I was talking to a friend the other day about her course on the gospel of John. She noted that her very conservative professor holds the minority view about the authorship of the fourth gospel, namely, that it was penned by the apostle John himself. Now, I have nothing invested here. It doesn’t matter a whit to me whether John himself was the main author or one of his followers. I am not remotely conversant in the debate. But what bothered me was this: that this particular professor’s espousal of the minority view was a virtual guarantee.
Why did I find this so troubling?
Because it seems to me that, as a non-specialist, I simply cannot trust anyone on the question. There is no reason I should be able to guess a scripture scholar’s position on the authorship of John’s gospel based on his position on artificial contraception and women’s ordination, but I can. What this tells me is that people’s positions aren’t determined so much by a careful analysis of the evidence at hand but rather, and overwhelmingly, by their pre-existing commitments.
This is what I wish was less predictable about the Father Corapi incident. Before even entering the blogosphere I could predict exactly who would be condemning and who would be defending. The comments under the Lifesitenews story could have been written in advance by anyone remotely familiar with their readership. Our heroes remain our heroes and our enemies remain our enemies.
The same dynamic worked itself out with Father Euteneuer, though that case is obviously different given Father Euteneuer’s virtually immediate admission of guilt. I remember shaking my head as Euteneuer fans explained how understandable it was that a man doing that kind of intimate work would be sorely tempted. We all know that if Cardinal Mahony were caught in such a web, no such sympathy would be forthcoming from those voices.
Now, we here at Vox Nova hope that Father Corapi is innocent. It will be no surprise that he is not our favorite high-profile priest, but we do not wish anyone ill. If Father Corapi is guilty, nobody wins. It would be one more scandal to wrench the hearts of the faithful and win the contempt of the culture.
But despite my hope that Corapi is innocent, I have concerns regarding his letter. I don’t believe that the appropriate Christian response here is to demand one’s rights and disparage the system. Innocent until proven guilty is one thing in a court of law, but the Church has the duty to protect innocent parties from exploitation, and it cannot afford to wait until it knows everything it can possibly know about a particular case before making a decision. As a parent, I need far less than conclusive proof that someone is a pedophile before I refuse to leave my child alone with them. The slightest hint will do.
Not that the Church can operate on hearsay, but even in criminal law ‘innocent until proven guilty’ does not mean freedom to carry on as usual until the final verdict. Corapi makes a big deal out of the word “credible,” but it seems to me that the accusations had to be “credible” enough for his superiors to make the move they did. Anyone who has worked in the Church knows that these kinds of suspensions are not taken lightly, especially with high-profile clergy. Suspending Father Corapi pending an investigation is the right move. We all know what it looks like if they don’t suspend him and we find out that he’s guilty.
I’m not saying it is fair to him. If he’s innocent, then this really stinks. If he’s innocent, then he will have to undergo calumny and injustice. But I don’t see that the Church has any other choice. Once someone has sinned, and either Corapi or his accuser has, it’s going to have negative consequences. It’s how we respond to those consequences that ultimately matters.
In any case, someone told us long ago that we would be treated unjustly, that we would suffer persecution, that people would speak evil of us. That same someone told us how to respond. Then he showed us how. Those who exercise authority over Father Corapi would not have it if it were not given to them from above.
If those who tried and executed an innocent man in bad faith can be forgiven, surely we need to cut a little slack to those who investigate a suspect man in good faith. There is no need to throw bishops and religious superiors under the bus on this one. They have a tough job.
Brett Salkeld is a doctoral student in theology at Regis College in Toronto. He is a father of two (so far) and husband of one.
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