today. I’m not sure that this requires the Church in the U.S. to go down the road, for example, that much of the Church in Germany has gone, with looking primarily to academics and academic publicists -- public intellectuals of some sort -- in bishops. That does not seem to have had an enormous pastoral cash-out in Germany, which is full of empty Churches today.

But surely the demonstrated capacity to make an argument in public, to make a winsome and compelling presentation of the Catholic idea about the human condition, needs to be weighed very (inaudible).

Finally, and without getting into names here, some of you may remember that in a major archdiocese three new auxiliaries were made. The ordinary was asked at the press conference, why were these men chosen? And his first response was, because they’re all good team players. Paul to Timothy, be a good team player? I don’t think so. Paul to Timothy, preach the Gospel in and out of season. That kind of club mentality, you know -- "We bring people into our club" -- I think needs to be shaken up.

MR. CROMARTIE: Thank you. Jody Hassett -- and others, I have seen you, I will call you. Jody Hassett is down here and she’s waiting for the mike.

MS. JODY HASSETT: Jody Hassett from ABC News. I’d like to ask about what Mr. Weigel just said about team players. I’m wondering, I’d like to hear from both you and Mr. Wolfe, on the question under what contributed to the scandal. If I’m reading this correctly, only 38 percent of leaders saw a lack of moral integrity on the part of Church leaders, whereas 60 percent of lay people saw that on the disparity. Is that leaders thinking more about structure and things other than individual accountability?

And then I wonder, Mr. Zogby, on the same, is it significant statistically that 60 percent of lay people look at this as an issue of moral integrity, but a full 49 percent say that the emphasis on celibacy is also significant. Those numbers don’t seem that far away for me. Is that significant on the celibacy issue? It’s so close to what we’ve always talked about with moral integrity.

MR. CROMARTIE: Alan first and then George.

MR. WOLFE: I was also very struck by the data you just cited. And there’s other data along the same lines that indicate on some kinds of issues, the ordinary Catholics were much more -- I don’t know exactly what the word is -- critical, I guess is the right word, than the leadership. And I don’t have a ready explanation.

The one that’s occurred to me as I was reading that, is that there just may be the leaders of organizations know their organizations have problems, because they lead them. And you know, in that sense, while not downplaying the crisis, would be more likely to see that, you know, he who is without sin cast the first stone here, that we know that there’s always going to be different (inaudible). So, the tolerance for error would in a sense be greater.

Whereas out there in the country among ordinary Catholics -- and I think among ordinary Americans in general, we witness a dramatic increase in a certain kind of intolerance for leadership. There’s a kind of -- it’s often called a decline in trust in the American electorate or a decline in respect for organizations. But it’s also a decline in leadership.

There’s a sense in which expectations for leadership are enormously high and then almost immediately disappointed, with the result of people withdrawing and becoming much more critical of all kinds of leaders, whether it’s George Steinbrenner or someone in the Church or a senator or Gray Davis. And so, that’s probably the best interpretation I can come up with.

MR. WEIGEL: I would have thought that someone from Boston would have mentioned Grady Little before George Steinbrenner.

MR. WOLFE: No, someone from Boston wouldn’t mention him.

MR. WEIGEL: I too was struck by those numbers. I wonder if there weren’t some other questions that might usefully have been asked. Although I’m not a pollster, so I’m not quite sure how you would ask them. For example, to what degree do you think -- opinion leader or Catholic in the pew -- that the process in which psychology constantly trumped moral theology contributed to this crisis?

MR. ZOGBY: Our response rates are so bad already, George.

MR. WEIGEL: No, this is a serious point.

MR. ZOGBY: Give me a break.

MR. WEIGEL: It’s a serious point. If we are trying to get to an understanding of what’s going on here -- the assumption behind the integrity question seems to be well, maybe this is a problem caused by willfully malignant and wicked bishops. I don’t think that’s the case in the overwhelming majority of these instances.

But that an over-dependence on therapeutic categories, rather than theological categories had something to do with the reassignment of John Geoghan and Paul Shanley. I’ll bet the mortgage on that. And that leads to the -- that leads to the -- how about effect of misplaced compassion? Compassion misconstrued as fixable problems with people who were manifestly unfixable. What does that have to do with all this?

So I mean, it seems to me there’s a lot other -- there’s a lot more going on here than the question, was this willful malfeasance or inept malfeasance? There was a lot more happening and I think those of us who know the men who were making these decisions understand that it was not, in the main, a question of willful malfeasance. But it was a question of exactly as Bryan said, how ideas affected process in a deleterious way.

MR. ZOGBY: If we -- Oh, yeah.

MR. CROMARTIE: Yes, and then Tom Reese. And then this gentleman’s waiting over here. Tom first then.

MR. ZOGBY: I wanted to respond to it, because she asked me a question.

MR. CROMARTIE: Yes, go ahead.

MR. ZOGBY: Okay. If we take a look at all the questions and combinations of responses, what you find really is a tremendous amount of agreement between the opinion leaders and the general body of Catholics, especially if we combine the strongly agrees and somewhat agrees, or combine the very serious and somewhat serious, almost, not quite, but almost total unanimity. Where you have any disagreements are in the superlatives and the levels of intensity and that’s what’s important.

Alan made my point, but I’ll repeat it. And that is, those accustomed to running organizations, those accustomed to understanding what causes breakdowns in organizations, are more than likely to treat this as a structural problem. Whereas Catholics in general -- what you see here -- and I don't want to over-interpret. Again, I’m just going to wear my hat as a strategist. But what you see here as a general body of Catholics that are hurt by this, and I want you to understand that that 49/48 is not good.

It’s not good for two reasons. Number one, after 9-11, Americans were bonding again with their familiar institutions. Church attendance was soaring. All familiar institutions received a tremendous spike in -- whether it was attendance or belief or people grabbing onto something to help them explain the astonishing. To see in just a year and a half to two years, those numbers plummet almost 40 points, is a clear indication of just what a tremendous shock this has been to the body of Catholics.

So, interpreting these numbers -- and this is for the Washington Post as well, look at the agreement more than the disagreement. And look at the intensity levels among Church members or members of the general populous among Catholics. That’s how I think you understand any differences between the two.

MR. CROMARTIE: Bryan Hehir?

FATHER HEHIR: I’d just like to comment. First of all, I want to be clear in my comment. I don’t think 49/48 is good. What I said was it was better than I thought it was gonna be. And so, I mean, that’s my starting assumption and I closed my remarks by saying 49/48 is not going to get you what you need in terms of pastoral trust or public credibility. But I must tell you, I did not think they’d be above 33 percent, so, if you give my view.

MR. ZOGBY: I think it’s people still wanting to hold on.

FATHER HEHIR: Well, that goes to the other question. I think here, the question about the bishops and moral character and things like that, I think two things. First of all, I’m not sure I’d agree with George that it’s simply triumph of psychology over moral theology. It might well have been not paying enough attention to psychology in this sense.

That I think that if you watch the pattern by which people who actually were pedophiliacs, were treated, the model was what you did with a priest that had trouble with alcohol. You got a complaint about him and you sent him away. And when he came back, you put him to work. So there wasn't sufficient attention to the depth and character of the psychological disease that was pedophilia. Because you certainly wouldn’t figure you could --.

MR. WEIGEL: -- But was that the bishop’s problem or the St. Luke’s Institute’s problem?

FATHER HEHIR: Well, it depends. I have not got access --.

MR. WEIGEL: -- What I have read, which was all over the Internet, the spiritual evaluation from Geoghan, on his last run through St. Luke’s, in which the evaluator said, I have no recommendations for Father Geoghan’s spiritual life, because he prays his breviary and has a confessor.

My blood ran cold. This man has been raping children. That does not disfigure his priesthood in a way that someone has to say there is a deep spiritual problem? I mean, that’s psychology run right against --.

FATHER HEHIR: -- Well, my point is more confined than that. There is a nature to the disease that is pedophilia. And my point is that it’s not like alcoholism. And I think there was a way in which that was (inaudible).

MR. WEIGEL: Absolutely right, yes.

FATHER HEHIR: The second thing, in terms of the moral integrity, my sense on that is it might break out two different ways. One is, somebody says basically, this bishop in question is morally upright, he’s just absolutely inept in his understanding of what he’s running and doing. That's one thing.

Or secondly, it depends on what you mean by moral integrity. The point is, moral integrity involves not only personal character and personal virtue, but the way you do your job. So, if somebody, in a sense, was saying that they didn’t have moral integrity, that might be moral integrity meaning the performance of your job at a level of excellence and that that was the decline then.

MR. CROMARTIE: John, back again quickly.

MR. ZOGBY: Yes, since we’re talking psychology, understand that what happens here is projection. When people like something or bond with something, they project themselves onto that something. And that’s what’s important and that’s what’s going on here.

These are people who have grown up as Catholics, internalized Roman Catholicism, internalized the structure, internalized the leadership and the fundamental innocence of the leadership.

It’s not unlike a political candidate, as I’ve learned. When people say, I like this candidate and are intense about that candidate, they believe that the candidate’s views are their own views, not the other way around.

I learned that with Jimmy Carter and I learned that with John McCain. That’s what’s going on with the bishops and with the priests. Another way of saying it is that it’s a denial that anything could be wrong. But it’s even more than that. They have acculturated to the fact that this is an institution that cannot make a mistake. The fact that half of them are now "voting against" that institution is a tremendous erosion.

MR. CROMARTIE: Thomas Reese?

FATHER THOMAS REESE: Thomas Reese, editor of America magazine.

I hate to go back to you, George, but I found your comments on the criteria for the appointment of bishops fascinating. I mean, the criteria for the last 25 years, as far as anyone can understand them, have been fidelity, fidelity, fidelity, loyalty to the Pope, fidelity to the Magisterium. You seem to be proposing to go back to the criteria that was used under Jedoux (sp), the so-called Jedoux (sp) bishops, where pastoral sensitivity and pastoral experience were considered important.

I mean, you seem to -- I mean, this is counter what I would expect from you. You seem to be indicting the Vatican leadership in terms of, you know, that this problem is a result of the appointment of bishops under John Paul II over the last 25 years. Is this what you’re saying or could you clarify that?

MR. WEIGEL: Well, I think we all have to get clear that the Pope is not the personnel officer for the Catholic Church throughout the world. He can’t be, hasn’t been, shouldn’t be.

It is true, Tom, that on that form, which you printed in your book, there are questions aimed at surfacing the fact, does this man have a paper trail of public dissent on certain questions. I’m talking about something quite different.

Pastoral effectiveness seems to me, to be a man who can teach the teaching of the Catholic Church effectively. Pastoral effectiveness does not mean simply listening and absorbing, it means a capacity for effective proclamation of the hot button questions -- an effective proclamation on the hot button questions.

When I talk about looking at someone who is an effective pastor, I’m talking precisely about someone who can preach and teach the truth and Catholic faith. Those are not two different things. They just aren’t two different things. So that’s -- I don’t think I’m suggesting we return to Belgium (?) nuncios.

MR. CROMARTIE: Okay, this gentleman in the corner over here has been waiting for some time. And then Cathy and then Geoff.

MR. KEVIN ECKSTROM: Kevin Eckstrom, from Religion News Service.

Those of us who’ve been covering the bishops this week have heard a lot of sort of, how do we get Catholics to pay attention to what we’re actually teaching them as bishops, in terms of contraception, abortion, same-sex unions, those kinds of things. Did you ask, in your poll, or do you have a sense of whether or not this crisis has contributed to lay Catholics listening to or paying attention to what the bishops are saying on these given issues?

MR. ZOGBY: Not in this survey, but in the Contemporary Catholic Trends series that we’ve done, there is the same disconnect on matters of contraception, matters of abortion, matters of homosexuality, matters of war and peace, as there always has been. We haven’t seen any noticeable erosion. That erosion has already taken place. Well, not erosion, just disconnect, has already taken place.

MR. CROMARTIE: Cathy? Cathy Grossman?

MS. CATHY GROSSMAN: Yes, I’d like to spin forward to the early 2004 forum that’s mentioned in these reports. There’s some talk that the July dialogue was to create a base for a forum to be held in 2004, because there’s a concern that there was no single leader or authoritative agency in the Church in the US fully adapted to make decisions and implement a timely, cogent, disciplined game plan of progress on these problems. And now you have the additional, sort of, weight of the 1000 general Catholic survey to pile in there.

Where does this go from here? Is this going to be a sort of --?

MR. CROMARTIE: -- That’s a perfect question. It leads right into --.

MS. GROSSMAN: -- You know, to address structure or --?

MR. CROMARTIE: -- Our next commenter was Geoff Boisi. Geoff, her question, I think is directed to you. And it’s a good time to tell us about the survey that was on the table -- I mean, in the press release that’s on the --.

MR. GEOFF BOISI: -- Could I beg the indulgence to -- I will answer that question. But could I just, I guess finish up on this part of the forum?

MR. CROMARTIE: Sure. Yes.

MR. BOISI: I can’t let you all off the hook. There was one -- one of the things that, I guess didn’t surprise me, but was highlighted in the Zogby study and was actually mentioned in John’s press release. And I’d just be curious to the panelists’ view.

When you have 73 percent of the leaders and 82 percent of the general Catholics agreeing that the bishops who knowingly transfer the priests should be forced to resign, either publicly or privately, do you think that in order to restore credibility, that has to take place? And why do you think -- do you think it is taking place and it’s just not visible?

MR. CROMARTIE: Father Hehir, you go first.

FATHER HEHIR: Whether it’s taking place or not -- whether there’s a process that is taking place or not, I have no evidence at all. So I don’t know. My guess is you will not see any large scale number of bishops resigning as such, in the sense of resigning because of this issue.

Thirdly, would I say that it is a conditio sine qua non, if you can’t get it, you can’t go forward? I actually think not. I mean, you might make a case that it would have a significant effect if individuals, in a certain sense, with very specific relationship to empirical data or failure were -- resigned. But I would not want to find myself in a position, I think, analytically even, saying that if this doesn’t happen, nothing else can go forward. So, I think not.

MR. WOLFE: I would also just add that I think you cannot underestimate the importance of Cardinal Law’s resignation. This is something that just probably would have been inconceivable in the Church of 50 or 100 years ago. And it sent a signal, I think, to people in Boston, that there are limits that you can transgress that will result in a resignation.

The feeling of real joy at the new person in the Archdiocese is palpable. It’s not that he’s solved everything, you know, but there’s a clear sense that that move was a major and necessary and important move. And it reflected on the one hand, without any kind of formal acknowledgement, that the Church in Rome will listen when things really get out of hand and will respond. And on the other hand, gave a sense of hope in the local Church.

So, that, since he’s the most important person in this, his resignation is just enormously important and I think just needs to be emphasized.

MR. CROMARTIE: George?

MR. WEIGEL: No comment.

MR. CROMARTIE: Hey Geoff, Cathy Grossman’s question, I think, Geoff, was addressed to you, to speak to the future question she had.

MR. BOISI: Right.

MR. CROMARTIE: And on everyone’s chair there’s your comments on your July meeting, a press release about it. Why don’t you comment --?

MR. BOISI: -- Yes, I would just offer that, you know, there are two documents here, the Zogby report and the one is a summary of the report of the July 7th meeting that took place that we feel -- and there are a number of people who were at that July 7th meeting that are in the room today, actually. And so I offer -- ask them to comment as well.

But hopefully you’ll take a few minutes to review that document, because we think it reflects some interesting thoughts that came out of a very, very full, we thought, balanced discussion during that day. And actually tried to offer some suggestions. Some of them, I think, have been, I think, maybe erroneously characterized as process. We didn’t feel that way. And some of us who have had responsibility for, you know, running large organizations, see some parallels to some of the issues that the Church is facing today and that’s why they were suggested in there, not meant to be just sort of managerial and board development kinds of things.

And I’m not -- I happen to agree, very largely, with a lot of things that George said and I didn’t think he was, you know, casting aspersions on some of these things. And I think the combination of what George and Father Hehir said about some of the lay governance issues, are reflective in this document. But we hope that you look at that.

The whole reason for the Zogby report and the July 7th meeting, actually came out of the notion that we would have a larger forum of Catholics from allover the country, of all shapes and sizes and throughout the entire spectrum. And when we were in the midst of planning that, I was talking to Cardinal McCarrick, and the Cardinal suggested prior to having that meeting, maybe it would make sense to have a smaller meeting just to -- with some of the bishops, to talk about some of these issues.

And he asked me to convene 25 or so people and he would convene half a dozen to 10 bishops. And that’s how that meeting came apart. There was no stealth meeting. There were a lot of adjectives that were applied to that meeting. And so we decided rather than to create any further confusion on that, we would actually spend the time and energy to summarize some of the thoughts and suggestions that were made. And that’s what’s in that document. And we’d be happy to answer any questions.

But I thought that the comments that these gentlemen made today, sort of focusing on the half a dozen or so key issues, which we tried to actually summarize in the press release, were very similar to the issues that George, Father Hehir and Alan and John Zogby indicated.

And we think that these are critical questions and we’ve tried to offer up, you know, some suggestions on ways of going forward. But we have quite a few people, from a variety of different organizations, including discussions with some members of the hierarchy, about the planning of a larger meeting in the early part of 2004.

MS. HASSETT: (Inaudible.)

MR. BOISI: We hope they are.

MS. HASSETT: (Inaudible) the goal of that meeting will be?

MR. BOISI: To generate, to sit and identify what the issues are, prioritize what those issues are, get groups of leaders sitting down together, just like we’re doing here, and actually brainstorm, coming up with suggestions on ways to deal with some of the important questions that these gentlemen have raised.

MS. HASSETT: (Inaudible) an actual plan will come out of that forum?

MR. BOISI: Right. That's correct.

MR. CROMARTIE: Okay, we have time for maybe two more questions and I have Diane and then Peter Steinfels. Take you off the list. Diane Knippers (inaudible)?

MS. DIANE KNIPPERS: My name’s Diane Knippers, with the Institute on Religion and Democracy.

I have a question, as a non-Catholic, about what Catholics think the role -- increased role of lay people, what difference that would make? It seems to me that there too many lawyers, for example, involved in the last two years, in this controversy. In that litigious society that wasn’t particularly helpful, I think.

But what -- I mean, sometimes I get the impression from some of the groups that the assumption is that the Church will be more liberal if lay people have more of a voice. I know in the mainline Protestant Churches, that’s not the case. The lay people are more conservative.

What difference would more lay involvement make? Is it a matter of expertise? Or do lay people as a class, have a different theology or world view or what?

MR. CROMARTIE: Who are you addressing that to, Diane?

MS. KNIPPERS: (Inaudible.)

MR. CROMARTIE: Father Hehir?

FATHER HEHIR: Well, I think I would distinguish three different things. One is, 40-years after the Second Vatican Council, the Second Vatican Council called for an increased role of the laity in the shaping of Roman Catholicism. So, I think one of the things we’re trying to do, quite apart from the crisis, is just be faithful to that vision. That is a desirable goal in itself, because it is part of the theology of the Church.

I think secondly, part of that is about competency. There are distinct and diverse competencies that people acquire in life and in the running of a complex organization like the Roman Catholic Church, you don’t get all of those with ordination. And therefore, it is necessary to recruit them and to develop them and to provide structures that competency can be used. You can have 20 competent people around the table, if there’s no structure to transform that competency into effective advice and information, then it doesn’t work. But I think competency is a second point.

And then thirdly, we are now into necessity. That is to say, even if the Council hadn’t said we needed lay people more, and even if they didn’t bring distinct competencies, we are now in a situation. We are trying to minister to 60 million people in this country. You cannot do it just with the ordained numbers we have or as far as I can tell, are likely to have, in the short to middle range. So, all three reasons, I think, are reasons why increased lay involvement is necessary.

MR. WEIGEL: Dianne, it seems to me that, you know, if you look at several places where this crisis manifested itself most dramatically, the local diocese, the local bishop would have been well served by broadening his legal consultation, bringing in lay people who know something about communicating ideas and communicating commitment, finances, obviously, how to read the work of the therapeutic world, how to measure that against the reality of the human reactions in certain situations. I think all of that would have been helpful and will be helpful in the future.

But I don’t want to -- I don’t think Bryan was suggesting this, but it seems to me the primary thing the Second Vatican Council called for with respect to lay, was for the formation of a laity equipped to convert the world. The primary interest of the Council was not to beef-up the percentage of laity involved in boards, commission, committees, offices, etcetera, in the Church.

Now, the two are not mutually exclusive, obviously. But if all of our attention on lay vocation tends to drain toward the higher percentage of lay participation in structures of governance and management, I fear we lose sight of what the lay vocation was understood to be 40 years ago.

It was about converting the world. Now, maybe we have to convert the Church on the way to converting the world. The two, as I say, are not mutually exclusive. And there is in fact, a lot of lay energy involved in renewal movements of an evangelical sort, in the Catholic Church. But it’s not a numbers game and it can’t be a numbers game.

And in the midst of figuring out what is wrong with the structure, such that they were incapable of responding, as we have every reason to expect that they would respond. I don’t want us to lose sight of the fact that an empowered laity, a laity living its baptismal vocation that we saw the light, is primarily about converting the world, not the Church.

MR. WOLFE: And I would just -- I wanted to just add to Bryan’s three points, that another is just the laity simply wants it. And that’s a fact that has to be dealt with one way or another. We want to be involved.

MR. CROMARTIE: Ladies and gentlemen, we’re running out of time and I want to announce that our next panel discussion will be a discussion of Philip Rieff’s book, The Triumph of the Therapeutic. It’s in planning as we speak.

I want to thank all of our panelists for being good team players. And I know how busy they all are and we are very grateful for their coming from various distances to be here on this very important topic. And we thank you for coming and being with us. See you next time.