hubris -2-

By Fr. Wilson ( articles ) | May 06, 2003

Deacon Havard complains that Bishop Grahmann receives no credit from the Dallas Morning News for his skillful settlement of the judgment against the diocese resulting from the Kos trial. Inexplicably, there are Catholics in the diocese who seem to remember things quite differently -- they seem to recall compelling the bishop not to further drag the affair out by appealing the judgment. Some of these are quite prominent indeed.

Here are the comments of "D Magazine" publisher Wick Allison in the March 2003 issue's Publisher's Note:

"For those joining the soap opera late: the bishop, I revealed last month, agreed to a series of demands in 1997 from a group of laymen trying to prevent further damage to the Church from the sex-abuse scandal. One of those demands was his resignation. He reneged on that agreement and now denies it was ever made. As the unseemly business has played out on the front pages and on TV in recent weeks, the bishop has stiff-armed the man sent to replace him and rounded up a posse of Protestants to circle the wagons around his beleaguered chancery& The bishop believes that the internal affairs of the Church are not to be discussed in public. Considering the disaster he made of the Rudy Kos trial, which was broadcast nightly into Dallas homes, I can understand why. But if the Church's internal affairs are not to be discussed in public, where should they be discussed? Six years ago, a group of laymen met with the bishop, and, after prolonged negotiation over several weeks, forced him to take actions to save the Church from more shame than he had already caused. He never invited that group back for further discussion. In fact, the meeting itself seems to have embarrassed him more than the trial did.

The reason it embarrasses him is because he doesn't want fellow prelates to know he caved in. For a man of the temperament and character of this bishop, to be seen losing control is a fate worse than watching one's Church pilloried on the nightly news."