Over the past few hours, several websites in traditionalist circles have been promoting, with barely concealed enthusiasm, a report published by the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame. Entitled Do You Know Them to Be Worthy?, it sets out twelve proposals for bishops, rectors and formation teams on assessing the suitability of candidates for Holy Orders. The study is being presented as the definitive answer to the abuse crisis. It is a shameful document which, under the banner of ‘quality’, advocates practices that run counter to canon law, the Church’s established practice and the professional ethics governing healthcare.
Who are the authors?
The document is signed by Fr Thomas V. Berg and the psychologist Timothy G. Lock. Neither has any expertise in canon law, yet both venture to rewrite the rules governing the internal and external forums and to redefine categories found in documents issued by the Holy See. Berg, who holds a doctorate in philosophy, spent twenty-three years with the Legionaries of Christ, Marcial Maciel’s congregation. He taught and heard confessions at the congregation’s seminary in Thornwood, and obtained his doctorate from the Regina Apostolorum, its own university. He left in 2009. That a man formed for more than two decades within a system that became the paradigm of blurred forums and controlled consciences should now propose weakening the separation between the internal and external forums is no minor detail.
