Probably most American Catholics had never heard of Archbishop William Levada. But Benedict XVI's decision, soon after he was elected Pope, to promote Levada to Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith came as a surprise to insiders, including some cardinals. Levada had taken what could only be called a modest view of his role as Archbishop of San Francisco. Then, out of the blue, he was elevated to the highest Church position ever held by an American. As Archbishop, first of Portland and then San Francisco, he had shown little inclination toward leadership. An intellectual with Hamlet-like qualities, he was surely not cut out to be the Prefect. Under the regime of Archbishop John Quinn, his predecessor in San Francisco for 18 long years, Catholicism in "the City" (as San Francisco is called by locals) continued its prolonged decline. Mass attendance, which had fallen by over 60 percent since the late 1960s, showed no sign of recovery. At least 10 churches were closed. When Levada arrived, the main issue stirring up activists was the closure and threatened sale of St. Bridget's Church on valuable real estate. That was put on hold -- bishop seemingly riding to the rescue! -- but its sale was announced the moment he left San Francisco. That summarized his tenure. Oil on troubled waters, but beneath the surface there was no change.
The quality of episcopal appointments in California, dismal before Levada's arrival in San Francisco, showed no improvement after it. Patrick Ziemann, the Bishop of nearby Santa Rosa, had a two-year sexual relationship with one of his priests and had to resign after accusations of assault made the immoral relationship public.
Meanwhile, homosexual activism in the area went from strength to strength. Despite, or more likely because of AIDS, homosexuals acquired ever greater political power. The local episcopacy, under both Quinn and Levada, were too timid to say much of anything about that dangerous topic. The ever-present risk of retaliation -- who knew which closeted homosexuals within the clerical ranks might be outed? -- ensured that silence remained the preferred policy. More than anything, that accounts for the almost inaudible response by the Catholic hierarchy, and not just in San Francisco but almost everywhere, to one of the great moral issues of our time.
Levada behaved as though he had been parachuted into a minefield and his job was to emerge without setting off any mines. He referred to the "hot button" issues that pressed against him -- hot buttons being the horns of the mines. Somehow, he seemed to avoid them. He made no waves. He construed his job as one of avoidance, of steering clear, hanging back, treading softly, and certainly carrying no stick. And in the end, at the age of 69, he was airlifted out by his old friend Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI.
Levada stayed on the good side of Don Lattin, the San Francisco Chronicle reporter capable of generating hostile headlines at 24 hours' notice. He stayed on the good side of the liberal Jesuits at the University of San Francisco, whose enmity might have hurt fundraising. He stayed on the good side of his own senior cabal of priests, who wanted to pursue their easygoing agenda without too much interference from the Chancery. He stayed on the good side of the liberal Sulpicians and the Rev. Gerald Coleman, who ran St. Patrick's Seminary in Menlo Park, 30 miles to the south of the City.
Levada didn't pay much attention to the handful of conservative Catholics remaining in the City, because he didn't have to. Largely powerless, they could be ignored. They wrote articles for San Francisco Faith, but its circulation was tiny. Ron Russell came along and did his independent digging for SF Weekly, just as he had done two years earlier with his alternative-press exposees of Roger Mahony's borderline criminal operations in Los Angeles. But the status quo was never threatened in San Francisco the way it was in Boston, and indeed Los Angeles. (The Boston Globe and later The New York Times only became involved in serious coverage of Cardinal Law and the Boston scandals after another "alternative" paper, the Boston Phoenix, published story after story about the Church scandals in 2001.)
Levada's ability to skirt controversy won him admirers in Rome. At a time when press coverage of the American hierarchy was turning into a nightmare, unfriendly headlines rarely made their way from San Francisco to Rome. To a Curia that has long seemed to value diplomacy above all other skills, and prudence above all other virtues, Levada's quiet tenure in the hot-button City by the Bay surely marked him as a master navigator of the American scene.
In an article published by San Francisco magazine just as Levada set off for his new assignment, the Catholic writer Jason Berry pointed out that Levada had escaped unscathed even though he had used the same tactics that had caused other bishops to be vilified in the press. Levada had "hidden the identities of accused predators, recycled some after sending them for a bout of therapy and left others in their posts, including one who became a top consultant on the abuse scandal. He also punished whistle blowers. Yet with the exception of recent cover stories in SF Weekly, Levada has largely escaped banner headlines. Had Levada been subjected to the sustained scrutiny that Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston was, he might have been passed over for the new job."
In his first interview in Rome, Levada told Vatican Radio in late October that he brought to his new job "a sense of the complex pastoral realities that a bishop faces." Realities is an interesting word, implying something so large and entrenched -- a whole anti-Catholic culture out there -- that no mere bishop can be expected to change or even challenge it. That, at any rate, was how Levada proceeded. The culture, dominated in San Francisco by activist homosexuals and their supporters, was simply there -- a reality. Short of putting one's head in a news-media noose -- not Levada's style -- there wasn't much that could be done about it. (And was that not Rome's will? That any bishop's moves on the cultural chessboard should be made as diplomatically and inconspicuously as possible? That was Levada's style.)
Levada added in his radio interview that the Congregation's new responsibility "for dealing with issues of sexual abuse of minors by priests, by clergy," may also have been a factor in his selection by the Pope. Given "the explosion of that on the American scene over the past few years," he added, the Pope may have seen his "experience with that" as a useful qualification.
I would amend that only to say that it's not so much the sexual abuse that has exploded as the public revelation of it. That really is new. But cases have been reported in Europe, too, suggesting that the real difference in America is the press, which is more aggressive and less subject to external pressure. That is what the Vatican has been unprepared for. A smattering of morally delinquent priests is nothing new. The regular broadcasting of their misdeeds is new.
Entrenched Vatican policy seems to have been based on the idea that publicity about an abusive priest only makes a bad situation worse. Therefore, bishops are expected to cover up such things as a matter of course. But that strategy is useless today, or worse than useless. Bishops have to assume that the story will come out, and that they themselves will appear as accomplices rather than leaders if they attempt concealment. To make matters worse, the trial lawyers will come after whatever cash they can lay their hands on. As far as Rome is concerned, the media realities may not have sunk in. Levada is well positioned to tell the Pope how the press works here. In San Francisco he made a point of keeping abreast of developments in The New York Times. "Where's The New York Times?" he would often ask aides. (Which of his brother bishops was in trouble today?)
In December 2002 Cardinal Ratzinger was quoted by the Catholic news agency Zenit as saying: "I am personally convinced that the constant presence in the press of the sins of Catholic priests, especially in the United States, is a planned campaign, as the percentage of these offenses among priests is not higher than in other categories, and perhaps it is even lower."
But in the realm of premeditated sexual assaults by clerics on minors, surely, the expectation is that it would be lower -- a lot lower. The question is not whether the news media undertook a "planned campaign" but whether the articles were true. All the indications are that they were true, and further, that such exposees have been minimized -- confined to the narrow category of criminal activity, involving minors. The press has shown hardly any interest in the far broader category of immoral relationships involving consenting adults -- especially homosexuals.
As to Levada's appointment, the following should also be noted. From 1976 to 1982, he worked in Rome for the Congregation he now leads. Cardinal Ratzinger got to know him well during that time, and it is reasonable to assume that today Benedict XVI has a good understanding of the workings of Levada's mind.
It is said that Levada is moving to this "powerful" position in Rome, but as Prefect he will surely have less freedom and independence than he enjoyed as Archbishop of the remote province (from Rome's point of view) of San Francisco. He will be hemmed in, not least by the Pope himself, and what one knows or suspects of Levada's character suggests that a loss of independence is something that he won't mind in the slightest. Constitutionally, he seems better suited to the Congregation job than to the Archdiocesan minefield.
At the time of his San Francisco appointment in 1995, Levada was identified in the media as a conservative. He was the "conservative Portland prelate," a "rising conservative force." He "fits the pattern of conservative postings by the Pope." He was a "theological conservative." And so it went. One former priest in San Francisco, identified in the Chronicle by name, said his colleagues in the City who were still on the job, still pastoring away, were worried about this new conservative arriving from Portland. "This guy is going to come in and demand obedience to the system," he said. Imagine that! That's how bad it could have been.
Eventually, Levada came out with his hands up. He granted an interview to the Chronicle's Don Lattin.
Lattin: You're coming to a city with a reputation for liberalism, spiritual and ethnic diversity, and tolerance for gays and lesbians. You arrive with a reputation as a conservative man and theological hard-liner. Do you come to San Francisco with a bit of trepidation?
Levada: ... With regard to reputations about conservative or hard-liner, I consider myself to be in the exact middle of the road as to where I should be as a bishop. I have a responsibility to uphold the teaching and tradition of the church. I would hope that I would be compassionate, interested in people's situations, their problems, their difficulties -- listen to them, dialogue with them.
In May, after Levada's appointment to Rome was announced, The New York Times called him "A Theological Hardliner with a Moderate Streak." In a retrospective assessment, also published in May, the Rev. Richard P. McBrien of Notre Dame's Theology Department summed up Levada's tenure with considerable accuracy: "A number of people were apprehensive about his coming there as an archbishop and were relieved to find out that he was much more hands-off in many respects than what they expected."
Hands-off. One hopes that that reaches the Pope's desk. If Levada skirted the mines and the headlines, and therefore was viewed as a success, at least at the level of diplomacy, it was because he had been hands-off rather than hands-on. Levada's own self characterization, as "more of a cocker spaniel than a rottweiler" (as Cardinal Ratzinger had been called), was itself quite perceptive.
The National Catholic Reporter's John Allen said that Levada "is seen as somebody who is very clear in his principles but very flexible in his application of those principles." Conflict is something that he tries to "defuse." That, too, was on the mark. Levada was "flexible" and saw conflict with the secular world as something to be finessed. But doctrine, even when enunciated correctly, cannot be conserved for long if leaders turn a blind eye to practice. Orthodoxy without practice is like faith without works. Principles espoused on paper but applied flexibly soon resemble dead letters.
That has been the fate of the Church's teaching on abortion. The U.S. hierarchy has been less than enthusiastic about transmitting it, not because they don't believe it, necessarily, but because they don't want to offend the secular culture -- influential politicians in particular. Until Archbishop Raymond Burke of St. Louis took action in 2004, the silence of the bishops had shown that politicians who loom large in our lives could ignore the Church's teaching without cost. The teaching survived in principle, but a flexible hierarchy had blurred it with "seamless garment" messages and the indulgent embrace of such figures as Sen. Edward Kennedy.
A politician who actively opposes all anti-abortion laws and then conspicuously receives Communion on Sunday sends a plain message to the faithful: "It's O.K. to support abortion. If I were doing anything wrong my bishop would have said something by now. But he hasn't."
Levada skirted this hot-button issue. When he returned from a trip to Rome in May 2004, and was asked about giving Communion, he had "no comment" for reporters. House Minority leader Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco, a Catholic, was one of 48 representatives who wrote a letter to the U.S. bishops warning them that the "threat of withholding a sacrament will revive latent anti-Catholic prejudice." (A religion that can only avoid prejudice by refusing to take itself seriously is not long for this world.) San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom had already made headlines by issuing same-sex "marriage" licenses at City Hall. Newsom calls himself a Catholic, but, according to the Chronicle, said he "fundamentally disagrees with Catholic Church teachings on stem cell research, abortion rights, same-sex marriage and birth control." He had received Communion just the other day, he added, although he declined to say where. "I have lots of priests who are family friends." But his conscience was "clear."
Levada issued an on-the-one-hand, on-the-other-hand statement, clearly hoping the issue would go away. He called abortion evil, but stressed the intention of politicians -- did they intend to promote the killing of innocent life when they voted for abortion. He thereby revived the alibi of Catholic politicians who say they are "personally opposed" to abortion. Later, in an interview with the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Levada threw in the towel, saying: "Many of us as bishops are newly committed to seeking a path of dialogue on these areas," and "you don't start that dialogue by telling them you are going to refuse them Communion."
In effect, he had teamed up with Washington, D.C.'s Theodore Cardinal McCarrick, who sometimes gives the impression of loving power as much as he loves the Church. At Mass in St. Matthew's Cathedral the day after Pope John Paul died, McCarrick went out of his way to embrace Ted Kennedy and at the end of Mass went down the aisle practically arm-in-arm with him.
One wonders if Levada said anything to Newsom and Pelosi. When Levada's promotion to Rome was announced, Newsom was full of admiration for the departing prelate. "When he disagrees with a particular issue, he sees the bigger picture," Newsom told The New York Times. "Clearly in San Francisco he has seen the bigger picture."
What was this bigger picture? If I may interpret, Levada had seen that in a place like San Francisco, the Catholic Archbishop is not expected to insist too strongly on the practice of what he preaches. He can make creedal statements if he wishes, but decisive action will be taken as a declaration of war. That was the reality, and if Levada tried to change it, he did so inconspicuously. He stated Church teaching but sought to stay on good terms with Catholic pols who scorned it. He lacked fortitude, in short, and to that extent he exemplifies the present-day weakness of the Church and her inability to confront the popular culture by which she is besieged.
Earlier in his tenure, the issue of "domestic partners" benefits came up. In 1996 a city ordinance required all firms doing business with the city to provide such benefits for employees' "domestic partners." Catholic Charities, in receipt of $4 million from the city, faced budget cuts if they didn't treat same-sex partnerships the same way as marriage. At first, Levada seemed to hold the line -- long enough to win a favorable write-up on the Wall Street Journal editorial page. Then he accepted a compromise that allowed employees to designate anyone -- parent, sibling, friend, homosexual live-in -- as beneficiary. In effect, he gave away the store. Dollars took precedence over doctrine. John Cardinal O'Connor of New York had already shown that such ordinances could be resisted, but (O'Connor told friends) here was Levada capitulating without even phoning him or asking for his advice. As Phil Lawler wrote in The Catholic World Report: "By accepting this compromise in 1996 -- relatively early in the nationwide drive by homosexual activists to secure spousal benefits -- the San Francisco archdiocese put pressure on other local churches and Catholic institutions to accept similar compromises." Levada here showed that he was quite eager to placate the secular powers that be. His first priority, it seemed, was the preservation of government funding.
One group not at all unhappy with the trends in the city are the Jesuits, who run the University of San Francisco (USF). Here they promise students a "Jesuit education," and as local conservatives joke, at least they have the decency not to call it a Catholic education. The Jesuits became more and more "gay"-friendly with each passing year, as traditional restraints broke down and their more orthodox senior brethren either died or were packed off to the Jesuit retirement community in Santa Clara, 50 miles to the south.
One old-timer who had managed to hang on was Fr. Cornelius Buckley, a Jesuit from the old mold who had not changed with the times. He taught history at USF and was conspicuous around campus in his clericals. He heard confessions, advised students, and by his own example and presence single-handedly reminded those who might otherwise have forgotten that once upon a time, and not too long ago, a Jesuit education was synonymous with a Catholic education. In short, he was a rock, but also a rebuke. He must have daily reminded his modernized, compromised, civilian-clad brethren of the extent to which they had abandoned their old mission.
Then he was asked to leave, or rather ordered to leave, the clerical discipline of obedience being invoked by superiors who themselves had shown little respect for the Jesuit tradition. It superseded any consideration of tenure, custom, decency, or respect for Fr. Buckley's near 50-year service as a Jesuit. He was sent to St. Teresita Hospital in Duarte, Calif.
Fr. Buckley didn't want to go, and especially didn't want to leave the city, but he told friends he still had a chance to stay, because Archbishop Levada could save him. But Levada did no such thing. A priest in San Francisco told me that Levada probably feared that the Jesuits would complain to wealthy friends and alumni in the City and that might hurt archdiocesan fundraising. To Duarte Buckley went.
Levada's weakness was also apparent in his dealings with the seminary within his jurisdiction, St. Patrick's in Menlo Park. Since 1995 former Archbishop Quinn has lived there in retirement. The Rector and President of this Seminary since 1988 had been a Sulpician priest named Gerald Coleman, who didn't hide his "openness" to seminarians of whatever sexual inclination. He stressed the "importance" of seminarians recognizing and accepting their own "orientation." One seminarian told Michael S. Rose in his book Goodbye, Good Men that before an earlier Vatican visitation, an elaborate charade was laid on; heterodox books replaced with orthodox titles, the seminarians dressed up in unaccustomed clericals, and classes toned down "to give the impression that the seminary was orthodox when we definitely were not." Rose also reports that one visitor, now a Byzantine-rite priest in Pittsburgh, visited St. Patrick's and looked for the liturgical schedule so that he could go to Mass.
When I went to the main chapel, no one was around and the doors to the chapel were locked. A man dressed in shorts and walking his dog came into the hallway and I asked him about Mass. He said that's where he was going at the moment, and he would show the way. It turned out that Mass was not offered in the main chapel, but in the nuns' convent in another building. This was the only Mass offered at the seminary each day. I went in and there were no seminarians at Mass.... There were only nuns present. The man who was walking the dog came out vested and celebrated the Mass, with his dog sitting in the corner. After Mass I went to the dining hall for breakfast, and I noted that the seminarians didn't fail to show up there.
A more recent story I heard from a former seminarian involved a homosexual from the Bay Area who showed pornographic pictures to an African seminarian. Upset, the African reported it to his (female) adviser, who told him he obviously needed treatment. He was packed off to Stanford Medical School for psychiatric evaluation and from there sent back to Africa. (This kind of thing has been frequently reported in U.S. seminaries, although more commonly the candidates likely to react as the African did are screened out by "gay"-friendly "discernment" committees before they are admitted to the seminary.)
In March 2000 the Academic Dean of St. Patrick's was arrested after he was caught soliciting sex on the Internet with someone (a police officer) posing as boys aged 13 and 15. Fr. Carl A. Schipper was placed on administrative leave, pleaded guilty, was sentenced to six months and registered as a sex offender. Earlier he had worked as Superintendent of schools for the Archdiocese. He had living quarters at the Seminary and spent most of his time there. The prosecutor said that Schipper "was writing graphic descriptions of what he would do sexually when he met the young boys."
The Rev. Gerald Coleman was on sabbatical when the arrest occurred. As to "gay"-oriented seminarians, a ban would be counterproductive, he told the San Francisco Chronicle, because "a guy who was gay could just lie. My fear is that he won't deal well with that area in his life." (The same argument could be used to oppose a ban on murderers becoming seminarians. They, too, could lie.) Coleman seemed to want an environment in which homosexuals were free to proclaim their "identity." But he did object to homosexual priests who were too blatant. "If people are identifiably gay in the way they walk and talk, do you want that element in the priesthood? No. Guys should not let their sexuality get in the way of their priesthood. I don't like guys to announce they're gay. Then they're known as 'a gay priest.'" (Here he seemed to be advocating a certain amount of deception.)
Time magazine sent a reporter to the Seminary, who found that Coleman's students "are expected to discuss their sexual attitudes and development, among other things, once a month with their advisers and must take three courses on sexuality: a class on overall human sexuality, another on intimacy and celibacy, and one on sexual abuse, which includes guest lectures by victims and perpetrators." The reporter sat in on one of these courses.
"At a recent meeting of Coleman's elective class, Homosexuality and the Church, words and phrases like penis, Freud, male rectum and Will and Grace are bandied about without embarrassment," he reported. "Coleman covers the scriptural teachings on homosexuality and the psychological impact of homophobia. At one point he says that gay teenagers suffer from a lack of role models. In the next moment, he says gay priests and teachers should not come out of the closet, lest they confuse children. It is an awkward balancing act, and a seminarian calls Coleman on the contradiction. 'How are young people supposed to work out their sexuality if they don't have role models?' asks Chris Sellars, 27, who is scheduled to be ordained next January. Coleman listens intently but stands by his imperfect position. 'Our fundamental role is to proclaim the Gospel,' he says. The other seven students around the table look slightly confused, but Coleman encourages them to accept ambiguity and just be aware of different perspectives."
It's worth noting that the Rev. Schipper's sex-writing (to police officers, inadvertently) got him sent to prison; the Rev. Coleman's sex-talk (to seminarians, deliberately) was part of the curriculum.
In a column for the San Jose Valley Catholic in 2000, Coleman wrote that he could see "no moral reason why civil law could not in some fashion recognize these faithful and loving [homosexual] unions by according them certain rights and obligations, thus assisting [homosexual] persons in these unions with clear and specified benefits."
Growing restless over Levada's inaction, conservative laymen attended a talk that Coleman gave at a Menlo Park church in 2002. In the question period that followed, Coleman agreed that a disproportionate number of homosexuals in the seminary probably did create an awkward climate and deter heterosexuals from enrolling. There have indeed been reports of conservative seminarian candidates in the Bay Area decamping to Denver, where Archbishop Chaput dealt more forcefully with his own "gay"-friendly seminary, closing it down and opening a new one.
One of those who had engaged Coleman in this colloquy then wrote to Levada informing him of what was said. The archbishop responded to the letter-writer, fairly well known in conservative circles, and asked if he (the letter-writer) couldn't make use of the letter in some way, so that he could try to do something about Coleman. It was as though Levada didn't really think of himself as vested with the powers of an Archbishop at all. By that time, word had arrived that Rome would once again be conducting an investigation of American seminaries.
Coleman duly left for a sabbatical, ensuring that he would not be on the scene when the new inspectors appeared. But a website reveals that the irrepressible Coleman will end his sabbatical in 2006, whereupon he will serve as the Vicar for priests for the San Francisco Archdiocese, and somehow find time to return to St Patrick's to teach moral theology.
The American bishops can be divided into three broad groups. The liberals want to change Church teaching to align it more closely with Western culture (Cardinal Mahony is their de facto leader, and before him Cardinal Bernardin of Chicago). The traditionalists are not afraid of resisting the culture, come what may (leaders today are Archbishops Chaput and Burke). Then there is the great middle ground of bishops, who repose their faith in diplomacy and ingenious compromises that paper over differences with the secular culture. They wish the problems and publicity, the process servers and the trial lawyers, would go away and the money would keep flowing in from the faithful in the pews. Levada and Cardinal McCarrick are their de facto leaders.
Levada, as he said of himself, is in the "exact middle," the middle of the middle. He has shown little inclination to innovate, or to revivify the practice of the faith. Both as regards doctrine and discipline, he remained a passive figure in San Francisco.
The process servers caught up with him shortly before he left for Rome.
The Portland Archdiocese (Levada is the former Archbishop of Portland) had filed for bankruptcy protection a year earlier. It was the first American diocese to do so, in response to lawsuits seeking $155 million in damages. Three of the plaintiffs had committed suicide, and several of the lawsuits involved priests "who were restored to parish work by Archbishop Levada after having been accused of molesting children, or protected from criminal prosecution when their misdeed came to the archbishop's attention," according to The Catholic World Report.
On August 7, just before he began his final Sunday Mass in San Francisco, Levada was subpoenaed to testify at a deposition requested by attorneys for 250 alleged victims in Portland. CBS News reported:
Cookie Gambucci, whose brother is one of the plaintiffs in the Portland case, served the court papers on Levada. She told KCBS reporter Tim Ryan the archbishop called her "a disgrace to the Catholic church." "That's what he said. Now I'm thinking about all the priests that have abused all those little kids, including my brother," said Gambucci, "and I'm thinking, let's define disgrace to the church."... She had tried unsuccessfully on several other occasions to serve Levada with papers.
A Portland attorney representing some of the plaintiffs said Levada had been avoiding the subpoena since May. Levada agreed to waive the diplomatic immunity that he will enjoy as a Vatican official, and will return to the U.S. for a one-day deposition in January. Then came Levada's $150-a-plate farewell dinner in a San Francisco hotel; Levada organized his own cheering squad by obliging parishes to buy a $1,500 table, and to then find 10 parishioners who would pony up. (I am told that one pastor flatly refused to go along with this arrangement.) Another process server showed up at this event, dressed up in a borrowed Armani suit. He handed Levada another subpoena to testify in a Portland case.
In his roundly applauded speech, Levada said that abuse by clergy is a "crisis in the United States." But -- things were looking up! "By and large the people in our parishes ... think that the steps that our bishops of this country have taken have done a great job and are meeting the crisis and doing an outreach program trying to prevent any kind of abuse by clergy or anyone else." And at a news conference he said, "We have done our best to reach out." In a final irony he echoed what Mayor Newsom had said a year earlier. The Archbishop was leaving San Francisco "with a good conscience."
[Tom Bethell is a Contributing Editor of the NOR, and author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Science
(Regnery, 2005). His article, "Archbishop Levada: Advancing on the Chessboard," was originally published in the New Oxford Review, Vol. LXXIII, No. 1 (January 2006), and is reprinted here by permission of New Oxford Review, 1069 Kains Ave., Berkeley CA 94706, U.S.A.]
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