The Cuomo case and the American Church: A study in governance

The  Cuomo   case  and  the
American Church: A study in
governance
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo resigned Tuesday, days after the
highest law enforcement office in the state released a
detailed report chronicling allegations of sexual harassment.

One supposes it theoretically would have been possible for him
to survive a trial, or even that he might have avoided
impeachment, but he had lost the confidence of his own party,
and citizens overwhelmingly believed he should resign.

It’s important to keep in mind that the questions of illegal
and even possibly criminal conduct are quite distinct from
those regarding the facts of the case and their weight in the
minds of New York citizens and legislators. Judicial processes
are apt to determine whether Cuomo’s conduct was criminal. His
political fortunes are subject to political processes in which
leaders are imperfectly but still meaningfully beholden to the
people.

Whether Cuomo or anyone else broke the law or behaved
criminally is one set of questions, in other words. What it
appears certain Cuomo and others did (or failed to do), and
what the effects of their actions and omissions had on the
leadership culture within New York state, is quite another.
Cuomo’s political fortunes and personal reputation will depend
on the latter as well as the former. The system isn’t perfect,
but it appears to be working tolerably well this time around
in New York.

When one looks at how the Church has investigated bishops
suspected or known to have committed wrongdoing, one struggles
to make a worthy comparison. For one thing, there is no
independent investigative arm to speak of, no truly

independent judiciary, no stable mechanisms for either process
or transparency.

The closest one gets in recent times is the investigation
Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore commissioned into
Bishop Michael J. Bransfield and his conduct — personal and
official — while he led the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston,
West Virginia.

Pope Francis accepted Bishop Bransfield’s resignation within a
week of Bransfield’s 75th birthday — the age at which bishops
are required to offer their resignations — and tasked
Archbishop Lori with organizing an investigation, in what
eventually became something of a dry run for the pope’s
“metropolitan model” of bishop accountability.

Investigators conducted that probe and prepared a 60-page
report of Bishop Bransfield’s 13 years in West Virginia, which
went to Pope Francis. The faithful and the general public got
their first look at the findings of the report when they
leaked to The Washington Post and only saw the report itself
when the newspaper decided to publish it.

Archbishop Lori had pushed for significant transparency,
including the release of the dossier, but didn’t have much
luck. It’s also worth recalling that Bishop Bransfield was
generous with diocesan money — which he frequently passed as
his own, by writing checks drawn on his personal account and
then reimbursing himself from diocesan coffers — and
frequently showed his generosity to senior churchmen. Many of
these were powerful and highly placed, including Archbishop
Lori himself, who redacted the names of the churchmen who
received money from Bransfield, including his own. In the real
world, failure to disclose something like that will certainly
get you taken off a case, at best.

The 168-page report from the New York attorney general, on the
other hand, was immediately available to the public. It sets

out the AG’s legal authority to investigate, explains the
investigative procedure the AG’s office adopted and pursued,
presents findings of fact and law, and offers conclusions.

The governor’s behavior “constituted sexual harassment under
federal and state law,” that “the executive chamber’s failure
to report and investigate allegations of sexual harassment
violated their own internal policies,” according to the AG.

The AG’s report says the governor and his administration
responded to at least one harassment report in a manner that
“constituted unlawful retaliation.”

Perhaps the most important finding was that “the culture and
environment in the Executive Chamber” — the governor’s
powerful inner circle of senior officials and trustiest
advisers — “contributed to the conditions that led to sexual
harassment and the problematic responses to allegations of
harassment.”

The report also found that the climate throughout the
leadership culture of various key New York agencies and
departments was — is — pretty rotten, owing at least in part
to the knock-on effects of the culture the governor fostered.
“[T]his culture of intimidation and retribution were not
limited to those within the Executive Chamber,” the report
said.

“Many witnesses,” the AG’s report found, “including those who
worked at other New York State agencies, including the New
York State Troopers and elsewhere, described interactions that
they perceived to be threatening and bullying to the extreme.”

“Indeed, most witnesses–again, other than those with close
ties to the Chamber’s leadership– expressed concern and fear
that providing any negative information to us in our
investigation would lead to harm and retribution.”

“Their trepidation,” the finding continued, “arose from the

way in which they observed the Executive Chamber respond to
anyone who might do or say anything that was damaging to the
Governor.”

“Their fear,” the report continued, “was exacerbated by the
recognition that, as Governor of New York, he remained
extremely powerful and that he was known to have a
‘vindictive’ nature.”

All that tracks pretty closely with Bransfield’s official
behavior as detailed in the Lori report.

Bransfield’s personal conduct was more egregious in both
degree and kind — he sexually assaulted people and abused
alcohol frequently — but the one common element, the fil rouge
running through both the Lori report and the New York AG’s
report, is the fear — the amply founded certitude — of
reprisal from the top.

There are civil mechanisms in place — political,
constitutional, judicial — for dealing with officeholders who
abuse the public trust. The Church has no similar political
structures in operation. The few judicial structures there are
exist mostly on paper and are subject to the will (the whim?)
of an absolute ruler. The twofold concern of the men who
govern the Church all too often appears to be avoiding trouble
and pleasing the superior authority. That does not bode well
for root-and-branch reform efforts in the short and
intermediate term. It promises to be disastrous, in fact, and
likely sooner rather than later.

For that, the best illustration is the unfortunate handling of
Bishop Michael J. Hoeppner of Crookston, Minnesota. The short
version of that very long and very sad story is that Hoeppner
resigned as bishop of Crookston at Pope Francis’ request,
following an investigation under Pope Francis’ signature
reform law, Vos estis lux mundi, of claims Hoeppner “had
intentionally interfered with or avoided a canonical or civil

investigation of an allegation of sexual abuse of a minor.”

There is no official word on the specifics of that alleged
cover-up. Archbishop Bernard Hebda of St. Paul and Minneapolis
— universally recognized as an extraordinarily capable
canonist and by-the-book investigator — conducted the inquest.

No Church jurisdiction or authority has published the
investigation reports. No churchman has said whether Bishop
Hoeppner ever faced formal canonical charges as a result of
the investigations. No Church official has said whether
Hoeppner was tried, or whether he would have been had he
refused to step down. Hoeppner remains in good standing, as
far as anyone knows from official sources.

If the Bishop Hoeppner affair is any sort of bellwether, the
churchmen appear content with the opaque status quo.

A case like that of Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio of Brooklyn, New
York, also merits consideration. A Newark, New Jersey, fellow
who served under laicized former cardinal Theodore McCarrick,
Bishop DiMarzio has been under Vos estis investigation for
more than a year and a half, in connection with at least one
allegation of abuse of a minor stemming from the 1970s. Bishop
DiMarzio has strongly denied the allegation.

Since the original accusation in November 2019 — when DiMarzio
conducted an apostolic visitation of the troubled Diocese of
Buffalo — another accuser has come forward. DiMarzio has
passed retirement age but remains in office.

If there is reasonable suspicion of guilt, mere sanity
dictates that Bishop DiMarzio be removed and publicly tried.
If the allegations are thin, that’s all the more reason to
conduct a very thorough and very public investigation, with
all possible speed. Neither the accusers nor the accused are
served by the silent dragging of feet, and the faithful aren’t
served by a lack of accountability.

There is no perfect justice this side of the Second Coming,
but that’s no reason to let New York state’s efforts so far
outstrip the Church’s to deliver a semblance of it here and
now.

The problems with Church governance will not recede on their
own. The maxim remains true, however: Sunlight is still the
best disinfectant.

Christopher Altieri writes from Connecticut.