Covington teens exonerated by Diocese report
The Diocese of Covington has issued a report:
The Diocese of Covington proclaimed Wednesday that Covington Catholic High School students recorded on viral videos during a school trip to Washington, D.C., did nothing wrong after releasing a report prepared by a private investigation firm.
Attorneys for the diocese hired Greater Cincinnati Investigation to look into the incident…
Four licensed investigators from the firm interviewed 43 CovCath students, nine faculty chaperones and four parent chaperones; sought out third-party witnesses; and reviewed social media posts, news articles and videos. They said they spent about 240 man hours on the investigation.
Investigators reported that they were unable to obtain surveillance video from the Lincoln Memorial. Sandmann offered a written statement, rather than an in-person interview. A person who posted several videos online didn’t respond to them. Neither has Phillips, despite investigators showing up at his home and leaving a note.
Not surprising that Phillips didn’t respond. His day in the sun has ended for now, and he may wind up paying the piper whatever he happens to have, which probably isn’t all that much.
In a letter to CovCath parents, Bishop Roger Foys wrote that the investigation “has demonstrated that our students did not instigate the incident that occurred at the Lincoln Memorial.”
“I am pleased to inform you that my hope and expectation … that the results of our inquiry … would ‘exonerate our students so that they can move forward with their lives’ has been realized,” Foys wrote.
Despite the initiation perception by many people online, the students actually “were placed in a situation that was at once bizarre and even threatening,” Foys wrote. “Their reaction to the situation was, given the circumstances, expected and one might even say laudatory.”
The entire letter written by Foys can be found here.
Note, however, that Foys had initially added to the excoriation of the boys when he had issued this statement at the outset of the fracas:
We condemn the actions of the Covington Catholic High School students toward Nathan Phillips specifically, and Native Americans in general, Jan. 18, after the March for Life, in Washington, D.C. We extend our deepest apologies to Mr. Phillips. This behavior is opposed to the Church’s teaching on the dignity and respect of the human person. The matter is being investigated and we will take appropriate action, up to and including expulsion.
It turns out that “appropriate action” was to praise them.
Now, I don’t actually expect Bishop Foys to have praised the teens initially; there wasn’t enough information available yet to go that far. But there was nowhere near enough information available to condemn them, either. And yet that’s what the Diocese did, jumping on the liberal propaganda bandwagon.
So I’d like him to answer this question: Why did you do it? And did you learn something for the future, and if so, what?
Bishop Foys had already issued an apology on January 25. This is what he wrote:
We apologize to anyone who has been offended in any way by either of our statements which were made with good will based on the information we had…
We should not have allowed ourselves to be bullied and pressured into making a statement prematurely, and we take full responsibility for it…
I especially apologize to Nicholas Sandmann and his family as well as to all CovCath families who have felt abandoned during this ordeal. Nicholas unfortunately has become the face of these allegations based on video clips. This is not fair. This is not just.
I don’t expect Bishop Foys to have aired his entire thought process in public, but I really hope that he inwardly explores how it is that someone of his stature succumbed so very easily to what he calls “bullying” and “pressuring.” He’s not a child. Shouldn’t he have the ability to withstand those things? Isn’t there a contradiction between his saying that he made the initial statements “with good will” and saying he succumbed to bullying and pressure in making them?
And isn’t it just plain wrong for Bishop Foys to assert that “the information we had” indicated culpability on the part of the Covington teens? After all, all they did was smile on the video. Everything else was based on the word of Nathan Phillips, who even the simplest and most cursory bit of research would have revealed to have been a longtime activist and instigator and possible liar. Why believe his testimony over anything else,and so soon? Why succumb to the Twitter mob?
And why say that you were bullied into it, at the same time (actually, in the very same sentence) that you state that you take full responsibility for succumbing to that pressure? There is something about his use of the word “bullied” for what happened to him that seems highly inappropriate to me. Bishop Foys is a powerful man of mature years (73), not a little schoolchild. He is supposed to be spiritually advanced. If he can’t resist bullying—and in particular if that lack of resistance to bullying causes him to pile on and participate in the bullying of innocent teenagers—then he needs to discover a way to resist it, and pronto.
The WaPo article has comments about a Catholic Church investigation being unreliable because of the history of gay priests. This is often described as pedophilia, especially given the furious denials that gays are interested in young boys. In fact, I have known quite a few gays and they are interested in adolescent boys and young Asian men who are hairless.
The Bishop appears to be a political weather vane.
The Bishop piled on when it looked like it was the PC thing to do, now, he doesn’t want to get sued. Thus, this statement.
I knew the word ‘bully’ growing up as basically a description on the playground or after school. Someone (the media?) started using it to describe Trump during the presidential campaign – the first time I’ve heard it used to mean verbal taunting. The word now seems to mean whatever you want it to mean. So much so that it’s actually a kind of joke at our house – and no disrespect meant to those kids who really have been kicked around.
I find the priest’s use of the word kind of childish.
While I agree that the bishop SHOULD have had the testicular fortitude to hold his tongue…how much fire has the Roman Catholic Church endured for its previous conspicuous silence?
Damned if you do etc…
Not an excuse, but maybe a reason.
BUT…I am glad he’s found his voice again & properly this time. The sad thing is…he’s a bishop. He got to his position via being a political animal more than a shepherd and that doesn’t appear to have changed.
You’re far too kind neo. At 73, if Bishop Foys hasn’t developed the character to resist bullying and has instead demonstrated a willingness to join in the bullying of children by the mob… then he needs to resign and “get himself to”… a monastery.
That he clearly intends to cling to his bishopric demonstrates his utter unfitness for that office.
GB is spot on…a speedy “retirement to spend time in prayer & solitude” would be a great next vocational step for Foys.
Won’t happen…but it should.
I know these guys…they love the position and all that comes with it.
The church hung the boys out to twist in the wind. Perhaps because of all the sexual abuse stories that hasve landed on their doorstep over the decades, and in this instance the church wanted to pander to white males wearing MAGA hats are evil meme. In the end it doesn’t matter why, it was a cowardly act.
Spot on, Neo. You couldn’t be more right.
When the incident regarding the Covington boys began breaking on social media, I was initially more angry at the Diocese of Covington’s statement condemning the boys (along with Catholics like NR’s Nicholas Frankovich, Fr. James Martin SJ and others who were quick to pile on before all the facts emerged). In retrospect, however, I’m feeling a bit more sympathetic toward the bishop and diocese, although I think they owe the boys and their families a stronger apology. Covington is likely a small diocese whose communications staff may have been unprepared for the internet mob that descended on them. The bishop may have been persuaded by his own (possibly inexperienced) PR team to make a strong
statement quickly based on the abbreviated videos, which was a mistake (obviously), but then they had to wait until the official results of a full investigation came in before they could comment further. “Bullied and pressured” are probably very weak words to describe a Twitter mob bearing down on a small school and small diocese. It’s a lot harder to manage crisis communications (especially in the age of the flaming dumpster fire of Twitter) than most people understand. In short, they made a mistake in reacting too quickly, but (in retrospect) I’m inclined to cut them some slack. It’s very easy to armchair quarterback these situations.
Bishop Foy is usually the most powerful man in any room he walks into. It takes some nerve for him to complain about being bullied.
Reminds me of Valerie Jarrett in 2009 announcing the White House was “going to speak truth to power” because Tea Party conservatives were “going to town-hall meetings” and “putting up signs.”
Quelle horreur?!
Amazing hypocrisy on the part of Foy.
I don’t want to be too hard on the man, but in my irrelevant opinion he acted like a weasel, and continues to do so.
CV, you assume that the man has served his entire career in the hinterlands, and is unsophisticated. I don’t know his personal career path, nor do I know how many Bishops there are in the U.S. Catholic Church; but I do not believe that any rose through that hierarchical organization by being simple and unsophisticated. Sort of reminds me of when people would refer to an Admiral as “political”, and I would respond, “he is an Admiral isn’t he?”. I did not mean that pejoratively, just a statement of life in a large, competitive organization.
If I may mangle a Shakespeare line, The bishop doth protest too much, methinks.
With that, I’ll start out by saying that the bishop really needs to learn to keep his “mouth shut” (I put that in quotes because these were written statements) and just say what needs to be said and no more.
The first thing It noticed, and offended, me was the bishops original statement; not just because he fired this statement off before hearing the other side of the story, but also because these are minors we’re talking about. Traditionally, we do not publicly try, or punish, minors; it’s almost always private (there are exceptions, but the rule still holds). If he, and the diocese, would have honored that tradition and withheld that condemnation, they would have saved themselves, and the kids, a whole lot of grief.
The second thing of notice, as Neo pointed out, was the “bullied and pressured” statement. This did not need to be in the apology; and if it wasn’t, the apology would have read much more sincere. As it stands is reads like the bishop is doing quite a bit of CYA.
Even in the end, as he exonerates the kids at the March For Life, the bishop defends his initial condemnation.
“Some people think our first statement was too strong, but in my mind with what we saw and what we heard at the time, we had to say what we said and we meant it. If that behavior is genuine then we have to condemn it.”
See my initial observation regarding that.
Finally,
“I’m going to ask you, as your bishop, to stay off social media in regards to this situation at least until it is resolved. Because the more you say — pro or con — the more you exacerbate the situation.”
The bishop should, perhaps, learn to heed his own advice.
KRB
Bishops are blathering but but the most powerful statement is the movie,
“primal fear,” which is devastating.
One of the best movies. I don’t go much anymore.
No edit function.
He caved in to Political Correctness. PC is going to destroy us if we don’t fight back.
So — for some people — the argument seems to be:
1) People accused clergy in the Catholic church of abusing minor children;
2) The Church failed to respond by condemning the abusers, and allowed them to continue abusing children;
3) People accused Catholic children of being, um, children abusing adult activists;
4) The Church didn’t want to look like they were again failing to respond;
5) So, they jumped on board with the people who were abusing the children.
That about cover it?
Kae Arby, you uncovered the nub by quoting this:
“Some people think our first statement was too strong, but in my mind with what we saw and what we heard at the time, we had to say what we said and we meant it. If that behavior is genuine then we have to condemn it.”
One would expect that any mature person, but especially one in Foy’s position, would make an effort to learn if the behavior were indeed genuine before rushing to condemn another.
My opinion that he acted like a weasel initially, and that he continues to do so, is reaffirmed.
If I may, I’d like to offer this blog post of mine for your reading. It’s a rather lengthy consideration of the Covington affair with an emphasis on the lynch-mob aspect of it. For reasons partly temperamental and partly familial-historical, including the fact that I’m Southern to the bone, I found the whole thing particularly disturbing. And significant in an altogether bad way.
If There’s One Thing I Despise, It’s a Mob
The Bishop succumbed to the principles of diversity doctrine, and in light of Jew… White privilege, he leapt to the only politically congruent conclusion he could reach. The normalization of summary judgments is a feature, not a bug, of the Pro-Choice religious/moral philosophy that justifies the doctrine.
Political congruence, lynch mobs, warlock trials, human… baby… fetal sacrifices. How very monotonically divergent.
AesopFan…my sense is your 1-5 are a bit of an oversimplification…let me make an effort here…although I think I understand the point you are making
1. The Roman church WAS silent when given clear evidence of abusers in its priestly leadership.
2. Finally justly raised howls from inside and outside the church forced some limited action from bishops. (I still don’t think the Roman church has acted adequately to bring its pedo-faction under scrutiny of law)
3. A lynch mob was baying at the CovCath boys and this bishop jumped in foolishly…perhaps in an effort to not get caught being silent. I don’t really know him or his rationale…but I can speculate with some understanding based on 30 years inside-experience in institutional churches.
4. Foys was dead wrong this time. I don’t know what he’s done about his diocese re child abusing priests…so I can’t say “wrong again.”
5. Now he’s rightly walked that back…but still defends the institution like he’s supposed to do as a bishop.
He needs to step down & let the pope appoint someone else…who is likely to be just as politically & institutionally invested as Foys…and who may well make similar or worse mistakes. It’s the nature of bishops…protect the institution of the church above all things. They don’t necessarily get the pointed hat & purple shirt because they’re great shepherds/pastors.
If I was unclear earlier…or missed your point here…I apologize. I do understand HOW Foys might have thought jumping into the manure pile was the right thing to do…THAT he did so is inexcusable.
Bishop Foys should grab his sackbut and jam with the Rhythm King of Ypsilanti.
The Bishop should be sued for defamation. He should lose, and be forced to pay $1 million.
And then he should resign.
Or be dismissed.
He was bullying, abusing, the underage teens, joining an e-lynching.
The PC-Klan e-lynching won’t stop until the PC-Klan bullies get sued, and lose. Over and over.
Until it stops.
The priestly class is hardly covering itself in glory lately. They are supposed to set an example, show leadership. The kids did, the priest did not.
You’re watching a church in decline, that has lost massive amounts of credibility, and which has very few real leaders, knuckle-under, yet again, to popular culture.
Believing the teachings of the RC Church to be true means losing trust in many of its leaders and institutions.
The most devout are the first ones thrown under the bus.
I was wondering if someone would bring up the abuse scandal – Yep, very first comment.
The Bishop screwed up by jumping on that twitter bandwagon, but really, it doesn’t matter what he does, it will never be enough.
I’m sorry someone else made me do it!
How many times have we heard THAT excuse?!
Mac on February 14, 2019 at 11:56 pm at 11:56 pm said:
…
If There’s One Thing I Despise, It’s a Mob
* * *
Excellent story about your grandfather, and the lessons for today. Thanks.
Mac’s blog linked to a post by Andrew Sullivan with some trenchant comments that maybe have been quoted somewhere on the posts about the CovCath boys, but I don’t remember seeing them.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/01/andrew-sullivan-the-abyss-of-hate-versus-hate.html
…
[so far so good, but then he gets stimulus and response backward, like most of the Left and a good many of the Right]