People have been asking me what I thought of the National Catholic Reporter‘s recent exposé of Deal Hudson, the publisher of Crisis Magazine and a Catholic prominently associated with the Bush White House. Hudson, it turns out had a sordid liaison with a student when he was teaching at university about a decade ago and it cost him his job. He has, by his own admission, nothing but shame for the sin.
See also:
Deal Hudson Resigns as Publisher of CRISIS Magazine
Publisher of Catholic Magazine Forced to Resign
Mark Shea is Senior Content Editor for Catholic Exchange. You may visit his website at www.mark-shea.com check out his blog, Catholic and Enjoying It!, or purchase his books and tapes here.
Journalism? Maybe. Catholic? No.
So has the Reporter done us all a favor by exposing a prominent sinner? I will be blunt: I think the Reporter covered itself in ignominy. Period.
I suppose, from a purely journalistic perspective, untrammeled by all that stuff about the Sacrament of Confession, teaching against the sin of detraction, teaching on charity, the centrality of the family and the rest, a reporter could evoke the all-excusing genie of the “Public's Right to Know” as a “reason” for this contemptible hit piece written with no other object in mind than to destroy somebody whose politics are inimical to the editorial posture of the National “Catholic” Reporter.
But the National “Catholic” Reporter is supposed to be, well, Catholic. It is supposed to shed the light of Catholic Social Teaching so that those Awful Right-Wingers who practice the politics of personal destruction will understand true Peace and Justice. Yet viewed from a Catholic rather than a purely journalistic perspective, I can see no justification whatsoever for this shameful slime job. None.
No Mercy in NCR's Church
Here is a man who committed a grave sin, confessed it, paid for it with his job (as was perfectly fitting), was reconciled with his family, made restitution to the victim — and was forgiven (that is, if we believe at all in what we profess every time we say the Creed concerning the “forgiveness of sins”). Yet instead of incarnating the mercy of Jesus to this penitent sinner and his wife and children, these alleged Catholics have seized on a forgiven sin as a tool to destroy him.
The message is loud and clear: in the Catholic Church of the Reporter sin will never be forgiven. Even if you repent, you will go on paying and paying and paying for your sins forever. There is no refuge in the Body of Christ. No mercy. No remission of sins.
That such vindictive filth justifies itself as “Catholic journalism” is, in its own way, as contemptible as “pastoral oversight” that overlooks the sins of predator priests. In both cases, the Guardians of the Faith are guarding against the wrong things. Negligent bishops have guarded against children who might bother impenitent priests and negligent bishops. Now the Reporter is guarding against a penitent man experiencing the mercy of God.
Indeed, the idea of seizing on a penitent's forgiven sins — sins which concern nobody but his family, himself, his victim, and his God — and using them as a weapon against him after he has made his peace with all those who were truly involved… this is as satanic a violation of the Sacrament of Reconciliation as a predator priest is of the Ssacrament of Holy Orders. Hudson didn't claim to be a saint. He claimed to be a forgiven sinner. By their action, the Reporter has made the whole Church a more dangerous place for any of us to seek the mercy of Christ.
What Good Was Done?
So what good was accomplished by the Reporter's despicable act of detraction? Not one thing that I can think of. Nobody was “protected” from anything by it (as, for instance, the exposure of an undisciplined predator priest would do). A wife was made to suffer again. Some children were forced to endure humiliation and shame. A victim who had not sought publicity was forced into the limelight. A few gossips were thrown fresh meat. The Sacrament of Reconciliation was, once again, shown to be applicable to [insert One's Own Tribe here] but not to one of those Awful People Over There, a journalist got thirty pieces of silver from the New York Times for making clear that “we believe in the forgiveness of sins” is one of those airy theological abstractions with no connection to real life. Oh, and yes, the Reporter won a little pyrrhic victory for leftist politics that glowed for about 24 hours. Big whoop.
I have often said that the most scandalous teaching in the whole corpus of Catholic moral doctrine is the shocking affirmation, “I believe in the forgiveness of sins.” The Reporter has kindly illustrated my point once again. If works and not words are the measure of what we believe, then the editors of the Reporter manifestly believe, not in the forgiveness of sins, nor even in Peace and Justice, but in exposure, destruction, shame and humiliation of a penitent member of the Body of Christ if that member holds political views with which they do not agree. Under the right circumstance, would they do the same thing to the adulterous woman of John 8 or the sinful woman who washed Jesus' feet? Given their record, I can only assume the answer, alas, is “Yes.”
