A Review Essay on "True Confessions"

HOW THIS BOOK CAME TO BE
 
Francis X. Maier served eighteen years as the editor in chief of National Catholic Register, a weekly newspaper founded in 1927 and still sold in the vestibules of many Catholic parishes and by mail and is, of course, available today on the internet. The Register, since Vatican II, has emerged as the leading mainstream conservative weekly publication, the preferred news publication of about 80% of America’s bishops. By coincidence, the Register’s call letters, NCR, are identical to the progressive National Catholic Reporter, another NCR weekly newspaper, which sometimes results in humorous identifications of the two publications as vehicles of the ying and the yang of Catholic life.
 
After a long tenure with NCR—the conservative NCR—Maier began a 27-year post as an administrator and confidante of now retired Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Capuchin, during the latter’s years as Archbishop of Denver and then in 2012, Philadelphia. Chaput was probably the highest-ranking bishop in the U.S. who has not received the cardinal’s red hat, possibly because his final assignment in Philly was cleaning up arguably the worst diocesan financial mess in the country, the result of years of mismanagement by previous Philadelphia archbishops who did wear the red hat. The Vatican probably did not wish to call attention to “The Philadelphia Story,” but it gets a candid revisiting in our text at hand, True Confessions, presently in the top 1% of Amazon best sellers.
 
Archbishop Chaput’s episcopal responsibilities included both national and Roman matters, and as his vicar general Maier saw a great deal of the good, the bad, and the ugly in the Church on both sides of the ocean. As a career news editor and diocesan chancellor, Maier maintained and supplemented a hefty rolodex of bishops, priests, lay administrators, professional crisis managers, laity in Church work, ecclesiastics and scholars from other faith traditions, “high roller investors” in Church ministry, operational church consultants, and a smattering of other persons over the years.
 
Late in 2020 Maier set out to interview 103 individuals over the next two to three years on the state of the American Church, and it is my impression that he drew exhaustively from his rolodex. True Confessions is not a statistical analysis, but rather 103 conversations between ministerial friends or individuals the author respects for their work. Primary among these is his longtime superior and friend Archbishop Chaput, who enjoys the honor of place with the opening essay and the final assessment interview.
 
The author interviews himself, so to speak, in Chapter 11, “True Confessions,” and admits in Chapter 2, “Ordinary Time,” that “I’m angry much of the time. Most of the people I know are angry.” [p. 23] Sin is as old as Adam and Eve and as global as humanity itself. When I hear a Catholic like Maier talk about anger, I assume he is not railing about the problems of the human condition per se, but rather about disfunction in a particular place at a particular time. What frustrates and angers the author is a perceived Christian and political disintegration of the United States, mutual collapse, you might say. Many of his interviewees share something of this anger/anxiety. At this stage of his life, Maier wants to talk about the Church of his lifetime and what are its chances of survival.
 
BISHOPS
 
Do the thirty-some bishops of the United States interviewed here share his pessimism? They speak with the voice of concerned administrators who, at the very least, are uncomfortable with Pope Francis’ style that they believe creates confusion when the Church needs clear and literal guidance. This is quite a reversal from forty years ago when most American bishops hailed every encyclical of Pope John Paul II. Several bishops used a verbatim assessment: “My diocese hasn’t had a single vocation to the priesthood inspired by Pope Francis.” Others were blunt about the Vatican itself and its arrogance and mismanagement. While some appreciate the fraternity of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops [USCCB], there are others who find its machinery tedious and expensive. Archbishop Chaput is surprisingly blunt: “I can’t think of a single, useful thing that the USCCB did for me in my more than thirty years as an ordinary [bishop].” [p. 278]
 
Many bishops commented on the nation’s political scene. There is wholesale unhappiness with President Biden’s outspoken policy in favor of abortion rights and Catholic politicians in general who are not enthusiastic about endorsing policies consistent with Catholic moral law. Some bishops are fearful of the federal government per se, in some measure because of the closure of churches during Covid. On the other hand, several bishops report particularly good to excellent rapport with their local elected officials. One bishop noted that he has his governor’s cell phone number. As a Florida resident myself, I note that the State of Florida funds Catholic school tuition from the state budget and has attempted to pass legislation to limit abortions. “Persecution of Christians” is not an issue in the Sunshine State.
 
My overall impression from these interviews is that this country’s bishops are at a loss about how to engender new enthusiasm among the faithful. There are a few questions I would have asked or emphasized—regarding what kinds of spirituality sustain them, do they have enough money, how do they assess the quality of education and religious faith formation in their dioceses, to cite a few. As we will see, education is a high priority among the “high roller donors,” much more so than among the clergy in general.
 
THE WORKERS:
 
One of the most intriguing quotes in the book comes from a priest-professor at the Pontifical Lateran University. “Very few priests trust their bishops because they—the priests—are often seen as potential liabilities. Bishops are no longer father figures for priests, but rather heads of a bureaucratic machine. Priorities are very different indeed.” [p. 74] Maier may be unaware of independent professional research which has verified a significant estrangement of priests from their bishops. Clearly the Dallas Charter and other new policies to protect minors has church employees, particularly priests, on edge.
 
Lumping together individual priests, deacons, lay ministers, and women religious in one modest chapter of interviews struck me as odd and insensitive to everyone involved, but particularly to the priests, who are in a hard way right now. That said, the priests, deacons, and women religious interviewed here do not come across as traumatically disfigured. I was impressed by their assessment of church life, though sadly there is a discomfort about wearing the collar publicly among some clerics. I wonder what responses we would have gotten if Maier had interviewed more priests. The permanent deacons expressed more anger in this section than any other cohort but offered intelligent observations about the practical difficulties of married clergy, for example.
 
“THE MACHINE AND ITS FIXING”
 
Having worked elbow to elbow with Archbishop Chaput in the Philadelphia restoration, Maier takes a fascinating look at diocesan life through the eyes of corporate managers in the secular world, Catholic “problem fixers” who come in to assess and address the “problems” such as Philadelphia in 2012, and parishes and dioceses seeking to reorganize their fiscal and business operations. The “fixers” address the reluctance of many clergy to listen to “outsiders” in their policies and planning. This cohort supports the atmosphere of synodality, though no one uses the word. They point out that churches, as businesses, are mission oriented—we would hope—but that non-profits in general tend to engage so deeply in service that fiscal management and planning play second fiddle in the institution’s investment of energies.
 
The fixers pick up observations that Catholic bishops and leaders overlook, such as trends in education and seminaries. One operative commented that many vocations to the priesthood are coming from home schooling environments, and fewer from Catholic schools, a trend—if it is a general trend—that would have significant bearing on future fiscal planning. And, as I write this, the Archdiocese of Baltimore and the Diocese of Peoria have announced they are halving the number of their parishes. One Catholic planner commented on the closing of parishes: it might regenerate the Church to have ten little sites rather than one big one. Small communities, he felt, would engender greater community and devotion. Significantly, this was a 1960’s mantra, too. It may be true. There is, for sure, a noticeable proliferation of small faith groups even within large parishes and in communion with religious orders such as the Trappists. I have been involved with three groups in the past decade; there is a crying need for trained leadership to nurture this emerging format.
 
“THE HIGH ROLLERS”
 
This is the chapter that most fascinated me, in part because for most of my twenty years as a Catholic pastor, I was employing capital campaign directors and learned the hard way how to solicit major gifts. Maier is the first writer in my acquaintance to address the mindsets of rich individuals and foundations, and how they go about assessing which charities they will embrace. Timothy Busch of the Busch Firm and The Napa Institute begins with the pessimistic observation that “our next challenge…will be financial. I’m frustrated with the [Church’s] corporate governance where the bishop is the chief man in the legislative, executive, and judicial branches.” [p. 171]
 
Busch goes on to say, as do most of his colleagues, that bishops are at their best when they promote the devotional and doctrinal life of the Church. High-end donors are attracted to ministries and organisms that move them either intellectually or emotionally, but in either case they expect the opportunity to participate as board members, trustees, or in some other capacity. As a rule, they do not like to function as the sole funding source for a ministry. A big mistake by non-profits is to “hit up the same donors over and over.” Donors will not fund projects that are duplicated down the street and encourage collaboration for better ministerial and charitable service.
 
Major donors are extraordinarily strong on the importance of education. When investing in Catholic schools, they expect a strong Catholic presence and academic excellence. Some of those interviewed admitted to withdrawing gifts of $1 million or more from schools they considered to have virtually lost their Catholic identity. It was hard to glean how knowledgeable Catholic donors are about theology. They are interested in funding seminaries and colleges, again with an eye toward strong fidelity to Church teachings. Of particular interest to donors are college campus ministry programs, in the belief [correctly] that most significant life decisions are made during the collegiate and early adult years.
 
This chapter is followed up by “Things that Work and Why” [Chapter 9] which looks at such organizations as FOCUS, the Fellowship of Catholic University Students founded at Benedictine College, and the Augustine Institute, founded to “equip Catholics intellectually, spiritually, and pastorally to renew the Church and transform the world for Christ.” [p. 209]
 
WHAT TO MAKE OF ALL THIS?
 
Time does not allow specific references to every chapter of interviews, but the nature of the book is obvious enough. Maier targets multiple populations to get a feeling for the present state of the Church in the United States. His career tends to point him toward specific populations, those in orders and/or specific and intense Church leadership. This population is generally male and believes itself to be the voice of Orthodoxy and reason. It is uncomfortable with the raw Gospel of Jesus—though it would deny this—as well as the leadership of Pope Francis and what it sees as demasculinizing of males and the inclusion of gay influence. Business minds, at least in these interviews, cannot connect the dots between societal issues and their own economic theories and practices that, for example, necessitate two income families where both parents work. They have not stopped to ask themselves why Pope Francis questions capitalism.
 
This is a different kind of book from what usually comes across my desk, and it touches base with the energetic conservative population of American Catholicism. I am reminded of the wisdom of CBS-TV commentator Eric Severeid back in the 1960’s who reflected that “if you are not a liberal when you are 20, you have no heart; if you are not a conservative when you are 50, you have no brains.” In 1969, when I first heard this maxim, it did not feel divisive, even to a long-haired guitar enthusiast who played those awful Mass songs from the early days of the Vatican renewal. At age 76, I can accept a healthy traditionalism as a bedrock of Church renewal if it is humble and indeed renews the Church.
 
The organization of the book and the selection of subjects and questions is eclectic, to be sure, and that must be borne in mind. From these pages, those currently in the greatest stress appear to be the bishops. As I wrote in another post, they seem to be “pushing the same old buttons but nothing is happening.” It is hard for them to imitate the Bishop of Rome, who in his late 80’s still manifests considerable joy and energy in his work. Their training, by contrast, taught them to keep good order. Although independent polling has found that many bishops pray close to two hours a day, I wish Maier had asked them how they pray. In midlife I discovered Trappist spirituality; I lamented the book’s absence of discussion of spirituality except in some of the new youth and young adult evangelization programs cited earlier.
 
I was pleased to see the advocacy for greater Catholic education among many of the laity interviewed throughout the book, who seem to understand that raw evangelization without study is pure emotionalism. The shakers and doers—particularly the “high rollers”—agree in spirit with Father John Tracy Ellis who, in the 1950’s, made waves by publishing in a professional journal that Catholicism in the U.S. is anti-intellectual, specifically in its colleges and seminaries. Teaching adults—Catholic school teachers and catechists in particular, face to face--was my own diocesan involvement for forty years until, inexplicably, my diocese dropped the program a few years ago. That was troubling.
 
I might ask the “high rollers” a question. To a man, they seem to agree that the financial ministry belongs to the laity, and that the clergy should tend to the sacramental side of church operations. Indeed, most priests, bishops, and religious superiors would jump for joy if this were possible. But the successful businesspeople who make the major gifts would be the first to say that if they are making massive investments, they expect to deal with the CEO on the other end. Any cleric will tell you that in soliciting major gifts a donor would be insulted if I sent an assistant pastor or a deacon to ask for $250,000. That is just how it is. Response, gentlemen?
 
And speaking of investments, you could do a lot worse than plunking out a few bucks for this book.