The OCA Spits Out Jonah

Here's a bit of news that shocked me both for how dramatic and how long overdue it was:

The Chicago native elected to the helm of the Orthodox Church in America resigned last weekend, saying in a letter that he has "neither the personality nor the temperament" to lead the church.

Metropolitan Jonah submitted his resignation during a conference call on Saturday, July 7, with other bishops of the church. In his letter of resignation, he said he was leaving the post in response to the unanimous request of the bishops.

"I had come to the realization long ago that I have neither the personality nor the temperament for the position of primate, a position I never sought nor desired," he wrote in a letter of resignation.

He should have come to the realization "long ago," as he said he did, but if so, why did it take him so long to step down. It was over a year ago that the mounting tensions led the Synod of Bishops to ask Jonah to ask for a leave of absence, for his own mental and spiritual well-being. The decision came as a result of ongoing struggles between Jonah and the Synod of Bishops, the Sexual Misconduct Policy Advisory Committee, and members of the highest echelons of the church and because of Jonah's attempts to force a move of the administration of the church from its traditional home in New York to Washington and suspicious relationships he maintained with the church in Russia that many believed hinted toward an effort to give up OCA autocephaly. All of that was last spring, and even after his "retreat," Jonah came back as contentious as ever.

So it really isn't shocking in the least that the bishops of the OCA would "unanimously" request that he step down. The only real surprise is that it took so long to do it. Jonah was chosen as the Metropolitan in one of the darkest times for the OCA and made his name by challenging prevailing notions of tyrannical authority that had lead to the corruption and crisis under the previous metropolitan. I remember his selection in 2008 and listened to his speeches as often as I could lay my hands on them. As an interested observer, I had hope for the direction of the OCA, but, having watched history unfold, I can only ask myself, what ever happened to this guy?

On a broader level our whole life in this Church together is a life of 'synergy', a life of voluntary cooperation, a life of obedience to Jesus Christ and to the Gospel. If it is not about obedience to Jesus Christ and the Gospel (then) what are we doing here? What are we doing here?

The Gospel has to be first and foremost above every other consideration. It is the canon by which we measure ourselves.

So when we look at our ecclesiology, when we look to see what the Church is and what the Church can be -- because it is always in that process of becoming - it is always in that process of entering into that divine synergy which is nothing else than the very process of our deification together as one body with one spirit, with one heart, with one mind. And it's a mutual decision to cut off our own will, to cut off our own selfishness, to cut off our own ideas, to enter into that living 'synergy' which is communion; otherwise, our Eucharist is a sham and we are alienated from Christ.

If we are not at peace with one another -- now that doesn't mean that we cannot, you know, work out our disagreements, God knows as Orthodox we love to fight, right? But we need to work it out so that we can enter into that living experience of communion in cooperation and mutual obedience and mutual submission in love and mutual respect.

Trustees Continue to Rationalize Paterno Firing

The Penn State board of trustees are at it again, reverse-engineering excuses for firing Joe Paterno in the frenzied weeks following the Sandusky sex abuse scandal. Following the tried-and-true policy of shoot first, ask questions later, the powers that be chose to dismiss Paterno unceremoniously over the phone in the middle of the season rather than allowing him to retire a few months later (or even giving him the simple courtesy of firing him in person). When we last heard from the board of trustees, they explained to an expectant public that the firing had taken place because they did not feel that Paterno could effectively carry on as coach in the midst of the scandal. "Paterno could not be expected to continue to effectively perform his duties and that it was in the best interests of the University to make an immediate change in his status."

An outraged but reasonable public and an abysmal conclusion to the football season (8-1 before Paterno's dismissal; 1-3 after) combined to make that kind of rationalization insufficient. Now the board of trustees is taking a more aggressive tack, claiming that Paterno's fulfillment of his legal duties actually amounted to a failure on his part, demonstrating the remarkable ease with which the living are willing to speak ill of the dead. "We determined that his decision to do his minimum legal duty and not to do more to follow up constituted a failure of leadership by Coach Paterno." In other words, that Paterno did what was required of him and did not have the benefit of hindsight to indicate that he would be required to do more, represented the leadership deficiencies in a man who had been a leader in the entire State College community for decades.

According to trustee Keith Eckel, “Many people have indicated that they did not understand, and this is our last attempt to try to make it as clear as possible.” Curiously, many people still don't understand even this last attempt; if this is as clear as it is possible to make the motivation, that says something about the clarity of the trustees thinking, both at the time and as they try to reconstruct a viable excuse in retrospect. Paterno's lawyer, Wick Sollers, is among those who think that this newest explanation only makes clearer the true, rather than the professed, motivation for Paterno's firing: "to deflect criticism of their leadership by trying to focus the blame on Joe Paterno. This is not fair to Joe’s legacy; it is not consistent with the facts; and it does not serve the best interests of the University...The Board’s latest statement reaffirms that they did not conduct a thorough investigation of their own and engaged in a rush to judgment." Sollers is unsure why the board "believes it is necessary and appropriate to explain—for the fourth or fifth time—why they fired Joe Paterno so suddenly and unjustifiably on Nov. 9, 2011."

Maybe it would benefit everyone to return to the moment of Paterno's untimely demise (the one before his ultimate untimely demise) and consider what the board had to say about its motives then. "'I’m not sure I can tell you specifically,' board vice chair John Surma replied when asked at a packed news conference why Paterno had to be fired immediately. 'In our view, we thought change now was necessary.'" There you have it, the unvarnished truth. The board had no idea why they needed to dismiss Paterno without investigation, without cause, and without the coolness of reasoning that even a moment's delay may have prompted. They felt it needed to be done, because they felt the rising heat of controversy and felt compelled to make a burnt offering of the choicest calf. Everything that came after that has been an effort to self-justify in the cold light of hindsight.

The sick irony, sickest of all ironies, is that from the grave Paterno is proving a model of leadership for the board. When he looked back on his actions with the benefit of full knowledge and found them wanting, he admitted his shortcomings like a man and expressed regret. Would that the board could emulate that kind of leadership.