Church accused of workplace injustices - unfair labor practices sometimes stem from authoritarian structures - includes related articles

National Catholic Reporter, Jan 21, 1994 by Tim McCarthy

In a wide-ranging interview in the red-brick rectory near the downtown Fort Wayne chancery last October, Vicar General Lester said he did not think Brazauskas has "a leg to stand on." Let them go to trial, he said. "We have a perfect case." Lester, 73, is known to be close to D'Arcy, who was out of the country at the time of the interview.

Pressed as to the specific nature of that perfect case, Lester hedged. "What else can I tell you without going into the bad parts?" he said. "In strict justice, I don't think we have to pay her a penny."

Asked what she thought Lester might be referring to in the phrase "bad parts," Brazauskas said she had no idea, unless it was her "friendship with Dick." She was referring to Notre Dame theologian Fr. Richard McBrien, saying they were "very good friends."

Through his syndicated column and other public statements, McBrien is known to rank the church's unjust treatment of employees even above the sexual abuse of children by priests as an institutional issue to be dealt with. He has been an ardent champion of Brazauskas' cause, along with other Notre Dame big guns such as Jesuit Fr. Richard McCormick.

Without referring to any of them by name, Lester said he knew Brazauskas had "all kinds of high people behind her." But they "don't know what they're talking about. They think if somebody has a doctorate they're competent," he said. They think they are "going to squash that little ant over there (D'Arcy). That's the appearance of it."

Lester's comment may help to explain why D'Arcy has come to see, some say characteristically, the Brazauskas case as an attack upon his pastoral office. According to his attorneys, the diocese is now prepared to defend itself all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary.

While Brazauskas said she got into the lawsuit seeking a personal redress of grievances, delegates at a state DRE convention last October told her that she had to push the legal fight for the good of all church employees. "Somebody's got to speak up and let people know what's going on," she said. Then, her voice quavering with regret, she said, "I think I'm finished in church work. I don't think I'll ever be allowed to minister again."

Pare, former director of Fort Wayne's Religious Education Institute, said she did not think Bishop John D'Arcy is a mean or malicious person. He is simply "walking backward into the future with his eyes open," she said.

D'Arcy's current DRE, Jane Carew, went further. She said that thanks to D'Arcy's diocesan reorganization, along with lay formation programs in conjunction with the University of Dayton and Creighton University in Omaha, Fort Wayne-South Bend is "now the most stable diocese in Indiana." She described D'Arcy as a "very fair man" and "a holy man."

However that may be, at least a dozen diocesan employees, former and current, said there was a pervasive atmosphere of intimidation and fear in the diocese. Some observers believe that, as it was with the pedophilia scandal, only secular pressure from outside the institution will shred the collar of injustice strangling many lay employees.