Render Unto Rome (58 page)

The Solicitor General, Elena Kagan, a former Harvard Law dean, was on President Obama’s short list for the next available Supreme Court seat, and subsequently won appointment.

Hamilton had written the plaintiff motions challenging Cardinal Mahony’s claim of “formation privilege”; she prevailed at every level, save for engineering the enforcement of the decision in California courts. As a young attorney, Hamilton had clerked for Justice Sandra Day O’Connor; she was seasoned in Washington’s mores and knew people in Elena Kagan’s office. Who exactly would be at this meeting? she inquired. “Just a few,” her contact said.

On a snow-shrouded day in March 2010, Hamilton caught the train near her home in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and on arrival at Union Station met Jeff Anderson, his associate Mike Finnegan, and Bill Barton from Oregon. They went to the Justice Department and in the room found thirteen people, she recalls. “They had obviously been meeting before we arrived. Kagan was there, with her chief deputy Edwin Kneedler. So
was Harold Koh, the legal adviser to Hillary Clinton. He’s a former Yale dean. The agreement going in was that only I would discuss the case. For two hours they grilled me as if I was going through oral arguments on the merits, even though the ostensible reason for the meeting was to discuss whether the Court should take the case. The genius of Jeff Anderson is that he chose Oregon to sue the Vatican. Oregon has the best state tort law in the country. The only issue to this case was state law. If you get hit by a car driven by a foreign official in your state, you can seek redress. It’s the foreign government—and not the officials—that is liable. The officials can create the liability but don’t pay out of their pocket.

“Kagan was not as intensely engaged as Koh,” says Hamilton. “Koh was trying to push the envelope to find a way to make the case about something other than state law. He seemed to be searching for a federal rule that would be the subject of this case and even control all cases against the Holy See. It just was not there. My assumption is that this was another example of how the Clintons do politics. Bill Clinton was the most pro-religious administration since Grant tried to Christianize the Indians … I kept saying,
This is an issue of Oregon state law.
”

After Kagan’s nomination, the acting Solicitor General, the Justice Department, and the State Department sent an amicus curiae brief to the Supreme Court, arguing that the case should go back to the federal appeals bench for having misunderstood Oregon tort law.
²⁰
The Supreme Court did not accept the argument; the case was slowly moving forward as this book went to press.

BORRÉ AND THE NUNCIO

As Carlo Gullo sent ideas and draft passages for the appeal to Pope Benedict via e-mail, Peter Borré’s contact through the Secretariat of State, after several meetings, suggested that Borré might wish to meet with an archbishop who did have interest in these issues, as they fell in a general sense within his
competenza
. This was Pietro Sambi, the papal nuncio to the United States.

In April 2010, as he caught a flight from Logan Airport to Reagan National, Borré realized that he was on the last leg of his journey:
I keep trying to find something redemptive in the plight of the Roman Catholic Church, whether in Rome’s congregations, which I have frequented, the many American
dioceses which I visit, or the dozens of Boston parishes where I have assisted. But today I see wreckage all around, a deepening despair among good people, prelates and laity, a widening divide between the flock in the pews and the hierarchical superiors
.

The Congregation for the Clergy had denied every single parishioner appeal against parish closings of which he was aware during the last decade, including the seventy-five of which he had direct knowledge. The Signatura had denied every one of the eleven parishioner appeals from Boston with the same Olympian language in as many decrees. Lawyers for abuse victims were clobbering the church in America because of arrogant decisions by bishops, most of them dating back many years, while in Rome a legal arrogance blunted the very people the church so desperately needed, people who loved the faith and gave in its support—people now spending funds to
save
their churches. These weren’t abortion activists with hidden cameras.

For all of his fuming about church reformers seeking dialogue with bishops, Borré had started thinking about Seán O’Malley, his own archbishop. “Why don’t you try to talk to him?” his wife, Mary Beth, the political consultant, said one day. The thought of bipartisanship, a consensus of some kind, appealed to him. Do what Congress can’t: sit down, talk it out, find a real solution.

Borré was convinced that O’Malley had no idea how to rebuild the finances. The money was going down because people didn’t trust the leadership. Law had begun that poisoning; Lennon worsened it. If O’Malley would show some flexibility on the closed parishes, Borré was willing to help swing the public relations his way. But he knew the cardinal considered him an adversary, if not an outright enemy. As the cab dropped him at the stately embassy on Massachusetts Avenue, opposite the vice president’s residence at the Naval Observatory, Borré realized that any endgame to benefit the cause he had advanced would probably rely on the man he was about to meet.

Pietro Sambi had wavy silver hair and a firm handshake. As they stood in the foyer, lined with oil paintings of popes and a photograph of the nuncio presenting his credentials to President Obama, Borré knew that he had previously been the Holy See’s envoy in Jerusalem, a diplomatic minefield.

As they exchanged amenities in Italian, he could see that Sambi was
delighted to converse in his native tongue. The nuncio’s eyes lit up at the sight of Borré’s new iPad. He handed it to the archbishop, who pulled up
The Divine Comedy
. Knowing that Sambi came from the district of Romagna, next to Emilia, where Borré’s maternal grandparents had grown up, Borré casually mentioned that Cardinal O’Malley needed to cross the Rubicon.
²¹

“The river Rubicon runs through my village!” Sambi said, smiling.

“Yes, Excellency, I know.”

Sambi handed him the iPad. As they walked into his office, the nuncio said, “The cardinal thinks you’re a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

Borré countered that hundreds of Catholics supported the vigil parishes, and many more people were in full sympathy.

Sambi remarked that in Jerusalem, where he had previously been posted, most people knew what a given solution should be, but none were willing to set it in motion.
Everyone there is guilty of the sin of pride
.

Sambi was voicing O’Malley’s view of Borré as an outsized ego who considered the vigil movement an extension of himself.

Borré would rejoice if the cardinal would open five parishes temporarily as chapels. That would give the people a means to repair ties with an archbishop they never wanted to dislike. Borré at that point could willingly phase out. But he picked his words carefully.
If the cardinal will follow through, I’m ready to resign and dissolve the organization. My first and strongest allegiance is to these five groups who are still in vigil
.

Borré explained that he wanted a peaceful but just solution. He was willing to cease his public activism. But for this to work, the cardinal needed to take the first step, a unilateral reopening of one of the vigil parishes.

He assured Sambi that the Council of Parishes members would not react by gloating in the media, declaring a victory.

The meeting ended on a warm note, Sambi agreeing to communicate with O’Malley. After an exchange of letters, Sambi agreed to see Borré again.

Back to Rome, in early June, he worked with Carlo Gullo in refining the language of the appeal that would go to Pope Benedict, one copy in Italian, the other in English. This was for the benefit of Monsignor Peter Wells, who handled the English-language desk in the Secretariat of State and was a native of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Borré had never met Wells, but hoped he would give favorable commentary and recommend that the
pope actually read it. In Rome it was no secret that the Holy Father was deep at work on the second volume of his study of Jesus.

The Boston archdiocese had just posted its financial statement. The
Globe
noted that the parish collections had declined 2 percent, while parish operating expenses rose 3 percent. The worst recession in decades was certainly a factor in the downturn; so was the continuing impact of the clergy sexual underground. “In all, the archdiocese has spent $145 million to settle 1,097 civil abuse claims, including 800 since O’Malley’s arrival in 2003,” reported Lisa Wangsness.
²²

Accountancy professor Jack Ruhl, as part of his research on American diocesan finances, found, “The Boston archdiocese financials show a total operating loss for 2009 of $24,299,645. The change in net assets is analogous to bottom line net income in a corporation. This includes operating income or loss, plus other ‘unusual’ items, such as a gain on sale of land. The 2009 financials show a change in net assets, a loss, of $4,650,797. The total aggregate operating losses for the fiscal years 2004 to 2009 are $7,484,274.”

Coming off such losses, the biggest problem facing O’Malley in his challenge to rebuild finances was the 30 percent decline in church attendance since 2002. The base of support was shrinking as expenses rose. O’Malley had made a forthright effort at transparency, posting detailed financial statements on the archdiocese’s website. “I continue to be optimistic,” noted Chancellor James P. McDonough in introducing the 85-page report. “We are making significant progress in improving our operations and will build on that success as we adjust our operating model and ministries to the realities of the present time.”
²³

Peter Borré did not share the optimism. Besides the archdiocese’s operating losses, he saw the priest pension fund underfunded by $104 million. McDonough, a former banker, had taken a 10 percent salary cut because of the precarious finances; still, he earned $225,000. Borré’s long-ago Harvard Business School classmate David Castaldi saw nothing wrong with paying competitive salaries for the right people. Borré had no personal grudge against McDonough, who had been on the job for four years, but he thought it absurd to pay anyone that much money when the operation had such bleeding losses.

The Boston archdiocese was generous to people at the top. The secretary of education earned $292,500, according to the
Globe
. Parochial
school enrollment had dropped from 50,000 students in 2007 to 46,000 in 2010.
²⁴
As parishes strained to support schools, the top educator earned $42,500
more
than the superintendent of New York City’s public schools, which had 1.1 million students. The associate superintendent of Boston parochial schools earned $176,000. Why such salaries with money leaking like a sieve?

When Borré returned to Washington for his next meeting with Sambi, he was angry about the archdiocesan finances. He gave a memorandum on the matter to the nuncio, whose interest piqued at the numbers and analysis. Sambi the diplomat kept his thoughts close to the vest as he absorbed the information. Borré’s idea on reform began with restoring priests’ morale; but mobilizing them to help shore up finances turned on changes at the top and slashing big salaries.

Father Bob Bowers, once the pastor at Borré’s now-dormant parish, had taken a leave of absence from the priesthood in 2005. Bowers had gone through a long disillusionment before joining the Paulist Center, just off Boston Commons, as an outreach minister to disaffected Catholics who were inching back toward the faith. Disillusioned with Vatican officials as “very, very old men who can’t grasp what’s happening,” Bowers nevertheless wanted Pope Benedict on the job, to work for healing. His own job was to “help people deal with conflict better, help them realize that forgiveness sets them free and that letting go can make them whole again.”
²⁵
Since the bruising loss of his parish, Bowers’s goal was “
never
to get people to return to participation in the church. My goal is very simple: to listen. That is where God is.”
²⁶

Borré, who had been out of touch with his former pastor, was ambivalent about reconciliation after six years of pushing at the rock of church officialdom. Sitting with Sambi in the nuncio’s office in Washington, Borré wanted the Boston archdiocese to slash the six-figure salaries at the top and shed jobs that were not necessary. Here was a religious charity swimming in red ink.

Sambi listened. He read the document carefully as Borré reviewed the high points. Borré’s blood was racing as he compared St. Frances Cabrini parish in Scituate, with all that rich waterfront acreage, the good people in their sixth year of vigil now, and the St. Peter parish in Cleveland, where the people had let Lennon take over the building, splitting off to form a new parish, taking their priest with them. Were these examples of
schism, offered Borré—of people splitting from the church in breakaway sects, like the Society of St. Pius X? He left it there for Sambi to chew on.

This is the legacy of Bishop Lennon, he told Sambi. The disasters of Reconfiguration were a huge factor in the sapping of money from the Boston archdiocese. He was doing the same thing in Cleveland.

“Lennon is protected,” said Sambi.

“By Cardinal Law?” replied Borré.

The slight shrug said it all.

Law protected Lennon so that Law’s disastrous handling of the money would be sealed away.

After a third meeting with Sambi, Borré saw little chance that O’Malley would make a first move, or any reciprocal gesture. Lennon, however, had become an issue for Sambi, as the nuncio told him of angry letters from priests in Cleveland. Sambi said he would authorize an apostolic visitation, an investigation of Lennon by another prelate. The lesson of Boston was that if priests revolt against a bishop, his chances of survival go down.