Connecting With The Human Spirit: The U.S. Catholic Sexual Abuse Scandal And The Internet Challenge For Global Churches

By Frances Forde Plude

[This text summarizes some current institutional communication challenges, with special reference to the Roman Catholic Church and sexual abuse scandals there, and in other churches. The paper was presented at an International Conference on Media, Religion, and Culture in Louisville, Kentucky, September 1-4, 2004.]

Introduction

Recently my travels provided data and insights concerning the Catholic Church in Eastern Europe, in Germany, and in Ireland. And I have studied the U. S. Catholic Church and its communication issues for several decades. In each site, churches confront cultural and communication challenges unprecedented historically. The past example often cited, of course, is the impact of the printing press. However, today’s challenges are much more complex. The issues are certainly more regularly communicated globally by modern media. And the Internet allows interconnected conversations around these issues on an unprecedented scale.

What do the data show about churches? How do media, especially the Internet, play a role? How can churches respond? These are the issues this paper probes. I will attempt to explore three areas. First, I will summarize some current institutional challenges, with special reference to the Roman Catholic Church and the sexual abuse scandal there, and in other churches. Next, I will reflect upon the emerging impact of the Internet on religious groups as the Web and other media challenge the credibility of church leadership especially in the sexual abuse exposure. And, finally, I will present some of my own thoughts and recommendations for churches with special reference to the issue I believe to be most critical: that churches – like the media they often fear – must themselves become more interactive, more honestly communicative, more responsive. There are new dialogic communicative theories and practices emerging that can assist churches in this task. However, the challenge will be more difficult for church institutions like the Roman Catholic Church that are solidly hierarchical and somewhat resistant to change. 

Components of the Church/Communication Challenge

First some general issues. A basic challenge for various churches and cultures is that the Internet and other media are so pervasive. And many religious leaders are not knowledgeable about these media and their appropriate or effective use. Religious groups have viewed media primarily as instruments, to preach or evangelize. Therefore, they stress content or the message rather than focusing on media reception – how programming is received by audience members. This is reflected in many Catholic Church communication documents. Dr. Stewart Hoover (2003, 1997) and Dr. Lynn Schofield Clark (2003), colleagues at the University of Colorado in Boulder, have reported extensively on the issues of media reception by audiences.

In addition, quite understandably, most media viewers prefer entertainment programming to pure information-transfer. Many religious adherents are not prepared to respect this “spiritainment” aspect of media. Father Bob Bonnot has coined this term in his writings. The term refers to “media-focused attention that causes an experience of something grand, something divine, thereby stirring our deepest human longings and touching our spirit.”

Another issue is that media are not widely integrated into worship services, although congregants live in a mediated environment daily. This is ironic since media have long played a powerful role in religious ceremonies. One has only to think of the cathedral, stained glass windows, statues, the Madonna image, and Eastern Church icons, for example, to see how people of faith have long integrated the visual into their piety. The priest-sociologist, Andrew Greeley, speaks of “the Catholic imagination” in a book of that title (2000). Yet, as Tom Boomershine has noted, for the first time in history, huge corporations are in complete control of communication systems, with people of faith sitting on the sidelines. In previous times of media transition – from oral to written culture and the transfer to print culture – Christian churches were in the forefront of the change, using this leadership to transform whole cultures and to promote literacy.

Another general factor: with the rise of investigative reporting, prompted by Woodward and Bernstein in covering the U.S. Watergate scandal, churches have often adopted a defensive role when dealing with media. In the Catholic Church, the institution I am most familiar with, bishops (like others in public life) have used ‘spin’ to try to control media messages, or they have simply resisted communicating directly with media. Bishops have had a deep fear of a scandal, so they resorted to a monstrous cover-up concerning sexual abuse they knew was going on among their clergy. Ironically, this resulted in a larger global scandal and a serious loss of leadership credibility, one that will probably take decades to repair.

Sexual Abuse by Church Personnel

I have studied the U.S. Catholic Church sexual abuse situation, with special reference to the role of media as the scandal was uncovered and as the media continued to spotlight the issue. My analysis appears in a book entitled Belief in media: Christianity and media in cultural perspective (Ashgate Press, London, 2004). Here I am moving beyond that document, examining subsequent events, looking at three additional international church settings – Germany, Ireland, and Ukraine – and examining the Internet role more fully, sharing my own reflections on implications for churches.

As I stated in my chapter cited above “The first thing to be said about sexual abuse is that it is evil, it does life-long damage to those on whom it is perpetrated, and every effort needs to be made to ensure that it is halted, that victims are given justice and care, and that perpetrators are stopped and brought to account.” It is also important to refer to this as a “sexual abuse problem” rather than “a pedophile crisis.” Most victims were not children under seven years of age, although several high-profile cases involved this age group.

In the United States the John Jay College of Criminal Justice was asked to conduct an extensive study to determine: (a) the number and nature of sexual abuse allegations between 1950 and 2002; (b) information about alleged abusers; (c) the characteristics of the alleged victims; and (d) the financial impact of the abuse on the Catholic Church. The study collected data between March 2003 and February 2004. The research was based on survey data from dioceses in the U.S. and its territories (covering 97% of all diocesan priests serving between 1950 and 2002). It also collected data from 142 religious congregations (“orders”) of men and women (68% of the total number of congregations). The study used a double-blind procedure to protect the anonymity of victims and abusers.

  • For the period of 1950-2002 the study found allegations of sexual abuse against a total of 4,392 priests, approximately 4% of all priests active in those years. A total of 10,667 individuals made allegations of sexual abuse.

  • 56% of the priests were alleged to have abused one victim. On the other hand, 3.4% of the abusers account for 26% of the allegations, having victimized numerous individuals. 6% of those abused were under age 7; these pedophiles often had numerous victims. 

  • One startling fact is that, up to the date of the study’s release in 2004, the police have been contacted in connection with only 14% of the abusers.

Most of the sexual abuse cases reported have involved male victims. However, recently Margaret Kennedy wrote about “The other abuse” in The (London) Tablet [July, 2004, p.2]. She defines this “other abuse” as women who “have been sexually abused, assaulted, exploited and ‘encouraged’ into sexual relationships by clergy of all denominations.” Half of the clergy in Kennedy’s group were married men. The abuse situation often arose out of a pastoral-care setting, and the women were often abandoned as the clergyman moved on to other victims. Kennedy is the founder and chair of Ministry and Clergy Sexual Abuse Survivors (MACSAS).

Another woman, the Rev. Dr. Marie Fortune, is founder and director of the Center for the Prevention of Sexual and Domestic Violence. In an article in Christian Century [January 23, 1991, p. 765] Fortune cites a Fuller Theological Seminary dissertation suggesting that as many as 38 per cent of ministers or clergy are inappropriately sexually involved with their congregants. Yet another story involved abuse by females in religious orders. Both in the United States and in Ireland, allegations have been made about sexual abuse and excessive cruelty in institutions staffed by religious congregations.

Religious and Cultural Change: Germany, Ireland, Ukraine, and the U.S.

In 2004 I was invited to a Berlin conference held to analyze similarities and differences between Catholicism in the United States and in Germany. At the conference, the priest-sociologist Andrew Greeley shared data from his new book The Catholic Revolution: New Wine, Old Wineskins, and the Second Vatican Council (2004). Reviewing various studies that cover a total of 47, 446 subjects over a span of years from 1963 to 2003, Greeley says the data show:

  • A Catholic majority (even devout ones) reject the Catholic Church’s sexual teachings.

  • This destabilization occurred immediately after the Second Vatican Council and affected all age cohorts, not just youth. 

  • Unlike these Catholics, Protestant views did not change radically. Greeley notes there should have been this change if the nineteen sixties caused the change.

  • Data show that in addition to the U.S. the change affected other nations such as Poland, Italy, Eastern Europe, and Third World countries.

  • There was no evidence of widespread rejection of doctrine. In many countries one sees an increase in the belief in life after death, for example.

Greeley speculates that if the Second Vatican Council’s promise of collegiality had been kept, the above conflicts might have been less serious. He suggests: “Leadership at every level should listen, listen again, and then listen some more.” This concept will be repeated below in discussing dialogue and interactivity in churches.

At the Berlin conference Dr. Rüdiger Schulz of the Institut für Demoskopie Allensbach shared interesting data on the dramatic decline of Catholic culture in Germany. He cited two key factors: a shift of values toward self-realization; and the reunification of Germany, where 40 years of atheist upbringing in East Germany left its mark. 39% of the previously “West German” population were members of the Catholic Church. In formerly “East Germany” 24% of the population were members of a Christian church: 4% members of the Catholic Church. Critical trends in church membership and church attendance began in Germany at the end of the 1960s. The wave of people leaving the church peaked in the early 1990s. In 1992, 193,000 Catholics left the church in Germany. In 2002 there was still a drain of 119,000 Catholics leaving the church.

The Allensbach Institute conducted an international values study in 2001, revealing many differences between Americans and Europeans. Twice as many Americans (79%) as French, English and Germans draw comfort and strength from their faith. 94% of Americans, as opposed to only 61% of all Germans, believe in God. By 2002, “the decade-long trend to perceive the church as less and less in touch with the times would appear to have halted” in Germany. Schultz notes: “The attitudes of many German Catholics to the church are characterized by an ambivalent, partly well-wishing, partly skeptical, overall view, laced with widespread indifference and disinterest. What people appreciate most about the church is the social and charitable work it performs…” People prefer “a helping Church” but reject “a demanding Church” with its required norms of behavior which conflict with an individual’s desire for self-determination in a multi-option society.

In neighboring Austria, the Catholic Church was rocked by revelations of homosexual practices and computer pornography in a seminary near Vienna. This follows earlier accusations of sexual abuse leveled against the late Cardinal Hans Hermann Groer, Archbishop of Vienna. The seminary revelation was termed a “full-scale pastoral meltdown” by the dean of the Catholic Theological Faculty at Vienna University. [The (London) Tablet, 17 July 2004, p. 28.]

The situation for churches in Eastern Europe reflects in some ways the previously mentioned challenge of integrating Eastern and Western Germany. In Ukraine, Myroslav Marynovych, Vice Rector of the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv, has spoken of various social problems there with a deteriorating effect on human rights (2004). In a society moving from Soviet paternalism and struggling to develop and implement democracy, Marynovych called the religious realm “a bulwark of freedom” in Ukraine. In addition, the plurality of churches in the country is an important guarantor of religious freedom since all churches want to protect their own rights to exist and develop. Marynovych has long been a respected human rights activist in Ukraine; he was sent to a gulag for ten years by the Soviets for these efforts. He later authored a document detailing a vision of ecumenism for his country. Expressing a view about Hungary, Gábor Bogdányi believes the Internet will play a special role in these Eastern European Churches (1997).

Ireland’s religious and cultural change has been both unique and rapid. This is documented thoroughly in Dr. Louise Fuller’s excellent study Irish Catholicism Since 1950: The Undoing of a Culture (2004). Ireland’s strong Catholic Ethos emerged historically and was legitimated by the state due to political circumstances associated with the birth of the Republic of Ireland. Until recently the Catholic Church had “control of education (and) a commanding voice over the transmission of culture” in Ireland (p 4).

All of this evaporated dramatically after 1950:

…perhaps one of the most important findings of this research (is) that Irish Catholic cultural change was being influenced by a combination of forces interacting with each other over time. They included political, economic, and social changes and a radical re-orientation of Catholic theology (p 232).

Ireland’s geographic isolation, and the strong control by the Catholic Church over what was ‘allowed’, had a unique effect. Many of the intellectual currents on the continent of Europe – where churchmen from the turn of the century had to relate to a more critical and secularized laity – simply did not reach Ireland. But the scene began to change. 

Economic prosperity, educational change, television, travel opportunities, foreign industry, tourism – all provided the catalysts which allowed Ireland to ‘catch up’ with her European counterparts. All of these forces coalesced in the 1960s and made for a much more sophisticated, educated, critical, Catholic laity… (p 232).

As in other nations, media had a huge impact upon the changing Catholic culture in Ireland. Fuller covers this extensively – the impact of film, early BBC broadcasts, and, eventually. Ireland’s establishment of its own national television service, RTÉ. An iconic program, the Late Late Show, mirrored the increasing critique of Catholicism as topics were openly, controversially, discussed there.

Sexual abuse scandals have also hit the Catholic Church in Ireland. In May 1992 it was revealed that Bishop Eamonn Casey of Galway had had an affair with an American divorcée, that they had a son, that he had distanced himself from the mother and child, and that church funds had perhaps been used to keep the story quiet. Bishop Casey left Ireland quickly when the news broke. Another scandal involved Father Michael Cleary, a Dublin priest who was well known because of his television work. Later the Bishop of Ferns resigned over his handling of sexual abuse in his diocese.

Media were actively involved in revealing these scandals, along with growing revelations about earlier excessive cruelty in many state institutions for children staffed by women and men of Catholic religious congregations. In January 2002 it was agreed that religious orders were to make contributions of 128 million Euro as compensation for victims. The government agreed to indemnify the religious orders against all present and future claims. The government absorbed this remaining cost since most agencies involved were state institutions. This additional cost may exceed one billion Euro. The agreement does not cover any victims of abuse by Catholic priests who are under the jurisdiction of a diocesan bishop.

One thoughtful and devout Catholic layman told me: “We placed excessive faith in church authorities; to the extent we believed in them, to that extent are we now extremely skeptical.” In the mid-nineties, opinion polls by The Irish Times and Ireland’s Prime Time television program showed that over 60-66% of Catholics still attended Mass weekly. However, 90.9% of Irish Catholics were attending at least once a week in the seventies. As Fuller notes, it is difficult to determine whether this dramatic change in Catholic religious practice is the result of the wide-ranging cultural changes in Ireland or the direct result of Church scandals.

However, as noted in the European Values Study in 1994, “what is striking about Ireland is not secularization [but] the emergence of the ‘new’ Catholic.” Fuller adds:

These ‘new Catholics’ had ‘a liberal attitude to sexual matters’ and ‘an optimistic’ interpretation of religion… More independent-minded Catholics, who tailored their Catholicism to social and cultural influences other than orthodox Catholic teaching, were emerging from the late 1960s… By the 1990s, the days were over of following rules laid down by a very authoritarian Church… (p. 251).

Fuller extensively documents the theological change in Ireland because of the Second Vatican Council and fueled in Ireland by the interactive discussions in its influential religious journal, the Furrow.

As I surveyed and experienced Catholicism in these varied sites it seems there are three major ‘environmental’ changes. The first was recently identified by the German theologian Hermann Pottmeyer in a paper delivered at Boston College in May 2004. Pottmeyer speaks of ‘the loss of a familiarly Catholic milieu” and the “pluralization of the spheres of life.” The Catholic Church, he notes, has become just one sphere, along with many others. Another factor is increasing individualization. Pottmeyer speaks of the need for a “pastorate of intensity” in response to these changes. And he suggests we need to acknowledge that the Christian life can greatly enrich this personal or individual development.  

Secondly, each nation surveyed here is moving through a vast cultural sea change: modernism, post-Communism, individualism, media saturation, to name just a few. And, thirdly, in Europe and in the U.S., Catholicism has been rocked by sexual abuse revelations.

The Role of the Internet 

In my above-mentioned study of the media role in revealing and continually covering the sexual abuse scandal in the U.S. Catholic Church, I concluded:

In all this coverage there was not enough nuance or systematic analysis. Overlooked often was the fact that some cases involved actions from many years ago. The situation was labeled a pedophile crisis when a small number of cases involved very young children… And there was little analysis about the difference between legitimate confidentiality and a vast culture of secrecy in the church. It was hard to sort out the need for forgiveness while at the same time holding abusers accountable (p. 326). 

In my research I was somewhat surprised by the impact of the archival role of the Internet as the sexual abuse story unfolded. The Boston Globe broke the story of the extensive clergy sexual abuse in the Archdiocese of Boston and began to store hundreds of its stories on its Website. Their archive also contained court depositions and related material. Thus, much previously secret documentation was, for the first time, easily available for journalists and the public to study.

In addition, a “Clergy Abuse Tracker” was hosted at the Poynter Institute Website. Staff member Bill Mitchell searched the Internet twice a day for the latest sexual abuse coverage, copied the headlines, added the name of the publication and some story details, and then provided a link to each story. Almost 1,000 users – many of them journalists – visited this clergy abuse Website daily.    The extensive archived material, easily accessible, made it clear the Catholic Church had a systemic problem. Such archives and databases will continue to make it difficult for religious institutions to avoid accountability in the future. 

Many books appeared analyzing religious utilization of the Internet. I have listed a number of these works in my “References” section. Global studies of Internet usage are happening. The UCLA World Internet Project has released initial findings, but more complete data were available on September 13, 2004, when the Internet report “10 Years, 10 Trends” was released by the new Center for the Digital Future. The initial World Internet Project findings gave a percentage of Internet users in twelve countries. The USA led with 7l.1% of its population using the Internet; among those in the 16-24 age group it is 90.8%. About 60% are users in Korea, Britain and Sweden. Some interesting findings. 

  • Internet users spend more time in an average week socializing with friends than nonusers, exercised more, spent more time reading books (except in the U.S.) and watched less television.

  • Interestingly, a high percentage of people felt the Internet did not empower them to impact government decisions (72.5% in Sweden, 53.2% in America.

  • In this study, under 10% of the individuals spoke of using the Internet for contact with coreligionists. (This figure may be related to the types of questions asked on this topic; see Pew Study results below).

  • Interestingly, in China, 11.2% of Internet users said “it increases their contact with people who share their religion – more than in any other country. This is a significant figure for citizens of a nation in which religion is officially banned.”

Now we should focus on studies by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, particularly a 2004 survey entitled “Faith Online” done by Dr. Stewart Hoover and Dr. Lynn Schofield Clark. This study found that 64% of wired Americans have used the Internet for spiritual or religious purposes. This figure is higher than previous studies on Internet use, perhaps because a new battery of questions was used to prompt Internet users’ recollections of things they do online related to spiritual activities. Key findings show:

  • Approximately two-thirds of the adults who use the Internet in the United States used the Internet for faith-related matters. This represents nearly 82 million Americans. Such use includes sending or receiving Email with spiritual content, sending, or receiving, greeting cards related to religious holidays, reading news accounts of religious events and affairs, and seeking information about religious events.

  • Those who use the Internet for religious or spiritual purposes are more likely to be women, white, middle aged, college educated, and relatively well-to-do.

  • The “online faithful” are devout and use the Internet for personal spiritual matters. Their faith activity online seems to augment their already-strong commitments to their congregations.

  • Most users are comfortable describing themselves as spiritual and religious, so Internet use does not seem to represent anti-religious-institutional attitudes.

The authors conclude:

  • The study calls into question the presumption that there is a widespread practice of online religious seeking among those outside of traditional religions.

  • Rather than solely communicating with their own faith groups, these online seekers use the Internet to express their own personal religious or spiritual beliefs, to seek information about their own religious traditions and the religious beliefs of others.

  • Online seekers now seem to maintain a foothold in both the online and offline worlds, remaining loyal to their offline church affiliations. However, the Internet may still eventually come to play an increasingly important role in providing resources for seeking that takes individuals outside of formal religious traditions.

The recent volume Religion Online: Finding Faith on the Internet (Dawson and Cowan, 2004) provides many thoughtful papers on “religion online” (the presence of religious institutions) and “online religion” (related to actual religious services online). Heidi Campbell, one of the contributors to this volume, has conducted original research on “the Church in Cyberculture” sometimes called “the digital Body of Christ.” Referring to social network analysis literature, Dr. Campbell notes “a networked view of relationship is useful in examining online communities.” She speaks of various manifestations: cyber churches; e-vangelism; online prayer; and online Christian communities. The Campbell research concludes: 

  • Online communities are considered a supplement to, not a substitute for, offline Church involvement.

  • Online community supplemented offline religion relationship.

  • Many members use their online communities as a basis to critique their offline Church community. (This will be demonstrated below in relation to some Catholic Websites.)

  • Online community offers new ways for churches to conceive of, and participate in, community.

The research literature has yet to address extensively two recent cyberspace phenomena: how online political activity is spurred by Internet participants, and the growing community of those who write and read Web logs (“blogs”) or listen to podcasts.

Recent election campaigns have been fueled extensively by Internet action (Rich, 2003; Shapiro, 2003). Howard Dean’s effort was based on “the MeetUp model” – assembling individuals via the Internet and organizing them to meet face-to-face for further community-building and political action, with local coordinating committees. This allowed individuals to think together, meet up, and act together. The method tried to overcome the “bowling alone” syndrome earlier defined by Robert D. Putnam – the decline in American public life. This MeetUp model was employed by two of the most successful Catholic sites: Voice of the Faithful (VOTF) and the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), both discussed below.

The Dean campaign left behind a community committed to responding to the need for continual caring, and, on the action level, it has apparently inspired a wave of new aspirants to public life. It was an example of an Internet phenomenon that was created by young people and it may yet show us how to employ Internet community-building energetically.

The Web log phenomenon (and how to start your own) is the subject of two recent works (Blood, 2002; Editors of Perseus Publishing, 2002). Many individuals are now inclined to record thoughts and interesting links in a sort of Internet journal; they write in it daily, or several times a week. Others can visit the blog and dialogue with the author or suggest other ideas and links. This accumulates in cyberspace and allows more extensive discussion online. 

Mary Hess, of Luther Seminary, Minneapolis, describes various ways to use blogs. “I started writing a weblog [http://www.religioused.org/tensegrities/] to keep track of websites I didn’t want to lose… I also found I wanted an easy way to share such sites with friends and colleagues.”

Hess adds: 

But I read weblogs because they are a way into conversations that have not made it into more formal print yet. Kind of an ‘invisible college’. One of the nice things about blogs is the authors usually have a link list in one column that cites the blogs they read regularly… I also read weblogs because some of what is written there is likely never to make it into mainstream culture spaces. I think this is one reason weblogs exploded onto the pop culture scene with the advent of the Iraq conflict. It was a way to get information the mainstream media simply were not reporting. [Media, Culture, and Religious Faith list serve, July 12, 2003.] 

Two blogs I find interesting are those posted by Christopher Lydon, a former public television executive, and Sister Rose Pacatte, who hosts several blogs for commentaries on movies, television, and books. 

Catholic Culture, Dialogue, and the Internet Environment

For a number of years my own study (and lived experience as a Roman Catholic) have led me to think and write about the possibility of a more dialogic Catholic community – called communio in Vatican II documents (Plude 2004, 2001, 1999, 1994). 

In recent years there has been a growing movement of lay ministers in the Catholic Church. Currently there are over 30,000 lay people in ministry, with another 30,000 in training. There are over 13,000 lay deacons in the Catholic Church, 150,000 lay persons teaching in Catholic schools, and 25,000 lay associates of religious orders. As some have noted: “There isn’t a ‘vocation crisis’ in the Catholic Church; there is a Sacramental crisis.” The 2004 Official Catholic Directory notes that 16.5% of Catholic parishes in the U.S. and its territories (3,157 parishes) are without a resident priest. 28% of U.S. diocesan priests are listed as retired, sick, or absent, reflecting the aging of the U.S. Catholic clergy.

Concurrently, excellent books have been published on the relationship between Catholicism and culture (Dolan, 2004; Fuller, 2004; Greeley, 2004; Steinfels, 2004, 2003, Weaver, 1995). Boston College, the University of Notre Dame, and other universities, have established research centers to focus systematic research on Catholic life and the renewal of the church in the light of the sexual abuse wound and postmodern cultural realities. This body of analysis provides a lens through which we can view realities on the ground and engage in creative thinking and action for the years ahead. Other analysis can be developed on the way the Internet is spurring a shift of authority and how “the project of the Self” (as Giddens calls it) must be a factor in churches today. Institutional religious leaders, as Greeley has said, “must listen, listen again, and then listen some more.”

Dialogue as Process

Concurrently (perhaps even providentially), as churches struggle in a digital culture, new ideas seem to be emerging from the dialogic communication field. The scholar Brenda Dervin, with colleagues, notes: “Dialogue is often taken to refer to a process essential to all egalitarian social arrangements… However, despite its prevalent usage, there is relatively scant theorizing being done on dialogue, and what little there is, is rarely used.” (1993). The authors add: “We want to enlarge the idea of freedom to speak on dialogue to include not just mere voicing, but also freedom to name, freedom to create.” They suggest “it is potentially useful to call for the building of a practical theory of dialogue (that) allows for the possibility that humans can bring their resources together, learn how to honor diversity while establishing order, and invent the future.” 

This theoretical analysis has a counterpart in the work of William Isaacs, of The Dialogue Project at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His book Dialogue and the art of thinking together, builds upon the pioneering work of Chris Argyris of Harvard University (1999). Like Dirvan and her colleagues, Isaacs says dialogue should be about shared inquiry, a way of thinking and reflecting together (as opposed to the “debate” or “contest” modes). He urges a “breakthrough in human functioning; because of growing turbulence and interdependence we need to think together in a new way. His volume contains models of the dialogue process, but it also speaks of many practical applications in the field – with steelworkers and their management, with medical facilities learning to collaborate, and others. 

On a theological level, interesting work on the dialogic appears in the work of Brad Hinze (2000), Lakeland’s work on The Liberation of the Laity (2003), and the Terence Nichols study on hierarchy and participation in the church (1997). On a practical level, the model of the Common Ground project, founded by the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, has worked at providing a dialogic forum for Catholics. In a recent Common Ground Lecture, John Allen noted the disputation level in today’s Catholic Church and speaks of the “need for shared spaces of information and conversation.” (2004)

Catholic Internet Applications of the Dialogic

Stephen O’Leary (2002) notes it is possible the Internet has fundamentally altered the power balance that formerly governed the reporting of religious news. He adds: “… the Web has provided a forum for a number of recently sprouted grassroots organizations that are responding to the (sexual abuse) crisis in a variety of ways… Faithful Catholics who once submitted meekly to the hierarchy are now actively using the Web to lobby for profound changes in the Church.” Here I will examine examples of such sites.

Shortly after the Boston Globe broke the sexual abuse story in the Archdiocese of Boston, a lay organization known as the Voice of the Faithful (VOTF) was organized. There are now 200 affiliated VOTF groups, a speakers’ bureau, publications, and much grassroots action for improvements in the Catholic Church. VOTF also has strong support from most Catholic priests who have lived lives of generous service. Recently the group has been responding to the large number of parish closings in the Archdiocese of Boston. It sponsored a Mass on the Boston Common to promote healing and unity in the light of these closings. It was the first Catholic Mass to be celebrated there since the Pope’s Mass 25 years ago and the first Mass on the Common to be called for and organized by laity. Thousands attended. 

The Voice of the Faithful Website is interesting [http://www.votf.org]. Its “Contact Us” page lists 38 different VOTF links to Email, along with a mailing address and a telephone number. When I sent an Email requesting information, I received a response within ten minutes. Other features of is website includes: 

  • its mission formulated

  • news items

  • abuse survivor support information

  • clergy support information

  • information on the John Jay report on clergy sexual abuse

  • activities for young adults (18-39)

  • meeting information

  • links

This Website includes links to documentation and archived material on topics such as financial transparency, oversight of bishops’ follow-up on abuse reports, statistics on parish closings, and activities related to structural change in the church. There is no doubt that Voice of the Faithful and its Website are strategic activists for revitalizing the Catholic Church. Bishops were at first very opposed to VOTF and some would not allow their chapters to meet in church buildings. This attitude has changed in some areas. It is perhaps understandable that it will take some time for Catholic church leadership to adapt to truly strong lay voices in church management; some bishops and local clergy have welcomed laity input for years, but others are struggling with this “new Catholic” in changing church culture. 

Another major Web presence is the site of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP). This site [http://www.snapnetwork.org] has served as a focal point for SNAP activities; perhaps more importantly, it has worked to build a supportive relationship among abuse survivors. Its news bulletins change regularly, and it has links to its mission statement, self-help materials, new SNAP chapters, regional-area activities, a speakers’ bureau, bishop-accountability materials and information about building contacts between victims and their bishops. 

These Websites reflect some of the cyberdynamics phenomenon. The Web activity works to support much action-on-the-ground. It is perhaps unrealistic to expect the Internet connection alone to foster sturdy communities. However, supplemented by face-to-face contact and organization, the Internet can provide a forum for ongoing community – thinking and acting together.

There are many other Catholic Internet sites (Raymond, 2001). Most perhaps are informational only – an extension of the signboard on church properties. They provide background information on church activities, worship service times, etc. For Internet users to feel truly invited into a church community, however, there probably needs to be interactive possibilities at the Website, allowing some dialogue. One Young Adult leader in a Catholic parish in Florida told me their Website attracted 10,000 hits in one year. Without a way of communicating with someone at such a site, however, many surfers will simply move on and real contact is lost.

Here are just a few samples of other organization and sites around which religious adherents are gathering at the time I was writing this text:

Many, many others could be mentioned, but these sites give a sense of a wider Internet communio at work.

Conclusions and Recommendations

I first began writing about the theological basis for a more dialogic Catholic Church long before a sexual abuse crisis occurred (Plude, 1994). When the sexual abuse wound was exposed, I wrote about the problem from a communication perspective (Plude, 2001). I noted then:

It will require systemic change to restore Church credibility and witness. We need a dialogic culture within the Church, including a new type of communication office that is well integrated into all church ministries and linked to parish communities. We need to value the media culture we all ‘swim’ in and integrate this culture into the totality of formation programs.

And after reforming our notions of the dialogic (both theoretically and “on-the-ground”) we must accept that the Catholic Church and other churches must become more comfortable as dialectical systems. In the language of cybernetic theory, they must accept inputs and respond with appropriate outputs to keep their systems in balance. This is not primarily about church doctrine; it is about organizational communication realities. I believe the Internet will continue to play a key role in these realities.

The noted scholar Cees Hamelink says it well: “there is an urgent need for an extensive public dialogue about ‘our common digital future.’” (Hamelink, 2003, p. 253). 

References

Agre, P. (1998). “The Internet and Public Discourse,” June 25, 1998.

Allen, J. (2004). “Catholic Common Ground Lecture,” June 25. [NCRonline.org]

Blood, R. (2002). The Weblog Handbook: Practical Advice on Creating and Maintaining Your Blog. Cambridge MA: Perseus Publishing.

Bogdányi, G. (1997). “The Role of the Internet in the Eastern European Churches Today.” Presentation at the 2nd European Christian Internet Conference.

Bonnot, R. Spiritainment: Appreciating Media as Gifts of God. Unpublished manuscript.

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