|
|
Respond to Mr. Miller's Remarks
If you support Mr. Sam Miller's remarks, please let him know by writing him at:
Mr. Sam Miller
Forest City Enterprises
1100 Terminal Tower
50 Public Square
Cleveland, Ohio 44113-2267
Printing: In order to print this page, you need to change the page margins in your browser. Select the "File" menu, then select "Page Setup." In "Page Setup," Change the page left margin to .5" and the page right margin to .5". Click "OK,"then select print.
Mr.
Sam Miller, Guest Speaker
First
Friday Club of Cleveland
Thursday,
March 6, 2003, 12:00 p.m.
When
I first discussed my subject with Mr. Ginley, I told him the title
of this speech would be “From Bed Sheets to Business Suits” he
seemed flustered — he
did not understand my point. So
I changed the title to “Kangaroo Journalism”.
I presume most of you are familiar with this and are suffering
because of it.
I’m
going to say things here today that many Catholics should have said 18
months ago. Maybe it’s easier for me to say because I am not Catholic
but I have had enough, more than enough, disgustingly enough.
During
my entire life I’ve never seen a greater vindictive, more scurrilous,
biased campaign against the Catholic Church as I have seen in the last
18 months, and the strangest thing is that it is in a country like the
United States where there is supposed to be mutual respect and freedom
for all religions. This has
bothered me because I too am a minority in this country.
You see, unfortunately, and I say this very advisedly, the
Catholics have forgotten that in the early 1850’s when the Italians,
the Poles, the Latvians, the Lithuanians, all of Catholic persuasion,
came to this country looking for opportunity —
because of famine, (particularly the Irish) they were already
looked upon with derision, suspicion and hatred.
Consequently the jobs they were forced to take were the jobs that
nobody else wanted — bricklayers,
ditch diggers, Jewish junkmen, street cleaners, etc.
This prejudice against your religion, and mine, has never left
this country and don’t ever forget it, and never will.
Your people were called Papists, Waps, Guineas, frogs, fish
eaters, ad infinitum. And
then after the Civil War, around 1864, the fundamentalists,
conservatives, Protestants and a few WASP’s began planting burning
crosses throughout the country, particularly in the South.
And today, as far as I’m concerned, very little has changed.
These gentlemen now have a new style of clothing —
they’ve gone from bed sheets to gentlemen’s suits.
There
is a concentrated effort by the media today to totally denigrate in
every way the Catholic Church in this country.
You don’t find it this bad overseas at all. They have now
blamed the disease of pedophilia on the Catholic Church, which is as
irresponsible as blaming adultery on the institution of marriage.
You, me have been living in a false paradise —wake
up and recognize that many people don’t like Catholics.
What are these people trying to accomplish?
From
the Sojourner’s Magazine dated August 2002, listen carefully to a
quote, “While much of the recent media hype has focused on the
Catholic Church’s pedophilia scandal, relatively little attention has
been given to the high rate of sexual misconduct in the rest of American
Christendom. This is truly
a crisis that crosses the borders of all religions.
Now
let me give you some figures that you as Catholics should know and
remember. For example, research by Richard Blackman at Fuller
Theological Seminary shows that 12% of the 300 Protestant clergy
surveyed admitted to sexual intercourse with a parishioner; 38%
acknowledged other inappropriate sexual contact.
In a 1990 study by the United Methodist Church, 41.8 percent of
clergywomen reported unwanted sexual behavior by a colleague; 17 percent
of laywomen said that their own pastors had sexually harassed them.
Phillip Jenkins concludes in his book “Pedophiles and
Priests” that while 1.7% of the Catholic clergy has been found guilty
of pedophilia, 10% of Protestant ministers have been found guilty of
pedophilia — this is
not a Catholic problem. This
is a problem of pure prejudice.
Why
the papers, day after day, week after week, month after month, see fit
to do nothing but come out with these scurrilous stories…when I spoke
recently to one of the higher-ups in the newspaper I said, this is
wrong…he said…why do you want us to shoot the messenger?
I said no, just change the message….change the message.
He said, how? I said
I’ll tell you how.
Obviously,
this is not just a Catholic problem.
And solutions must be broader and deeper than those carried out
by Catholic cardinals. The whole church has a responsibility to offer
decisive leadership in the area of sexual misconduct—whether it is
child abuse, sexual exploitation, or sexual harassment.
Recently,
churches have shown unprecedented unity on issues of poverty and welfare
reform. Now it is necessary
to call for a broad based ecumenical council addressing the issue of
sexual misconduct in the church, not only the Catholic Church, all
churches, including synagogues. Its
goal would be transparency and openness in developing stringent,
forward-looking guidelines, consistent with denominational distinctions,
for preventing and addressing sexual misconduct within Christian
churches and church-related institutions.
Such a council could include not only denominational
representatives but also a majority presence from external organizations
such as child protection agencies, law enforcement, psychiatric
services, victims’ agencies, and legal and legislative
representatives.
Crisis,
the strange thing about the word crisis, crisis in Chinese is one word. Crisis in Chinese means, on the one side, a real crisis
problems etc., but the other side means great opportunity. We have a great opportunity facing us. Crisis is often accompanied by an opportunity for
extraordinary growth and leadership.
We have that today, even though you are the lowest, by far the
lowest of any organized religion today when it comes to sexual
harassment. American churches have a unique opening to develop and adopt
a single set of policies, principles, practices, and common language on
sexual misconduct in Christian institutions that is binding across
denominations. A system of
cross-denomination review boards could be established to help compliance
and accountability. A
centralized resource bank could be formed that provides church-wide
updates on new legal, financial, psychological and spiritual
developments in the field. Guidelines,
both moral and legal, could be established on how clergy, churches, and
victims should best use civil and criminal actions in pursuit of justice
and financial restitution for injury.
A national database could be established with information on all
applicants for ordination in any member Christian religion.
Every diocese, conference, presbytery, and district could have a
designated child-protection representative whose job is to ensure that
the policies and procedures are understood and implemented and that
training is provided.
Any
religious institution or system that leaves power unexamined or smothers
sexuality with silence—rather than promoting open conversation that
can lead to moral and spiritual maturity—becomes implicated in
creating an unhealthy and potentially abusive environment.
An ecumenical Christian council authentically dedicated to strong
moral leadership in the area of clergy sexual misconduct might move the
church beyond the extremes of policing our own or abandoning our own.
For
Christians, the true scandal is not about priests.
It’s about a manipulation of power to abuse the weak.
When Jesus said, “Whoever receives the child, receives me,”
he was rebuking his followers for putting stumbling blocks in front of
the defenseless. Church is
supposed to be a place where one can lay one’s defenses down; where
one is welcomed, embraced, and blessed.
This can only be authentically expressed in a culture that
requires absolute respect for each individual’s freedom and self-hood.
Until all churches bow humbly under the requirement, the
indictments by wounded women and children will stand.
Just
what are these Kangaroo journalists trying to accomplish?
Think about it. If
you get the New York Times day after day, the Los Angeles Times day
after day, our own paper day after day…looking at the record, some of
these writers are apostates, Catholics or ex-Catholics who have been
denied something they wanted from the Church and are on a mission of
vengeance.
Why
would newspapers carry on this vendetta on one of the most important
institutions that we have today in the United States, namely the
Catholic Church? Do you
know, and maybe some of you don’t, the Catholic Church educates 2.6
million students every day, at cost to your Church of 10 billion
dollars, and a savings on the other hand to the American taxpayer of 18
billion dollars. Needless
to say that Catholic education at this time stands head and shoulders
above every other form of education that we have in this country.
And the cost is approximately 30% less.
If you look at our own Cleveland school system they can boast of
an average graduation rate of 36%.
Do you know what it costs you and me as far as the other 64% who
didn’t make it? Look at
your own records, you graduate 89% of your students, your graduates in
turn go on to graduate studies at the rate of 92%, and all at a cost to
you. To the rest of the
Americans it’s free, but it costs you Catholics at least 30% less to
educate students compared to the costs that the public education system
pays out for education that cannot compare.
Why?
Why would these enemies of the Church try to destroy an
institution that has 230 colleges and universities in the United States
with an enrollment of 700,000 students?
Why
would anyone want to destroy an institution like the Catholic Church
which has a non-profit hospital system of 637 hospitals which account
for hospital treatment of 1 out of every 5 people, not just Catholics,
in the United States today? Why
would anyone want to destroy an institution like that?
Why would anyone want to destroy an institution that clothes and
feeds and houses the indigent, 1 of 5 indigents in the United States,
I’ve been to many of your shelters and no one asks them if you are a
Catholic, a Protestant or a Jew; come, be fed, here’s a sweater for
you and a place to sleep at night at a cost to the Church of 2.3 billion
dollars a year? The Catholic Church today has 64 million members in the
United States and is the largest non-governmental agency in the country.
It has 20,000 churches in this country alone.
Every year they raise approximately 10 billion to help support
these agencies.
Why after the "respected" publication the New York
Times running their daily expose’ on the Church finally come to the
conclusion of their particular investigation, which was ongoing for a
long time, and guess what — buried
in the last paragraph –and guess what, in the last paragraph they came
up with a mouse. In their
article “Decades of Damage” the Times reported that 1.8% of American
priests were found guilty of this crime, whereas your own Cardinal
Ratzinger in Rome reported 1.7% -
the figure I gave you earlier.
Then again they launched an attack on the Church and its celibate
priests. However, the New
York Times did not mention in their study of American priests that most
are happy in the priesthood and find it even better than they had
expected, and that most if given the choice would choose to be priests
again in the face of all this obnoxious P.R. the church has been
receiving. Why wouldn’t
the New York Times, the paper of record they call themselves, mention
this? You had to read it in
the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times refused to print it.
If you read only the New York Times you would begin to believe
that priests are cowards, craven, sexually frustrated, unhealthy
criminals that prey on the innocent, what a shame.
Sometimes freedom of the press should have some type of
responsibility too.
So
I say this to you — instead
of walking around with a hangdog look, I talk to a lot of Catholics
all the time, “how’s everything going?” … “Well, in the face
of things I guess okay” … that’s the wrong answer, the wrong
answer. Also, I ran into a
fellow who said they started a discussion at some social function on
pedophilia and he said, “I excused myself and left the room.” I said why did you do that, “Well you know how it is.”
I believe that if Catholics had the figures that I enumerated
here…you don’t have to be ashamed of anything.
Not only are you as good as the rest, but you’re better, in
every respect.
The
Catholic Church helps millions of people every day of the week, every
week of the month, and every month of the year.
People who are not Catholics, and I sit on your Catholic
Foundation and I can tell you, and what I am telling you is so.
Priests have their problems, they have their failings just as you
and I in this room do, but they do not deserve to be calumniated as they
have been.
In
small measure let’s give the media its due.
If it had not come out with this story of abusive priests, (but
they just as well could have mentioned reverends, pastors and rabbis and
whatever,) probably little or nothing would have been done. But what
bothers me the most is this has given an excuse to every Catholic hater
and Catholic basher to come out loudly for the denigration of your
Church. If some CEO’s are
crooks it does not follow that every CEO is crooked, and if some priests
are sexually ill it does not follow that all are sick. And your Church teaches that you’ve got to take in the sick
and a priest who is this way has to be taken in and cannot be thrown out
the 21st story of a building.
He’s got to be looked upon and given the same type of health
that you would give anybody who has a broken leg or cancer or whatever.
The Church today, and when I say the Church keep in mind I am
talking about the Catholic Church, is bleeding from self-inflicted
wounds. The agony that Catholics have felt and suffered is not
necessarily the fault of the Church.
You have been hurt by an infinitesimally small number of wayward
priests that, I feel, have probably been totally weeded out by now.
You see the Catholic Church is much too viable to be put down by
The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Cleveland Plain Dealer,
take your choice, they can’t do it, they’re not going to do it and
sooner or later they are going to give up, but you’ve got to make sure
that you don’t give up first.
In
1799 a notice was placed in a French newspaper that a citizen Brachi had
died in prison. Little did
the people realize that this was Pope Pius VI
who had occupied the Chair of Saint Peter for 25-years.
He had been taken prisoner by Napoleon’s forces and died in
prison as an indigent. At
that time the thought was that this was the end of the Catholic Church,
this was 200 and some odd years ago.
And the reason was that there was no Pope to succeed him at that
time. But you fooled them
then, and we’re going to fool them again.
I’ve been talking more or less about the
United States of America as far as the importance of the Church; let’s
bring it home to Cuyahoga County and the seven surrounding counties.
In education you save the county 420 million dollars per year.
Wherever there’s a Church, and most other churches have fled
the inner city, there’s a Catholic Church, and wherever there’s a
Catholic Church there’s an absence of drug dealers.
You talk to any bank that has real estate mortgages in the inner
city, and they will tell you that the one thing that keeps up the value
in that particular area is your Church.
I’ve seen for example on Lorain near the Metro Catholic Schools
there at the Church the nuns used to go out in the morning with brooms
and sweep away the drug dealers from around the particular area.
On Health and Human Services, the homeless, adoption, drugs,
adult care and so on you saved the county 170 million dollars
a year. At the end of the
day the difference that your local Catholic institutions make in the
eight counties that comprise this diocese are several billion dollars
per year. Why don’t we
hear about this? Why,
because it’s good news. If
some priest was caught with his hand in the collection plate it would be
front page news. But the fact that you have thousands of students being
education free, as far as the rest of the country is concerned doesn’t
make news. Why?
Because it is not newsworthy, it’s not dirty.
I’m
not here to deny freedom of the press, but I believe that with freedom
comes responsibility, and with rights you have an obligation.
You cannot have rights that are irresponsible.
Unfortunately our society today is protected by all rights and
ruled by some of their wickedness.
Anybody who expects to reap the benefits of freedom must
understand the total fatigue of supporting it.
The
most important element of political speech, as Aristotle taught, is the
character of the speaker. In this respect, no matter what message a man brings in it
shouldn’t it collide with his character.
The
other day I was shocked when I opened up America, a Catholic magazine,
and my good friend Cardinal Keeler, whose a very dear friend of mine,
was being fingerprinted by the Baltimore police —
not for a crime but as part of the new law put in place that all
members of the Church hierarchy must be fingerprinted.
Amos
of the Old Testament accused the people of Samaria in words that seared
and phrases that smote. They
“cram their palaces,” he said, “with violence and extortion.”
They had “sold the upright for silver and the poor for a pair
of sandals” — from
Gucci, no doubt. But he
also said that all this could be reversed, if only the people of Samaria
would turn away from their own self absorption and toward those who,
however silently, cry out for help.
“Then,” promised Amos, “shall your justice flow like water
and your compassion like a never-failing stream” (Amos 5:24)
The
worst feature of contemporary society is its tendency to leave each of
us locked up in himself or herself, connection-less.
To lessen this isolation we have developed all kinds of
therapies, spiritual, psychological, and physical—from groups that
meet and talk endlessly all day long in spas, week spas, month spas,
life spas. But none of these things, from primal screams to herbal wrap,
seem to be doing the trick, any more than the huge houses and wine
parties that the Samaritan did.
What
we need to do is open our heart to the plight of others, even some of
your priests who have been condemned, they’re human beings and they
should be shown the same type of compassion we have shown anybody who is
critically ill. We need to
open our hearts to the plights of others, like our hearts were a dam, so
that indeed our justice and compassion may flow to all.
What is essential is that each of us steps forward to hold out
our hand to someone. There
is no other way to walk with God.
One
of the biggest Catholic bashers in the United States wrote — “Only
a minority, a tiny minority of priests have abused the bodies of
children.” He continues, “I am not advocating this course of action,
but as much as I would like to see the Roman Catholic Church ruined.
I hate opportunistically retrospective litigation even more.”
He now he’s talking about our tort monsters.
“Lawyers who grow fat by digging up dirt on long-forgotten
wrongs and hounding their aged perpetrators are no friends of mine.”
I’m still quoting this man, “All I'm am doing” he said,
“is calling attention to an anomaly. By all means, let’s kick a nasty institution when it is
down, but there are better ways than litigation.”
These words are from a Catholic hater.
I
never thought in my life I would ever see these things.
Walk with your shoulders high and your head higher.
Be a proud member of the most important non-governmental agency
today in the United States. Then
remember what Jeremiah said “Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for
the ancient paths, where the good way is and walk in it, and find rest
for your souls.” And be
proud, speak up for your faith with pride and reverence and learn what
your Church does for all other religions.
Be proud that you’re a Catholic.
Thank you.
|
|