By Marisa Trevi?o, KERA 90.1 commentator
Dallas, TX – As a cradle-born Catholic, I was taught that I would spend my life struggling to satisfy the perennial question of how to be a good Catholic. Lately, Dallas Bishop Charles Grahmann has made that struggle harder.
The answer used to be simple: do as you're told. Catholics have complied with this doctrine from our Baptisms to our deathbed confessions.
It has served the Church well, until now.
Until the revelations of priestly abuse surfaced and the fact that local Catholic leaders knowingly kept priests on parish duty who had violated their sacred vows.
With these revelations, Catholics have to wrestle with new questions: do we stay silent and thus keep our status as good Catholics, or do we use our God-given talent of reasoning and risk being labeled "bad Catholics?"
The Dallas Diocese would have us believe those who dare challenge Bishop Grahmann's decisions and call for him to step down are not good Catholics.
I beg to differ.
As a Catholic in a diocese that is home to the Rudy Kos crime, one of the most infamous clergy-abuse cases in the country, I have witnessed the pain caused by silence in the name of being a good Catholic.
Silence and inaction by Diocesan parishioners have done nothing more than enable and empower Bishop Grahmann to follow his personal agenda when it comes to the leadership and welfare of the North Texas Diocese.
The first hint that Grahmann has calculated the mean distance between Rome and Dallas is in his mystifying refusal to step aside to let Co-Adjutor Bishop Galante fulfill what the Vatican assigned him to do - assume Grahmann's position.
Grahmann cannot claim ignorance to the process. He himself was brought to Big D in December 1989 to serve as Co-Adjutor until he succeeded his predecessor in July 1990, a mere seven months later. Yet, Grahmann continues to parade on with his duties as if Galante was sent to be his personal assistant. It's been three years and understandably Bishop Galante is fed up with this spoiled behavior.
We should be, too.
We should also be alarmed that Grahmann has decided to let two priests, Ramon Alvarez and Ernesto Villaroya, continue with parish duties though each has admitted to gross violations of their priestly vows. Alvarez propositioned another man and Villaroya fathered a child.
In a recent Dallas Morning News opinion piece defending the assignment of Villaroya to a Frisco parish, Grahmann preaches that, as Catholics, we should forgive and forget. To do less is akin to not following Christ's example. In other words, you're a bad Catholic.
Well, is it not worse to have two men who pledged obedience, celibacy and servitude continue to serve in prominent role model positions while it's public knowledge they succumbed to temptation in the worst possible way?
Grahmann's disregard for the feelings of the people who feel uncomfortable being ministered to by questionable priests, his self-serving attitude to remain as Bishop and his interpretation of what constitutes compliance with the Bishop's sexual abuse policy illustrate one fact: Bishop Grahmann is failing to ask himself the perennial question.
It is time we start asking it.
Marisa Trevino is a writer from Rowlett.