Father Tom Reese, the deposed editor of the influential Jesuit magazine America, could have been chosen by central casting: he's intelligent, scholarly, witty, adroit. (Full disclosure: I also consider him a good friend.) Until his dismissal shortly after the election of Benedict XVI, it seemed that he had satisfied the unease at the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith about the controversial articles America published. Then suddenly, at the insistence of the Congregation, the Jesuits removed him as editor. Does this mean that the new Pope will institute a reign of terror among American Catholics, a "house-cleaning" that some fervent right-wing Catholics demand? And if so, how will it affect books written by and for Catholics?
There can be no question that Father Reese's departure has sent a chill through some Catholic writers and publishers. This unease is increased when one hears that the removal of Father Reese was the work of a relatively small and secret group of American bishops, including at least one former auxiliary bishop of Boston who is notorious for covering up pedophile cases. Among their complaints, again one hears, is that Tom Reese used his platform as editor of America to comment on Catholic matters, which ought to be a prerogative of the hierarchy. Heaven protect the cleric on television or in print who is more articulate than a bishop! This secret clique of bishops, one suspects, has settled a score with the Jesuits in general and Tom Reese in particular.
One might think that if the Society of Jesus cannot protect one of the best of their own from that kind of complaint, they might be wise to get out of the business of publishing a journal of opinion and commentary. Then again, it does seem strange that 40 years after the end of the Vatican Council, the arcane processes of anonymous accusations and secret trials continues. Is anyone safe? Do church authorities realize what such star chamber procedures do to its image among Catholics and others in this country? Do they care?
Yet while the situation is troubling, I suspect it is not as bad as it might seem at first blush. Father Reese was notified of his removal in March when John Paul II was still Pope (good Jesuit that he is, Reese accepted it in obedience.) Despite the tendentious efforts of some American media outlets (most notably the New York Times) to depict his reassignment as a hint of the Benedictine papal style, it does not necessarily indicate that Pope Benedict will see the world the same way that Cardinal Ratzinger did—if indeed he personally signed the letter to the Jesuits. It can hardly be an accident that the choice of the name Benedict refers back to a Pope of that name in the early years of the last century who put an end to a particularly nasty system of anonymous denunciations.
Additionally, Archbishop Levada of San Francisco, who will assume the presidency of the Congregation in August, seems to understand what academic freedom is and to have had a good relationship with the Jesuit University of San Francisco. When asked whether he would be the new Pope's Rottweiler (as Cardinal Ratzinger was called), he replied he would more likely be "the Pope's Cocker Spaniel." He knows the United States better than anyone else in the Curia and is not likely to be bullied by a secret cabal of bishops.
Finally, magazine editors are especially vulnerable to the Congregation: they are almost always clergy, and they are not protected by academic freedom to the same extent as tenured faculty at Catholic colleges and universities, which are more frequently owned by lay trustees than religious orders. To condemn lay faculties and lay authors, especially those at secular universities, would only make their publishers' day. Catholic publishers who are not owned by religious orders might even light votive candles for a condemnation or two. So the dismissal of Tom Reese, as appalling as it was, is not necessarily a harbinger of more to come.
Still, there are others among the Catholic population who have shopping lists of men and women they would like to have silenced. The success of the enemies of Tom Reese may well lead to other anonymous denunciations and secret trials.
A Catholic priest in good standing for 51 years, Father Greeley is on the staff of the University of Chicago and the University of Arizona. He is the author of The Making of the Pope 2005 (Little, Brown, Oct.) and The Bishop in the Old Neighborhood (Forge, Nov.), a Blackie Ryan mystery.
