c. 1999 Religion News Service

(Eugene Kennedy, a longtime observer of the Roman Catholic Church, is professor emeritus of psychology at Loyola University in Chicago and author most recently of”My Brother Joseph,”published by St. Martin’s Press.)

UNDATED _ Impeachment has now been buried but we are not yet home from the last services.

In this silence after the mighty merry-go-round spin machines have lurched to a stop, can we hear or see any truth or lesson that we wish we had identified earlier?

Who really spoke up for morality during our long months of ordeal by public relations? Was that barrage so deafening and blinding that we were unable to hear or see anybody who could be identified with the right and just thing to do?

Spokespersons for traditional morality were few and far between.

Even Billy Graham, the great evangelist, was distracted from commenting on the Commandments to observing, as people do in limousines after funerals, about the sexual vigor and attractiveness of the president.

That, however, was better than saying nothing, which is exactly what most other religious leaders chose to do. Of course, they all went to the grave, feeling safe enough to utter their usual platitudes on the return ride.

But where were they when the nation went through an excruciating experience, the core of which was undeniably moral? In short, their business more than anybody else’s.

Do they, in this post-interment moment, have any regrets at not having offered any guidance about the basics of telling the truth or lying, about the rule of law or the significance of oaths taken in God’s name?

Apparently they have no misgivings for missing what was undeniably one of their great opportunities in modern history.

Take America’s Roman Catholic bishops, for example.

In the 1980s, they were recognized as a cohort who spoke with authority in their pastoral debates and reflections on such critical subjects as the use of nuclear arms and social justice in our capitalist system.

What has prompted the extended silence from these worthies? Have they decided to stand aside for political reasons, so that they do not alienate one party or the other to make the rough way smooth when they seek school vouchers from them in the future?

Do they think that right and wrong, truth and falsehood in public life are not intimately associated with the pro-life position that they courageously support on the issue of abortion?

On his recent visit to America, Pope John Paul II integrated an array of pro-life issues, including capital punishment, on the model of the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin’s”consistent ethic of life.”Did the bishops not hear the pope when he told all Catholics that if they want peace, they must”work for justice?”How could any religious leader find an excuse from speaking out as we wandered in an Egypt of moral bewilderment about sex, honor, and public responsibility?

About the only thing we have heard from them is criticism of Catholic officeholders who take a”pro-choice”stand. And the Catholic governor of Pennsylvania has been told he is not welcome at Catholic events.

Wow! That’s courageous morality in the market place all right.

Those who fear the boundary between church and state has become permeable in the United States can retire their anxiety. Church and state have avoided eye contact and any real dialogue about our national crisis of conscience.

With superb irony, Monica Lewinsky has become the spokesperson for contemporary morality. In her recent deposition she uttered a phrase that sums up not only her moral position but that of most American institutions, including the country’s Catholic bishops. “I feel very uncomfortable,”she said,”making judgments.” That summarizes the subjective state of modern American morality. Nobody feels comfortable making moral judgments. Neither did Thomas More. He did so, however, when truth and falsehood, moral right and wrong, were at stake in the public life of England.

In the light of this rueful post-mortem, should religious leaders, including the bishops, resign? They will not, of course, but unless we hear something to the contrary, we know where they stand anyway.

Right next to Monica the moralist who is just plain”uncomfortable making judgments.”

DEA END KENNEDY