Wisconsin as Worst Place to Be Black in US and Recent Voting Débacle: These Are Related, in a State Whose Citizens Are a Quarter Catholic

Take a cue from Wisconsin voters who stuck it out during a torrential rain & hail storm to make sure the Republican judge lost his seat. pic.twitter.com/Tu5jUwYWyt

— KD (@Fly_Sistah) April 14, 2020

For those seeking to understand the strange goings on recently in Wisconsin, where the US Supreme Court — to be precise, the bloc of right-wing Catholic men on the Supreme bench — forced Wisconsin voters to go out and vote during a lethal pandemic, rather than permitting them to cast votes by mail, a 2018 essay by S. Ani Mukherji's in Boston Review is necessary reading. It's entitled "The Worst Place to Black in the U.S. Is Wisconsin: Racism and the Wisconsin Idea." The essay is a review of Dan Kaufman's book The Fall of Wisconsin, which offers a rose-tinted version of a progressive Wisconsin dismantled by the Koch brothers who — this is an open secret — bought themselves a governor in Scott Walker, who turned the state into something of a Koch bros' paradise for Republicans and a nightmarish dystopia for everyone else.

Quote for the Day: Queer Catholics Once Again Reminded "That, in Both Life and in Death, They Can Be Shunned by Their Church"

Carol Kuruvilla, "Queer Catholics In Wisconsin May Be Denied Religious Funerals To Avoid 'Public Scandal'"

At Huffington Post yesterday afternoon, Carol Kuruvilla writes about a set of "pastoral" directives that have been leaked from the offices of the Roman Catholic diocese of Madison, Wisconsin, which is headed by His Excellency Bishop Robert Charles Morlino. The Pray Tell blog published an email several days ago in which the Vicar General of the Madison diocese, the Reverend Monsignor James R. Bartylla, tells priests of his diocese how to handle funerals of queer Catholics. In a nutshell, the policy established by this communication permits priests to deny funerals to queer Catholics, if they judge that this is an appropriate action for the following reasons:

Race Matters: As White Supremacists Robocall Wisconsin, Discussion of "Hidden" GOP Racism Continues to Come Out into the Open with Trump Candidacy

As anyone with eyes open has seen for years now in the American political context, the Republican party has long used racial resentment cynically, as a tool to get white working-class voters to vote against their own economic self-interest. As anyone with eyes open has also seen, those working-class white voters have included an ample proportion of working-class white Catholics in the North who deny any racial motivation for their decision to abandon the Democratic party for the GOP, while strong evidence exists proving that this trend among white working-class Northern Catholics is, indeed, fed to a large extent by racial animosity.

Must-Reading As Papal Visit Nears: The Economist on "Unholy Mess" of Finances in U.S. Catholic Church

For anyone asking why so many Catholics have walked away and continue to do so despite the "Francis effect"; for those with serious concern for the future of the Catholic church; for those who care about the effectiveness of the church in proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ to the world:

Tom Doyle on Hypocrisy in Spades in Milwaukee Settlement with Abuse Survivors

Today's National Survivor Advocates Coalition News features an op-ed piece by Tom Doyle entitled "Milwaukee: Hypocrisy in Spades." I'd provide a link for you to read it in its entirety, but don't yet find it online. I highly recommend that you subscribe to NSAC News. You can do that by clicking here. If I find down the road that NSAC has published Tom Doyle's essay online, as I think will happen, I'll provide you with a link. (Later: MarkWilliam has kindly emailed to point out to me that the text is at We Are Church Ireland; If NSAC also publishes it, I'll provide that link, too.)

Henry Giroux on Politics of Disposability and Violence: Implications for the Orchestrated Attack Now Underway on Gay Citizens of U.S. after 2014 Elections

Henry A. Giroux writes, regarding the wild success of "American Sniper," the latest shoot-'em-up movie glorifying macho American exceptionalism and holy-war violence visited on our perceived enemies,

As Same-Sex Couples Bring Children for Baptism, How Will Church Respond: Purity Code or Love, Justice, and Mercy?

Here's an example of what I meant when I just wrote, "The testimony of the prophets is very clear about these issues: love, justice, and mercy trump purity codes every time, since God cares about the former and not the latter." This is Doug Erickson of the Wisconsin State Journal reporting on a memo sent last month to all priests of the Catholic diocese of Madison, from the office of the diocese's vicar general Monsignor James Bartylla. A copy of the document has been leaked to the State Journal.

Further Updates, Same-Sex Marriage in Arkansas: Democrat-Gazette Publishes Rejoinder to Jason Rapert, and On Marrying Where We Live

Last week, I expressed doubt about whether my state's newspaper of record, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, would publish Judge Wendell Griffen's rejoinder to an anti-marriage equality article written by state senator (and Baptist pastor) Jason Rapert, who is leading the crusade to have the state Supreme Court once again outlaw same-sex marriage in Arkansas. As my posting noted, Judge Griffen is also a pastor — of New Millennium Baptist Church in Little Rock — and is the minister who married Steve and me (and other same-sex couples) on May 12.

Wisconsin Judge Crabb to Defenders of Traditional Marriage: You Do Understand That Polygamy Is the Tradition You're Defending, Right?

Federal Judge Barbara Crabb in her ruling yesterday (pdf file) striking down the Wisconsin ban on same-sex marriage:

Milwaukee Archdiocese Opens Abuse Files: Letter from Dolan Speaks of "Improved Protection" of Diocesan Funds as Survivors Come Forward

Yesterday, the archdiocese of Milwaukee, previously headed by the current president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Cardinal Timothy Dolan, released a trove of documents having to do with how the archdiocese has handled (and covered up) cases of sexual abuse of minors. The story is told by Laurie Goodstein for New York Times, Marie Rohde (and also here) in National Catholic Reporter, Karen Herzog for the Journal-Sentinel (Milwaukee), and by M.L. Johnson in the Star Tribune (Minneapolis/Milwaukee).

Abuse Survivors and Their Allies Remember Benedict's Legacy: "Failed to Achieve," "Words Rang Hollow," "Never Once Contacted, Spoke To, or Apologized," "Did Not Do Enough"

And it's not merely LGBT Catholics and their allies (I'm referring to my previous posting) who see Benedict's legacy in decidedly more sober terms than do the leading luminaries who dominate the discourse at the center of the Catholic conversation: the same is true for Catholics who have survived childhood sexual abuse by clerics, and those who stand in solidarity with abuse survivors. Here's a selection of statements from this group of important commentators:

Andrew Sullivan on Mea Maxima Culpa Documentary: Real Church Is on the "Very Margins of the Margins"

In two statements at his Daily Dish site today, Andrew Sullivan reflects on Alex Gibney's documentary "Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God," which will air tonight at 9 P.M. ET on HBO. Andrew Sullivan has seen the documentary twice. His take on it (this is from the first of his two postings today about the documentary):

Peter Isely on Systemic Roots of Catholic Clerical Sexual Abuse of Minors

Trailer for "Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God" Documentary

International Spotlight on Abuse in Catholic Church: More on Philadelphia, HBO Documentary about Wisconsin, Jerry Slevin's Petition to President Obama

Important news in the ongoing (and now international) battle to hold the leaders of the Catholic church accountable for covering up child sexual abuse by priests: yesterday, a jury in Philadelphia found Father Charles Engelhardt and Bernard Shero guilty on multiple charges in a case involving the sexual assault of a 10-year-old altar boy.  Joseph A. Slobdozian summarizes the story at the Philly.com website (and see also Jon Hurdle at the New York Times). The victim, "Billy Doe," reports that he was serially raped by Engelhardt, his parish priest, and Shero, principal of his Catholic school, when he was in fifth and sixth grade.

Alex Gibney's "Mea Maxima Culpa" and Defrocking of Catholic Hierarchy

I linked yesterday to Andrew O'Hehir's review of Alex Gibney's HBO documentary "Mea Maxima Culpa" without commenting on the documentary itself.  I can't comment on it, since I haven't yet seen it.  But I can definitely comment on some of the statements now being made about "Mea Maxima Culpa" after it was released yesterday.

The Ruth Kolpack Case: What's at Stake, Morally Speaking?

As I noted yesterday in my final posting about the case of Ruth Kolpack and Bishop Robert Morlino (here), it is interesting to watch the response of a certain group of Catholics to cases like this. The Catholics to whom I’m referring here are those quickest to proclaim that all Catholics are obliged to obey the magisterium without question.

They’re the same Catholics who insist that true Catholics will cast their votes on the basis of abortion and same-sex marriage alone. They’re, in short, Catholics for whom neoconservative political ideology has come to be as significant as (or more significant than) magisterial teaching, in defining their outlook on many issues. It’s fascinating to watch what these Catholics are willing to defend in cases like the Kolpack case.

In the dialogue that followed my first posting about this issue (here), a respondent stated that I don’t understand how the world works, when I insist that Ruth Kolpack’s rights as an employee were violated when she was terminated without being given a reason for her firing. That’s a revealing statement.

Can you imagine those Catholics who are defending the termination of an employee in a Catholic institution without any stated reason for that termination claiming that abortion or homosexuality ought to be regarded as just “how the world works”? In the case of those issues, Catholics who have sold their souls to neoconservative ideologues work tirelessly to convince us that “how the world works” is not how the world should be. These Catholics insist that those who see the abortion issue or homosexuality differently than they do ought to accede to their moral demands, precisely because the world as it is should conform to considerations about how the world should be, in moral terms.

But when it comes to issues of social justice and the just treatment of employees, these same Catholics, who are so scrupulous to obey some Catholic teachings and who will brook no critique or questions regarding those teachings, are willing to shrug their shoulders and talk about “how the world works.” As if economic life is value-free, and we ought to let it do its thing without moral analysis or moral demands. And in total defiance of clearly articulated official Catholic teaching which insists that the economic sphere is every bit as much normed by moral considerations as the sexual or the biological or the scientific sphere.

Essentially, many Catholics of the right simply ignore Catholic teaching about economic life and the rights of workers, while accusing their brothers and sisters of being cafeteria Catholics who pick and choose what we want to believe, when we dissent from the teaching of the church on issues of sexual ethics. Essentially, many Catholics of the right defend an amoral, draconian view of the workplace that is much closer to social Darwinism than to the gospels.

It is not difficult to understand how we have come to this point. As my numerous postings on the Institute for Religion and Democracy have noted (here), neoconservative political activists have worked long and hard for several decades now to marginalize the social justice teachings of many Christian churches. These political activists, who are closely allied with powerful economic interest groups, have sought to depict abortion and homosexuality as the only moral issues worthy of attention in the churches today. They have adroitly used the mainstream media to disseminate a political agenda masquerading as a religious one.

And, to their discredit, many American Catholic bishops have played along, even though the American bishops have made prophetic statements about issues like war and peace (The Challenge of Peace) and economic justice (Economic Justice for All). After several generations of scorched-earth politics in which many American Catholic bishops have allowed neoconservative political ideology to capture the imagination of their flocks—as if a single (and exceedingly flawed) political viewpoint represents the totality of Christian teaching about social and economic life—many Catholics today have no knowledge at all of these key documents of the American bishops.

Or of John Paul II’s writings on the priority of labor. Or John XXII’s and Paul VI’s encyclicals on issues of economic and social justice. Or the long Catholic magisterial tradition defending the rights of workers to form unions and to strike, and insisting that workers must be treated as persons and not things, that economic life is as subject to moral considerations as any other area of life.

The upshot of this willing captivity of the American Catholic bishops to the political right for some decades now is that when the bishops speak about the sanctity of life in the abortion debate, fewer and fewer folks listen. It is very difficult for the bishops to convince the culture at large, and increasing numbers of Catholics as well, about abortion and the sanctity of life, when the people proclaiming this message seem peculiarly insensitive to the human dignity and personal worth of employees of Catholic institutions. Of folks like Ruth Kolpack.

The moral considerations at the heart of Ruth Kolpack’s case ought to be self-evident to Catholics schooled in official Catholic teaching about the workplace and human rights. It says a great deal about the state of American Catholicism today—about the state to which the bishops have brought the church by their unthinking alliance with neoconservative political leaders—that many Catholics have no clue at all about those moral considerations, and want to be convinced of them.

Here are some of the moral considerations that, in my view, clearly underlie the discussion of what has happened to Ruth Kolpack:

1. What would I wish to be done to myself, in Ruth Kolpack’s situation?

One of the most fundamental considerations of the moral life—a sine qua non of all moral analysis—is the question of whether I can place myself in the shoes of someone else, as I defend what is done to her. The world religions teach that I am to see myself in others, and behave accordingly. I am to do to others what I would wish to have done to myself.

I am never to treat others as an object, a thing, a pawn in my games or the games of others. I cannot claim to be a moral agent and behave that way.

Ruth Kolpack claims that Bishop Morlino fired her without providing any reason for her termination after she had worked as a full-time Catholic lay minister for 23 years. I have seen no statement from the diocese of Madison, Wisconsin, that challenges this claim. So I must assume that Ruth Kolpack is telling the truth when she makes this statement.

And, as I have noted, since I have myself received precisely the same treatment at a Catholic institution, I know that such behavior is possible. And my observation of how Catholic institutions function has led me to think that such behavior is not only possible, but is, in fact, frequent.

What would those defending Ruth Kolpack’s termination without any stated cause for that termination wish to have done to themselves, in a similar situation? Would they want to know why they were being fired, when they had worked in lay ministry for 38 years, first as a volunteer, and then for 23 years as a full-time paid employee?

It is inconceivable to me that those defending what has been done to Ruth Kolpack would really wish to be treated as they think she should be treated. And it says much about the kind of church we have become and the level of catechesis provided to the flock by the bishops, that anyone would even try to justify the kind of treatment accorded Ruth Kolpack by Bishop Morlino.

2. What are the effects on workers like Ruth Kolpack, when they are terminated after years of dedicated service and are not provided a reason for that termination?

Again, the religious traditions of the world insist that, when we seek to defend any behavior towards others, we ask whether we would want such behavior done to us. This moral insight requires us to think carefully about what happens to human beings when they are subjected to the behavior we are defending.

Catholic teaching on economic life adds a further fundamental consideration here: it is never morally permissible to treat any worker as a thing, rather than a human person created in God’s image. That moral principle requires Catholics who take church teaching seriously to think about the real-life effects of terminations like the one to which Ruth Kolpack has been subjected—by a Catholic institution. By a bishop, no less—a shepherd of the flock.

I am not Ruth Kolpack. I don’t know her. But I have the ability to imagine, based on my own experience of life (which has included experiences like the one she is now going through), what a termination like this—years of good service to the church, sacrifice on its behalf, and then being fired with no stated cause for the firing—might do to a human being.

It hurts to be fired. It is exceptionally painful to be treated as an object. It strikes to the core of one’s personal worth to work hard at a job and then be fired without any stated cause—as if one is a tissue that has been used, crumpled, and discarded. Being fired in such a demeaning way, and being without work, have effects that ripple through one’s entire life, affecting one’s health, one’s family and friends, and so forth.

Being fired in such a way—and by a Christian institution!—causes one to ask anguished questions about where God is, and whether brothers and sisters in Christ care, and what life can mean, when such things are possible and when they occur in the name of Christ. I can fully understand what Ruth Kolpack means when she says that her ministry is her life—and what that statement implies about her struggle right now, given what has happened to her.

3. Human beings have a basic human right to work.

This, too, is a core moral consideration placed before faithful Catholics by Catholic teaching, and one also echoed in many other religious traditions of the world. Work is not a luxury that should be afforded human beings when it happens to be available. It is a human right. We have a right to work because we are human beings, and institutions that want to lay claim to being moral institutions have an obligation to provide work for us.

A corollary of that moral insistence is the recognition that people cannot be morally deprived of work—of their livelihood, of their vocational lives—without just cause. It is deeply immoral to take away the livelihood of human beings, to take bread from their mouths, without a strong reason for doing this. When a church institution fires a lay minister without providing her the opportunity to defend herself against accusations made against her, without giving a reason for her termination, that institution does something morally opprobrious: it removes bread from the mouth of a human person (and those who depend on that person) without legitimate reason for doing so.

As John Paul II insists over and over in Laborem exercens, it is by our work that we fulfill our humanity in a social context. Taking away a person's work by its very nature threatens to dehumanize the person deprived of work, by taking away the context in which she fulfills her human nature, contributes to society, and responds to her vocation.

4. What are the effects on the Christian community, when Christian institutions and Christian pastors fire employees of church institutions without providing a reason for the firing?

The firing of employees of church institutions with no stated cause has effects not only on those fired. It also has effects on the church itself. No moral consideration of such cases can be complete if we do not examine the effects on the church, when a lay minister such as Ruth Kolpack is fired after years of service, and no reason is provided to her for her termination.

In the first place, allowing a pastor of a church or an official in a church-owned institution to fire employees without stating the cause of the termination corrupts a church and its leadership. As English Catholic historian Lord Acton famously observed, “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

Allowing pastors and church leaders the absolute power to hire and fire at will, with no accountability for their actions—and that is, indeed, what Catholics of the right are defending in Ruth Kolpack’s case—places dangerous power in the hands of pastors and church leaders. That power allows—it positively invites—those wielding it to treat those “beneath” them as things and not as persons.

It corrupts, in other words. And in institutions that permit such power to their leaders, and in societies in which the leaders of church institutions are permitted such power, we all feel the effects of that corruption. The corruption we permit by allowing such unchecked power in the hands of church leaders and leaders of church institutions permeates the entire church and society as well. For proof of this assertion, videlicet the crisis produced by clerical sexual abuse of children in the Catholic church.

Churches that permit their pastoral leaders and the leaders of their institutions to fire church employees without stating the cause of termination also dissolve the bonds of communion that are essential to Communion. We cannot convincingly proclaim what is most central to life in the Christian community—the sacrament of Communion—when our own practices dissolve communion at its most elemental levels, by depriving church workers of bread without due process and just cause and statement of our reasons for taking bread from the mouths of our brothers and sisters.

There are patent, strong links between daily bread and the Bread of Life. When pastors of the church take daily bread from the mouths of the flock and then try to continue celebrating the Eucharist and offering the Bread of Life to their flocks, they become counter-signs to what they proclaim. They become such counter-signs in an obvious, glaring way. They scandalize their flocks and people of good will. Good shepherds feed the flock; they do not take sustenance from the flock.

Finally, as I have noted above, dehumanizing, anti-Christian treatment of church employees by pastors of churches and leaders of church institutions vitiates the churches’ proclamation about the sanctity of life. The church cannot convincingly argue that life in the womb has sacred value when it treats the lives of its own employees as worthless, by unjust terminations of those employees.

We are at a point in history at which the witness of the churches to the sanctity of all life is sorely needed. As Bishops Howard Hubbard of Albany, NY, and William F. Murphy of Rockville Centre, NY, recently noted in a joint letter to Congress, "Our faith and moral principles call us to measure economic decisions on whether they enhance or undermine the lives of those most in need" (here). The bishops note that at this time of global economic downturn, it is the least among us who are likely to suffer the most, and those brothers and sisters need a voice: the Christian community needs to speak on their behalf.

The behavior of bishops like Bishop Morlino in the case of Ruth Kolpack make it much harder for that essential voice to be heard and to be convincing, at this important point in history.

Inversion of Values and Gay Employees in Churches and Church Institutions: Ongoing Injustice

I want to add a brief coda to what I posted earlier today about the case of Ruth Kolpack (here). In that posting, I noted that it is typical for those in supervisory positions in Christian institutions to claim that gay employees are victimizing the person in authority, when challenged about their homophobic treatment of gay employees. Typically, in these situations, an inversion of values takes place, in which the church authority figure seeks to represent himself (or herself) as the real victim, even when s/he has taken away the livelihood and assaulted the vocation of a gay or lesbian brother and sister.

In my analysis of Ruth Kolpack's case, I did not want to mix that observation about the particular kind of cruelty many churches and church institutions reserve for gay employees in particular, and with my observations about the violation of the rights of lay ministers like Ruth Kolpack. I did not want to overlap the two lines of analysis because I thought some readers might conclude that I was suggesting that the diocese of Madison is trying to spin the firing of Ruth Kolpack as a dismissal of a gay church employee.

I know nothing at all of the background of Ruth Kolpack's case, and certainly do not want to imply that the diocese is involved in a smear campaign based on sexual orientation (though I would not be surprised at all to see a church institution try to spin the firing of any unmarried employee as really all about sexual orientation, though the church can't talk about its reasons . . . .). The point of my previous posting is to highlight the central principle at stake in Ruth Kolpack's case: before employees of church institutions are terminated, they deserve the same due process that employees of any workplace deserve before being fired.

Catholic teaching is clear on this point: workers are human beings and not objects, and they have human rights. The right to work is itself a basic human right, and taking away one's livelihood without a serious reason and in the absence of due process is a serious moral violation. This is all the more true for churches, who undermine their claim to believe--really believe--in the Bread of Life they offer all believers, when they shove human beings away from the table of daily bread.

At the same time, and as a coda to what I wrote earlier, I do want to underscore that it is not at all unusual for churches and church institutions to fire gay employees without any due process, while refusing to disclose any reason for the termination. It is also not unusual for churches and church institutions to state, in such cases, that they are keeping silence about the reason for the termination to safeguard the reputation of the one who was fired--even as the silence itself insinuates that there is an unsavory reason for the termination. And the silence is designed to do precisely that.

Churches and church-related institutions have destroyed the livelihood and reputation--and often the lives--of gay and lesbian employees for generations, by the use of these tactics. They have counted on their ability to use portentous silence to insinuate that the person they fired without disclosure of a reason is gay or lesbian, and also promiscuous or God knows what else, at points in history when LGBT human beings had no choice except to put up with such treatment, or damage themselves more. The churches--all of them, in my view--bear a great weight of guilt for behaving this way repeatedly towards gay and lesbian persons for generations.

This is typical behavior of churches and church institutions, when the person being fired is gay or lesbian. And as I have noted repeatedly on this blog, it is not confined to the Catholic church, though it may be more common in Catholic institutions, since, even more than many churches, the Catholic church makes no bones about its right to fire employees without due process, even as it preaches that such behavior is immoral in secular institutions.

But as I have noted in previous postings, I have found that institutions owned by other churches are also capable of this ugly behavior. I am increasingly convinced that it is tactical behavior developed by entrenched male heterosexist hierarches in many churches, and that it will continue as long as members of churches and the general public keep giving the benefit of the doubt to leaders of churches and church institutions, when they trample on gay human beings.

As I have noted, I have discovered that United Methodist institutions are just as capable as Catholic institutions of firing an employee with no due process at all, in the absence of any evaluation of the employee's work, without affording the employee any right to respond to criticisms of his/her work, and with ugly insinuations (and lies) about "personal" reasons for the termination.

Why do churches and church-related institutions keep behaving this way while preaching that behavior like in non-church related workplaces is immoral ? Quite simply, because they can do so. Because they pay only a tiny price for behaving this way.

Because the public and church members give the benefit of the doubt to churches and to the leaders of churches and church-owned institutions. Because laws to protect the basic rights of workers--including the right not to be fired simply because one is gay or lesbian--just do not exist in many areas of the country, and in those areas, churches and church-owned institutions are eager to take advantage of what they can do legally, even if their behavior violates their own ethical teachings.

When this is done to gay and lesbian employees, who will protest? In my experience, not many people will do so. Who will give the benefit of the doubt to the gay or lesbian employee in a conflict situation involving a church or church institution and its leaders, backed as they are by all the institutional power of the church?

Until our laws provide minimal protection from unjust termination for all workers as well as for gay and lesbian citizens, churches and their institutions will continue to engage in exceedingly unjust and exceedingly cruel behavior towards gay and lesbian employees. And the laws will not change until more and more citizens demand such protections for workers and LGBT human beings--and until more and more people of faith take seriously the witness of LGBT human beings who have been abused by the churches and church institutions. The churches will not stop behaving this way until church members demand better of their churches and church leaders, and until they make the men on top (of both genders) pay a price for such behavior.

It should be noted that it is typical for the men who run things in the churches to make common cause regarding such issues of employee rights, even across denominational lines. They do so because leaders of many churches have a vested interest in protecting their heterosexist male power centers from challenge and critique. The kind of behavior I'm describing in these two postings about the Ruth Kolpack case is is common in many churches because it is, in the final analysis, all about the reflex reaction of entrenched heterosexist male hierarchies in many churches to those they see as the primary threats to their power and privilege--women, first and foremost, as as fellow travelers of the women's movement, gay and lesbian brothers and sisters.

It will be interesting to see what happens in this case. Wisconsin has tougher laws governing labor practices than some states do, and this is why the Madison diocese is now expending energy in defending itself against the charge that it did not afford Ruth Kolpack due process before firing her. Had this happened in one of the "right-to-work" states like Florida (or Arkansas or North Carolina), where churches and church institutions can get away with murder (metaphorically speaking) in their treatment of workers, things would be different. But perhaps (one hopes) not in Wisconsin . . . .

Inversion of Values: Reflections on the Firing of Lay Catholic Catechist Ruth Kolpack by Bishop Robert Morlino

A case in Wisconsin involving a lay Catholic pastoral associate, Ruth Kolpack, is gaining national attention. As Mike Sweitzer-Beckman reported on 17 March in National Catholic Reporter (here), Kolpack, a pastoral associate at St. Thomas the Apostle Church in Beloit, Wisconsin, since 1995, was fired in early March by Bishop Robert Morlino.

Kolpack began her ministry in the church in 1971 as a volunteer catechist. Since that time, she has worked tirelessly and fruitfully for the church. In 1983, she was hired as a part-time youth minister. She then earned a degree at Loyola University in 1986 and was hired full-time. After this, she earned a master's degree.

She has contributed to the church in numerous ways, giving of her services to diocesan educational programs, training lay ministers, and taking a leading role in establishing a program called “Hands of Faith,” which helps to house homeless families. She has also assisted in establishing Hispanic ministries in several parishes in her diocese.

Despite her years of hard work for the church, of contribution of her talents and herself, and despite the fact that she regards her ministry as her life, Sweitzer-Beckman reports, “Kolpack said that when she met with her bishop she was given no opportunity to defend herself, nor did she have a chance to face or respond to those who had accused her.” She was fired outright, with no disclosure of a reason for her termination. As Sweitzer-Beckman notes (here), the diocese refuses to reveal any information about the reason for her termination because it considers the matter a “personnel issue” and has indicated that revealing the reason could impair Kolpack’s character.

Due to the controversy surrounding what seems on the face of it to be outrageously unjust treatment of a lay minister, the Madison diocese has released a document to respond to questions about Kolpack’s termination (here). This document consists of FAQs about the termination.

I’m particularly interested in the diocese’s attempt to defend Bishop Morlino’s decision to terminate a lay minister without providing a reason for the termination—even to the person being terminated. One of the questions in the FAQ is, “Is it true that Ms. Kolpack was not given an opportunity to confront her accusers, and that there was no due process in this matter?”

As Colleen Kochivar-Baker notes in an excellent posting about this on her Enlightened Catholicism blog (here), the diocese’s handling of this central question—was a lay minister who has worked for many years on behalf of the church, who has sacrificed much and given much, afforded due process when she was terminated?—is, well, curious, indeed.

Believe it or not, here’s the diocesan response to that question: It should never have happened! It should never have happened because a bishop should be able to trust all the ministers working in his diocese. The FAQ states,

What is true is that this should never have happened. A bishop should be able to trust that every priest, deacon, religious and lay person tasked with catechesis is teaching the truths of the Church. But this is not always the case.

As Colleen Kochivar-Baker observes, note what this unbelievably fatuous response does: it completely inverts the matter at hand, and makes it about Bishop Morlino, not about Ruth Kolpack. It makes the issue a perceived injury done to Bishop Morlino (i.e., betrayal of his trust), and not an injury done to Ruth Kolpack.

Ruth Kolpack has given her life to serve the church. She has sacrificed, as a lay minister without access to the lavish institutional funds provided for the education of priests, to earn the credentials to pursue her ministry as a catechist and a pastoral associate.

After nearly four decades of ministry, she is out on her ear, without a job, with no explanation at all for her termination. Her ministry has been unilaterally judged null and void by a bishop, and she has not had a chance to defend herself against the charges that apparently resulted in her firing. As a lay person, she is quite simply without rights, and as an ordained member of the church, Bishop Morlino has all power in his hands, to make or break her.

His vocation counts, as a clerical member of the church. Hers does not count, as a lay person.

But it is Bishop Morlino who has been hurt. Not Ruth Kolpack.

This is the dynamic to which I refer in previous postings as the inversion of values often practiced by churches and church institutions when they violate their own ethical proclamations about human rights in how they treat their employees. As I note (here), I have found that church institutions typically employ the inversion of values approach in conflict situations in which the human rights of gay employees are violated by church authorities or by those at the top of church institutions (e.g., presidents of church-related colleges):

A typical response of church folks in supervisory positions in Christian institutions, when challenged with evidence of their homophobic ill-treatment of gay employees, is to claim that the evil gay is victimizing them! This inversion of values, the attempt of the oppressor to turn the tables and try to identify the oppressed as the victimizer, is typical in any twisted relationship in which a privileged party abuses a party placed in a subordinate position, in which that person cannot easily defend himself or herself.

The stark, unbelievable logic of the inversion of values approach is that the person on top is right—always right—because, well, he or she is on top, after all. And it is a church or a church-owned institution, after all. And churches and church institutions do right. And those who run these institutions and do right because they are on top are the church. To violate them by questions about their motives is to violate the church itself. To combat them is to fight against the church (and God).

To expect them to apply their teachings about just treatment of employees and universal human rights to the church and its institutions is to question the right of those on the top in churches and church institutions to represent themselves as the church, as agents of God, as God. It is to question the self-identification of fallible human creatures with divinity and divine right.

There is, of course, no real defense for such an approach to workers and workers' rights. There can be no ethical defense for what is simply crude hardball abuse of workers by an institution that considers itself above the law and above the reach of its own ethical teachings, in what it does to its workers.

Here is how the diocesan FAQ tries—lamely—to defend Bishop Morlino’s violation of Ruth Kolpack’s human rights:

1. It should not have happened.

2. It should not have happened because it is about Bishop Morlino and not Ruth Kolpack—it is about the fact that he should always be able to trust his workers.

3. Of course, there is an “optimal process” that should apply in any Christian institution: a process that “would have seen any issues resolved, lovingly, in a one-on-one basis, within parish structures.”

4. But this is not what happened because, well, what happened should never have happened—it is about Bishop Morlino, for goodness’ sake, not about Ruth Kolkpack: “If there was a breakdown in the optimal process, that necessitated that the bishop address the situation himself, then this is something that must also be addressed. Because, again, this should have never happened.”

5. And, after all, those noble Catholic teachings about the rights of employees and the rights of all human beings, well, they apply only in criminal cases—not in the everyday, ordinary life of the church: “‘Due process’ has its place in criminal matters. Were this a criminal accusation, canonically or civilly, the proper canonical or civil process would then come into effect. This is not a trial, but simply a matter of trust.”

This is simply a matter of trust. Trust me. I am a bishop. Ruth Kolpack is only a lay minister. The power is in my hands. Could I possibly do wrong?

Have you ever heard such a mishmash of logic and plain mendacity? And can you believe that this mismash of logic and plain mendacity prevails in many churches and church institutions? Even today, anywhere that a church or a church institution can get away with treating its employees this way.

I can, because I have been there, several times. In my own dealings with these institutions, as a lay minister who happens to be a theologian, who pinched and scraped to pay for my theological education while priests and nuns in my graduate program had their way paid by the church, I have learned that the church and church institutions will almost always do what they can do legally, even if what they can do legally violates what they proclaim ethically.

When I was given a one-year terminal contract with no explanation at Belmont Abbey College in 1993, that is precisely what the college president told me as he informed me I would receive such a contract—and would not be told why I was being terminated. He said, “I am ethically conflicted about doing this. I can do it legally but I know it is ethically dubious to act this way. I have chosen to do what is legal.”

I know Ruth Kolpack's story intimately, because it is an old story, and one I myself have had to live with. That prevaricating diocesan statement—that its refusal to discuss why Ruth Kolpack was terminated is an attempt to protect her reputation—I've had to live with that statement, too.

It shields the church and church institutions from legal culpability, when the church and its institutions do what is legal but not ethical. It also allows the church and its representatives to damage the former employee even while claiming to have that employee's reputation and best interest at heart.

Think, for a moment, about the power of insinuation and of whispers about real reasons in these cases, and you will see what I mean. We whose reputations are being "protected" would far rather know why we have been terminated, than to be "protected" by damaging campaigns of lies, secrets, and silence which allow the institution to insinuate all kinds of ugly reasons about why we have been terminated.

I certainly do feel for Ruth Kolpack, and I hope that she attains some justice, no matter how rough, in this situation. No matter how hard she worked, no matter what good she did, she is now up against the institutional power of the church, and that power is considerable. In my experience, those with power in the church lock arms and stand against anyone who asks questions about how they have unjustly wielded their power, in cases like this.

What happened to Ruth Kolpack should not have happened. That is the "should not have happened" that Bishop Morlino ought to be pondering, not some bogus betrayal of his trust. But this scenario will continue to happen in churches and many church institutions until laws that protect the rights of workers compel institutions which preach to society about just treatment of workers to embody that preaching in their own ecclesial life.