How an innocent man behaves: Bernardin vs. Brett Kavanaugh
With the war over Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination over, a little local and historical perspective provides clarity.
In 1993, a seminarian named Stephen Cook filed a lawsuit alleging that Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, then head of the Archdiocese of Chicago, had sexually abused him. It was a cyclonic accusation.
As head of the nation’s third-largest archdiocese, with nearly 3 million Catholics, Bernardin not only was considered one of the church’s leaders worldwide, but he also had taken the initiative in establishing an investigative mechanism for handling charges of clerical sexual abuse that was lauded and adopted as a model in many other parts of the country.
So Chicago-area Catholics were aghast: How could the ugly accusation be true?
Absent any witnesses to the alleged abuse, the event emerged in the media as a classic he-said versus he-said, with Cook’s allegation pitted against Bernardin’s unequivocal denial.
In Bernardin’s favor, he was devout and highly respected, had a spotless record as a religious servant and leader and was proactive on the side of victims in the church’s historic scandal.
Cook, however, reported “vivid memories” of Bernardin’s crime, the recollection of which he retrieved from “repressed memory” during hypnosis. There also was the weight of his $10 million lawsuit and the claim of several pieces of “corroborating” evidence, including a book signed by Bernardin and a photo of the two of them together.
Seemingly worse for Bernardin was that the national climate already had been poisoned with mistrust of priests and the religious hierarchy, after credible charges and eventual convictions of child abusers in the clergy began surfacing in the 1980s.
But less than a year after the accusation, Bernardin was exonerated of all charges. Cook apologized for a bad mistake based on faulty memory. He still was convinced he had been abused, but he admitted to confusion about the perpetrator’s identity; and he now realized it wasn’t the esteemed cardinal who had assaulted him.
Sound familiar?
While there certainly is a parallel between the sexual abuse charges against Cardinal Bernardin and those against Judge Kavanaugh, I cite the 1993 case, instead, to underscore the contrast.
Facing reporters after he was sledgehammered by the lawsuit in 1993, a placid, softspoken Bernardin said, “I can assure you that all my life I have led a chaste, celibate life.”
When confronted with Cook’s claims of evidence, Bernardin said, “I don’t understand.”
When asked if he was worried about his reputation and that of the archdiocese, he said: “In the final analysis, I’m not really concerned about myself. I know that I am innocent. I’m concerned about my people, the people that I love.”
He reported no ill will against accuser Stephen Cook, the media, Cook’s lawyers or his hypnotist/psychotherapist.
Most importantly, before even facing the press and his congregation, Bernardin referred the accusation, the lawsuit, the evidence and all relevant information to the impartial investigative committee he had instituted, with instructions to take as much time as needed to thoroughly investigate the charges.
The brief, 25-year-old episode encapsulates the reaction and temperament of an innocent man.
Brett Kavanaugh was no Joseph Bernardin. When it was Kavanaugh’s turn in 2018 to respond to charges that he had sexually abused Christine Ford, he exploded.
Granted, few can be expected to react the same way as a pious and humble man such as Bernardin. But Kavanaugh was a lawyer and a judge, auditioning for a job requiring wisdom and equanimity.
Yet he alternately sputtered and wept while reading his statement of defense. And by all accounts, even by some of his supporters, he told silly lies about his drinking and about the meaning of words and sexual references in his school yearbook.
The most egregiously disqualifying behavior for him, or any other Supreme Court aspirant, was his lashing out at individual senators on the judicial committee, at “the Clintons” and at the entire Democratic Party for plotting “revenge” against him.
All of which seemed to indicate that Kavanaugh was resigned to losing the nomination because of Ford’s accusation. With nothing else to lose, he got his licks in, no longer caring about revealing an ill-suited disposition for any kind of judicial position, let alone a seat on the Supreme Court.
When momentum shifted and Kavanaugh again was heartened about his prospects, he fired off a Wall Street Journal op-ed to explain and excuse his conspiracy theory.
The radical differences between the reactions of two men accused of decades-old sexual assault is telling:
Bernardin manifested confidence in his innocence and faith in a thorough investigation that would prove it. Kavanaugh simmered with vitriol and despair, while suspiciously resisting rather than advocating for the FBI investigation.
Despite all this, Kavanaugh was confirmed for a seat on the Supreme Court, and there is nothing we can do about it.
But he was confirmed only because Republicans are in the majority in the Senate and House of Representatives, and Donald Trump is in the White House. In that regard, we do have a say.