The Problem with Keeping Bad Employees: Lessons from Vatican
I’ve done two posts recently (here and here) on the sad saga of child sex abuse in the Roman Catholic Church. Even if you accept only part of what’s been reported in the media or admitted by the Church, the abuse continued for decades; involved hundreds of priests and thousands of young boys; occurred in every country where the Church is located; and was covered up from the lowest to the highest levels in the Church. It now appears from Church records that Pope Benedict XVI himself, while known as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, ignored pleas from his subordinates to defrock an American priest who sexually molested 200 boys in a school for the deaf operated by the Church.
As a reader has already pointed out, the Church isn’t a regular employer. Thus, one should be careful about drawing HR and employment law lessons from an institution of apples and applying them to an organization of oranges. There are, however, lessons from this debacle worthy of careful study by all employers.
The principal lesson is that keeping bad employees (either from a performance or behavior standpoint) because they’re your buddies or a friend’s buddies will bite you and your organization every time. It may not be as big a bite as that taken out of the Roman Catholic Church, but it’ll hurt, and it’ll leave a permanent scar.
There’s little doubt that if the Church were a regular employer and if Pope Benedict were a regular CEO, the secular gates of hell would obliterate the employer, and the CEO would resign or be fired. Even though that won’t occur with the Church or the Pope, what happens now and in the coming months might well serve as a textbook example of what an employer in severe crisis because of its failure to deal with significantly bad employment problems should or should not do. Pay attention.
Leave a Reply
About Chris Parker
Chris Parker's practice focuses on the representation and counseling of companies in matters pertaining to the workplace and the protection of their intellectual property and trade secrets. In addition to serving as an advocate for clients, Mr. Parker is also trained as a mediator and frequently serves as a third-party neutral.
Read more about Chris Parker
About Jimmy Daniel
Jimmy Daniel provides counseling to businesses of all sizes related to the employment relationship. He assists in the drafting of employment agreements, policies, and handbooks, as well as provides guidance related to compliance with federal, state, and local legislation such as the Fair Labor Standards Act and the Family and Medical Leave Act.
Read more about Jimmy Daniel
About Larry Bridgesmith
While serving in an Of Counsel relationship with the firm, Mr. Bridgesmith also serves as the Executive Director at the Institute for Conflict Resolution at Lipscomb University and as an officer and principal in Strategic Resolutions Group, LLC. In these roles, Mr. Bridgesmith brings over 30 years of legal experience in dispute resolution and innovative workplace strategies to clients, students and business entities alike.
Read more about Larry Bridgesmith
Certainly no one would argue about the horribleness of the child sex abuse problem. However, since the Church “isn’t a regular employer,” using this as an example of keeping bad employees is completely inappropriate. There are plenty of examples out there of employers that bury their head in the sand when it comes to dealing with bad employees. Using this forum to bash the Catholic Church is really poor judgment.
Interesting to think about the Church as an employer…
This thought process could be extended to considering the HR implications of retaining in employment priests who have committed crimes against people. Of course, they were not convicted because they are “protected”, but still, in the eyes of the law, they should be considered felons.
“Using this forum to bash the Catholic Church is really poor judgment.” Michele, I don’t read John’s post as bashing the Catholic Church. As someone who was baptized in the Catholic church & who went to parochial schools, I’m deeply saddened by what’s happened. But the truth is, it DID happen, it’s been acknowledged that the abuse was covered up by the church, and there’s nothing to be gained by continuing to pretend that no one in the church did anything wrong. All that does is allow the perpetrators and those who knew about it to rationalize their behavior and keeps the victims from healing. John is right, if the church were a corporation, those perps would be in jail and the CEO would be fired for having knowledge of the crime & covering it up. The Bible says that lying is wrong, no matter who does it.
I didn’t realize this was a forum for religious debate under the guise of employment law commentary by industry experts. I thought this was a professional newsletter. It is very unprofessional and borderline irresponsible to single out one religion in this article when leaders from all faiths have been guilty of abuse, other criminal activity and subsequent coverup. Like Michele, I struggle to find the relevance of this comparison between the failures of a religious institution and employment law in today’s workplace.
Interesting that Erica and Michele see the Catholic Church as the victim rather than the hundreds of children. Hardly the attitude Jesus would have expressed.