Albert Schroeder then expressed gratitude to Bonelli for his cooperation in testifying and counseled him to ‘keep himself spiritually strong by attending the meetings regularly,’ and added that if Bonelli heard any other information to come to them with it.
In my opinion, nothing expresses more clearly and forcefully the direction taken in the entire process of investigation, interrogation and ultimate condemnation than does this particular tape. I can think of nothing that would be more helpful to all of Jehovah’s Witnesses everywhere to enable them to have a balanced, not a one-sided, view of what took place, the “climate” that prevailed, how the men connected with God’s “channel” at headquarters conducted themselves, than for them to hear this tape and compare it with what has thus far been told them by the organization or what they have heard through gossip. But they should also have the right to ask questions as to what was done to verify the testimony of this man, to separate fact from rumor, and also the right to ask why this kind of testimony was viewed by the headquarters men as of such value, “just what we need.”
The likelihood of the organization’s doing that, allowing this tape to be heard (with no portions erased) and for questions to be asked is, I believe, virtually nonexistent. I personally think they would destroy it rather than allow that to happen. I still do not understand why the Chairman’s Committee did not feel ashamed to let me hear it as they did.
The Governing Body had ample opportunity to know that within days after the disfellowshipping of the headquarters staff members, rumors of the same kind contained in this tape began circulating within the Bethel family. The “apostates” were forming their own religion, had been holding separatist meetings, baptizing people, their new belief went under the name of “Sons of Freedom”—these and similar expressions were common talk. They were also totally false. Governing Body members presiding at the morning Bible discussions made many comments about the “apostates” but did not see fit to expose the falsity of the rumors circulating.
Those rumors went unchecked and eventually spread all over the globe. Yet every Witness who passed these on was speaking, even if unwittingly, false testimony against his neighbor. The only ones in position to expose the falsity of those rumors and thus help stop the false testimony were those of the Governing Body. Why they did not choose to do so only they know. I do not doubt that among them there were some who honestly believed that the things they were hearing were factual. But I believe that in their position and with their weight of responsibility they had an obligation to investigate and to help others to realize that it was not factual, it was fiction, and not only fiction but hurtful, even vicious, fiction.
I would not argue that errors of judgment were all on one side. I do not doubt in the least that among those of us “brought to trial” there were cases of injudicious statements. The evidence indicates that some of the most extreme statements were made by a man who, on being approached, quickly offered to become a ‘witness for the prosecution,’ testifying against a fellow elder. I do not personally know that man, have never met him, nor do I know the other elder. They are total strangers to me.32
I do not think it was wrong for the headquarters to make at least some inquiry into the matter as a result of the information that was brought to their attention. It would be entirely natural for them to do so. If they believe that what they teach is truth from God it would be wrong for them not to do so.
What I find very difficult to understand and to harmonize with Scripture is the manner in which this was done, the precipitous reaction and hastiness, the methods employed—covering over and withholding information from persons whose life interests were intimately involved, whose good name was at stake, the devious approaches employed to obtain damaging information, of coercion through threat of disfellowshipping to obtain “cooperation” in getting such incriminating evidence—and, above all, the spirit shown, the crushing despotism, the unfeeling legalistic approach, and the harshness of the actions taken. Whatever injudicious statements may have been made by a few of those ‘put to trial,’ I think the facts show them to have been far surpassed by the means used to deal with the matter.
As in the Inquisition, all rights were held by the inquisitors, the accused had none. The investigators felt they had the right to ask any question and at the same time refuse to answer questions put to them. They insisted on maintaining their judicial proceedings secret, entirely away from observation by anyone else, yet claimed the right to pry into the private conversations and activities of those they interrogated. For them, their judicial secrecy was proper, the exercise of “confidentiality,” their evasiveness was simply being “practical,” strategic, but the efforts of the accused to maintain the privacy of their personal conversations was labeled as being devious, as evidence of a hidden conspiracy.
The investigators expected their own actions to be taken as evidence of zeal for God, for “revealed truth,” while at the same time they suspected the worst in all that the accused had done, made no allowance for their sincerity in wanting to put God first, or for their love of truth even when that truth was contradicted by traditional teachings.
When René Vázquez, for example, on being interrogated, endeavored to express himself moderately, undogmatically, to show that he had no desire to make flaming issues of minor doctrinal matters, and to make clear that he was not being insistent that anyone else see things as he did or adopt his views, he found that this was very unsatisfactory to the judicial committee members. They sought to pin him down on his inner feelings, his personal beliefs. As he put it, when a question from one direction did not accomplish this, then a question from another direction attempted to force him into some categorical reply. In his hearing before the first judicial committee, another elder, named Benjamín Angulo, was also “on trial.” Angulo was very positive, even adamant in many of his expressions. When René spoke in moderate terms, one of the Committee members, Harold Jackson, told René, “you are not even a good apostate.” Saying that René did not clearly defend his beliefs, Jackson continued:
Look at Angulo, he defends them. You talked to Angulo about these things and look how he now talks about them. He may be disfellowshipped, and yet you are not definite about these points.
In the second hearing with the appeal committee, as has been shown, René’s efforts at being moderate brought forth the expression “hogwash.” Mildness, moderateness, a willingness to yield where the issues permit yielding, these qualities do not make good evidence for disfellowshipping persons as rebellious “apostates.” Yet they are qualities that are part of René Vázquez’ nature, and those who know him know that this is true.
Two years after his disfellowshipping I talked to René about the whole affair and asked him how he now felt about having spoken to others on what he saw in the Scriptures. What would he say to someone who advanced the argument that, as in the case of someone working for a business organization, as long as he is part of that organization he should uphold all its policies and if he could not he should first leave before saying anything. His reply was:
But that is a business organization and I did not think of matters in those terms. I viewed the matter as involving a higher relationship, one with God. I know what my feelings were then and what was in my heart, and no one can tell me otherwise. If I were in some scheme, why should I now deny it? When the hearings came, I prayed that I would not be disfellowshipped. Others did the same. Yet it happened.
If I had wanted to stay in the organization just to proselytize, I would now be a militant. Where is the ‘sect’ that I was working for? Where is the afterfact to prove that is what I was working for? To this day, even when people have approached me to talk with me, afterward I prefer to let them call me rather than take the initiative.
If I had it all to do over again I would be facing the same dilemma. I feel that so much good came from what I learned from the Scriptures, that it proved such a blessing to have things cleared up and brought me closer to God.
>
If I had had some ‘scheme,’ I could have programmed the way I would do things. But what I did was simply human and I was acting according to human reaction. That human element took precedence over fear of an organization. It was never my idea to disassociate myself from the Witnesses. I was just rejoicing in what I was reading in the Bible. The conclusions I came to were as a result of my personal reading of the Bible. I was in no way trying to be dogmatic.
The question I ask is, after all these thirty years as a Witness, the feelings I had of mercy and compassion—why were these not felt by them? Why the conniving way of framing questions? The hearings were held as if to gather information proving guilt, not to aid an ‘erring’ brother.
One rumor that circulated widely, in fact internationally, was that these three men (Vázquez, Sánchez and Kuilan), all of whom worked in the Spanish Translation Department, were deliberately making changes in material when translating and that I knew of this and had condoned it. (In French-speaking countries the rumor was adjusted to apply to French translation work.) René’s comments on this were:
That is ridiculous. It would have been impossible to do. There were no changes made and that never came into our minds. No one ever accused us of that. Everything translated had to go through about five different persons for checking, Fabio Silva being the last one to read it. In translating it was always necessary to strive to be faithful to the original idea.33
Probably the most vicious rumor, passed on as “truth” by elders and others in various parts of this country, was that there was homosexuality being practiced among the “apostates.” Where such a blatant lie originated is difficult to imagine. The only explanation I can think of is that, about a year before the inquisition tactics began, an organizational member in a position of considerable responsibility had been accused of homosexual tendencies. The Governing Body handled the case and endeavored to keep the matter quiet. Nonetheless, it seems that some talk did circulate. In the rumor mills this man’s actions were now transferred over to the “apostates.” This was easy to do since spreaders of rumors are seldom concerned about facts. I can think of no other possible explanation.
Why would people priding themselves on their high Christian principles pass on such vicious rumors when they had absolutely nothing but gossip on which to base them? I believe that in many cases it was simply because many felt a need somehow to justify in their own minds and hearts what had happened. They had to have reasons other than the true ones to explain why such summary and harsh actions were taken against people with unblemished records, people whom even their closest associates knew to be peaceful, unaggressive persons. To see the ugly label of “apostate” suddenly placed on these people required something more than the facts of the matter provided. Without such, those who knew these people, and others who heard of them, would have been obliged to face up to the possibility that the organization they viewed as God’s sole channel of communication and guidance on earth was perhaps not what they thought it to be. For many this was to think the unthinkable. It would severely disturb their feeling of security, a security that rests largely (far more so than most would acknowledge) on their unquestioning reliance on a human organization.
SANHEDRIN EXPERIENCE
Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful. I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself. My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me.
— 1 Corinthians 4:2-4, New International Version.
When I arrived in Brooklyn, all the information that had been withheld from me was given in one large dose. The next morning I was due to appear before the Governing Body in full session.
Afterward, I could review it and see just what had been done, the program of action followed, the methods employed. But at the time it only created a sense of shock. There was no opportunity to ask those involved about the accuracy of what was now given to me—they were already disfellowshipped, their testimony now unacceptable to the Body.
I still found it hard to believe that people, the people within whom I had my lifelong religious heritage, would ever do what I saw being done. My feelings on going to the Brooklyn headquarters were strangely comparable to my feelings when making trips to the Dominican Republic during the regime of the dictator Trujillo. In Puerto Rico, my point of departure, everything was so free and open, people on the street or in public conveyances talked with no sense of restraint. But as soon as my plane landed at the airport of what was then Ciudad Trujillo (now Santo Domingo), the change was almost palpable. People were so guarded in their speech, in public conveyances conversation was minimal, people were concerned lest any remark be taken as unfavorable to the dictator and be reported by the spy system that proliferated during that regime. Conversation and interchange of ideas that were viewed as completely normal in Puerto Rico were dangerous in the Dominican Republic, liable to bring upon one the label of an enemy of the state. In the one country, a man could express an opinion that differed from that of the majority and feel no sense of concern if he later learned that he had been quoted. In the other, a man expressing any thought that did not conform to the existing ideology afterward found himself engaging in self-recrimination, feeling as if he had committed some wrong, something over which to feel guilt, and the thought of being quoted was a foreboding one. In this latter case, the issue was not whether what one had said was true; it was not whether his saying it was honestly motivated and morally proper. The question was, how would it be taken by those in power?
Any feeling of this latter kind that I had had at the headquarters before the spring of 1980 had been only fleeting, momentary. Now it surrounded me, seemed overwhelming. The view those exercising governing authority had already taken was obvious from the “briefing” given me by the Chairman’s Committee, and by the remarks they and the Service Department men expressed on the tapes. In the highly emotional atmosphere and the climate of suspicion that had developed, it was difficult to keep in mind that what I or others had said could be viewed in any other light than the harsh way these men had expressed it. To keep in mind that what might be condemned from an organizational standpoint as heretical, could, from the standpoint of God’s Word, be right, proper and good, was hard to do, particularly after a life of intense service in the organization. I knew that I had not sought out people to whom to speak on these matters; they had approached me and I felt an obligation to point them to God’s Word for answers, even if the answers found there differed from those of men in authority.
I felt sure that by far the majority of the men before whom I would appear would see the matter from the organizational viewpoint only. If, from the start, there had been any other point of view taken, I was satisfied that the whole affair could have been quietly, peacefully and simply worked out, through friendly, brotherly conversation, encouraging moderation if any immoderate speech had been made, urging considerate restraint if inconsiderate restraint had been shown. By avoiding condemnatory confrontations, refusing to resort to high-handed methods and legalistic approaches, it would not have been necessary for private conversations and incidents that involved a small handful of persons to have blown up to such proportions that they became a cause célèbre, a full-scale affair with violent impact on the lives of many persons, one that produced reverberations and gossip on an international scale.
On going before the Governing Body, I felt no desire to add fuel to the fire already raging. It had already consumed some much-loved friends. I was willing to acknowledge that something I personally deplored—statements of an extreme or dogmatic nature—might have been made by a few of those involved, though I had no way of determining at this time to what extent this was true, for it related primarily to persons with whom I had had no Scriptural discussion, some of whom I did not even know.
On Wednesday, May 21, the Governing Body session opened with Albert Schroeder as Chairman. He first stated that the Cha
irman’s Committee had asked me if I was willing to have the Governing Body’s discussion with me taped and that I had agreed, with the provision that a copy of the taping be provided to me.
The Governing Body conference room contained one, long oval table capable of seating about twenty persons around it. The full Body of seventeen members was present. Aside from Lyman Swingle, who sat to my left, no member had conversed with me; the day before, no one (not even the member related to me) had visited me, either in my office or in my room. If there was any warmth or brotherly compassion in the Governing Body conference room, I failed to discern it. I felt only the feelings I had experienced when appearing in secular court trials of the past, with the exception that in those cases I felt freer to speak and knew that other persons were present who could witness what was said, the attitudes expressed. This instead was a closed secret session; the attitude displayed seemed only to confirm what René Vázquez had told me of the attitude manifested toward him.
The Chairman said that the Body first wanted me to express myself on each of the eight points the Chairman’s Committee had drawn up as evidences of apostasy (in their memo of April 28). I did, in each case endeavoring to be moderate, undogmatic, as yielding and conciliatory as I could be without going against my conscience by being either dishonest or hypocritical. The absolutist form in which the points were presented by the Chairman’s Committee in their memo—as if one either accepted fully the organization’s teaching on these points or else viewed them in the dogmatic way expressed in the memo—simply did not fit my case. None of their eight points expressed what I felt were the true issues. The issue was not whether God had an “organization” on earth but what kind of organization—a centralized, highly structured, authoritarian organization, or simply that of a congregation of brothers where the only authority is authority to help, to guide, to serve, never to dominate? Thus my response was that I believed that God had an organization on earth in the sense that He had a congregation on earth, the Christian congregation, a brotherhood.
Crisis of Conscience Page 33