Presenters

Donald Cozzens

Donald Cozzens is writer in residence at John Carroll University in Cleveland. He spent the 2001-2002 academic year as a research scholar at the Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural Research at St. John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota, where he studied the dynamics of personal and institutional denial which led to his award-winning book, Sacred Silence: Denial and the Crisis in the Church.

For more than a decade, Cozzens has been writing and speaking about the crisis facing the church and the priesthood. Since January of 2002 when the clergy sexual abuse scandal received wide media attention, he has appeared on “Meet the Press” with Tim Russert, Terry Gross’ “Fresh Air,” NPR’s “All Things Considered,” CNN’s “Nightnews with Aaron Brown,” BBC radio and television, as well as interviews on the major television networks.

His experience as vicar for clergy and religious and as president-rector of Cleveland’s Saint Mary Seminary led to his best-selling and award winning book, The Changing Face of the Priesthood which has been translated into French, German, Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, and Czech. He also edited The Spirituality of the Diocesan Priest, which was published in 1997. This book is used in English speaking seminaries throughout the world.

A priest of the diocese of Cleveland, Cozzens has served as spiritual director, counselor, and retreat master for monks, nuns, priests, and bishops. His essays have appeared in America, Commonweal, The Tablet, National Catholic Reporter, and The Boston Globe. He holds an M.A. from the University of Notre Dame and a Ph.D. from Kent State University.

"Bishops, Priests, and Religious; Do they see a crisis and how are the responding?"

What happens when we step into the mind of a bishop, priest, and religious at this time of crisis? A good portion of this session will focus on the bishops. To understand how the bishops see the present situation and to understand why they have acted as they have, it is necessary to address the church's feudal structure. Once the feudal structure of the church is recognized, the bishops' response to the clergy abuse crisis comes into focus.

Bishops and other church authorities reacted to the scandal the only way their feudal culture allowed - with secrecy, denial, and a no-holds-barred effort to protect the reputation, authority, and resources of the institution. The bishops response, I will propose, has been consistent with the way feudal systems function.

Colloquium paper