{"id":797,"date":"2020-09-04T15:58:07","date_gmt":"2020-09-04T19:58:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/?p=797"},"modified":"2021-04-19T16:01:04","modified_gmt":"2021-04-19T20:01:04","slug":"bishops-apology-doesnt-meet-basic-conditions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/2020\/09\/bishops-apology-doesnt-meet-basic-conditions\/","title":{"rendered":"Bishop\u2019s Apology Doesn\u2019t Meet Basic Conditions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The former bishop of the Wheeling-Charleston West Virginia Diocese <a href=\"https:\/\/angelusnews.com\/news\/nation\/bishop-bransfield-offers-apology-repays-400k-to-w-virginia-diocese\/\">issued an apology<\/a> last month for misconduct that occurred while he was bishop. After Pope Francis accepted Bishop Michael J. Bransfield\u2019s resignation in 2018, the Vatican investigated allegations that he had spent millions on personal extravagances and gifts to fellow clerics, and that he harassed seminarians and young priests who worked for him. Investigators established that he had engaged in a pattern of sexual malfeasance and serious financial misconduct.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The plan<\/strong>: Bransfield stepped down in September 2018, and his successor, Bishop Mark Brennan, drew up a \u201crestitution plan\u201d that was approved by the Vatican. It included a requirement that Bransfield make a public apology to the people of his former diocese \u201cfor the scandal he created,\u201d and that he apologize privately to individuals he abused or harassed.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The apology:<\/strong> Bransfield\u2019s letter, issued August 15, 2020, says he is \u201cwriting to apologize for any scandal or wonderment caused by words or actions attributed to me during my tenure as Bishop of the Wheeling-Charleston Diocese.\u201d He acknowledged that, during his tenure, \u201cI was reimbursed for certain expenditures that have been called into question as excessive,\u201d but insisted that he \u201cbelieved that such reimbursements to me were proper.\u201d Regarding the \u201callegations that by certain words and actions I have caused certain priests and seminarians to feel sexually harassed, that was never my intent.\u201d He added, \u201cif anything I said or did caused others to feel that way, then I am profoundly sorry.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Analysis of the apology:<\/strong> This is not an apology. It\u2019s not even an acknowledgement of wrongdoing. It\u2019s really just an acknowledgment of the allegations against him. It indicates that Bransfield still hasn\u2019t taken responsibility for his actions, and it\u2019s puzzling why the Vatican and the new bishop accepted this statement as if it fulfilled the requirement that he apologize.<\/p>\n<p>Elements of this non-apology include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cany\u201d \u2013 Any time an apology uses the word \u201cany,\u201d a yellow flag goes up. \u201cfor any scandal\u201d includes the possibility that there was no scandal, or just something minor. Apologizing for \u201canything I did that caused others to feel harassed\u201d is tantamount to saying, \u201cI have no idea what I did and I really don\u2019t think I did anything wrong.\u201d Use of any form of \u201cany\u201d weakens the apology. To test it out, substitute the word \u201cthe\u201d for \u201cany\u201d \u2013 or remove \u201cany\u201d altogether and see how it sounds. There may be appropriate uses of \u201cany\u201d in an apology (\u201cif I have omitted anyone\u201d) but, as a rule, if the speaker cannot apologize without using \u201cany,\u201d the speaker hasn\u2019t apologized.<\/li>\n<li>\u201cwonderment\u201d &#8212; He apologizes for \u201cany wonderment\u201d he caused. This is the strangest word I\u2019ve ever seen in an apology. What\u2019s wrong with causing wonderment? Is it something to apologize for? Does he mean \u201cdoubts,\u201d like people \u201cwondered\u201d whether he\u2019d done something wrong? The dictionary definition of \u201cwonderment\u201d is \u201ca state of awed admiration.\u201d This is clearly not the right word here. It should\u2019ve been corrected by an editor, and he had several.<\/li>\n<li>\u201cattributed to me\u201d \u2013 He can\u2019t even admit that the words\/actions were his; he acknowledges only that they were attributed to him. Taking responsibility for one\u2019s words and actions is at the heart of an effective apology.<\/li>\n<li>\u201cif anything I said or did caused others to feel [bad], I\u2019m sorry\u201d \u2013 This is a form of \u201cblame the victim.\u201d The speaker doesn\u2019t think he\u2019s done anything that would hurt another, so it must be their fault that they feel badly\u2014in this case, that they felt harassed.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>As one of his accusers noted, the apology \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.heraldstaronline.com\/news\/local-news\/2020\/08\/bransfield-accuser-says-apology-insufficient\/\">does not meet the basic conditions<\/a> of Catholic contrition, or apology.\u201d This former seminarian, who was sexually abused by Bransfield, noted, \u201cIn the Catholic tradition, we do not apologize for actions \u2018attributed to\u2019 us or for hypothetical \u2018ifs\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The danger of permitting a statement like this to pass as an apology is that, far from bringing healing, it causes more pain. Instead of demonstrating the repentance essential to a Christian apology, it further mires the speaker in denial, and further diminishes hope in the victims. It illustrates the risk of \u201cordering\u201d or \u201crequiring\u201d that someone apologize. Apologies should be voluntary.<\/p>\n<p>We hope and pray that the Holy Spirit, working directly or through one of his servants, will bring Bishop Bransfield to the repentance that would yield to a true public apology.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The former bishop of the Wheeling-Charleston West Virginia Diocese issued an apology last month for misconduct that occurred while he was bishop. After Pope Francis accepted Bishop Michael J. Bransfield\u2019s resignation in 2018, the Vatican investigated allegations that he had spent millions on personal extravagances and gifts to fellow clerics, and that he harassed seminarians [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apologies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=797"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":798,"href":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797\/revisions\/798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}