La Santa Sede desmiente que haya pedido a los obispos de Irlanda que ocultaran denuncias de abusos

In ReligiónenLibetad

La Santa Sede desmintió haber solicitado a los obispos irlandeses que no dieran a conocer a la policía los casos de supuestos abusos de menores por parte de sacerdotes. Esto, luego de que la televisora local RTE, y difundida después por varios medios comunicación, hiciera pública la noticia de una carta de 1997 donde supuestamente se hace dicha solicitud.

El director de la Sala de Prensa del Vaticano, el sacerdote Federico Lombardi, refutó a través de un extenso y detallado comunicado la información al respecto, calificándola de "tendenciosa".

En la nota vaticana, Lombardi afirma que la carta "no pide encubrir ni silenciar nada, ni comenta nada sobre ocultar pederastas a las autoridades civiles. El texto sólo afirma que: ´la situación de "informar obligatoriamente" [a la policía de meros sospechosos] plantea serias reservas de naturaleza moral y canónica´. Ni prohíbe investigar, ni informar a las autoridades de casos bien fundados, ni prohíbe tomar medidas a los obispos... sólo plantea "reservas morales y canónicas".

El texto completo del comunicado vaticano
En el curso de un programa televisivo en Irlanda se hizo referencia a una carta escrita por el entonces nuncio en Irlanda, Luciano Sotero, a los miembros de la conferencia episcopal en 1997. Esa fue presentada en modo tendencioso por algunos medios de comunicación como prueba de una indicación, de parte vaticana, de cobertura de casos de abuso sexual contra menores.
La carta -escrita en base a indicaciones de la Congregación para el Clero- se refiere a un documento específico de estudio de un comité de obispos irlandeses y pone de relieve los aspectos problemáticos, indicando la necesidad de una profundización que tuviera en cuenta también situaciones análogas en otros países y que fuera conducido en diálogo y colaboración con las conferencias episcopales de los países involucrados.
Es necesario, ante todo, hacer notar que la carta no dice en modo alguno que no deban ser respetadas las leyes en vigor en el país.

Además la carta insiste justamente en el hecho que es importante que la legislación canónica sea siempre respetada, precisamente para evitar que los culpables tengan motivo fundados para un recurso y obteniendo, por lo tanto, el resultado contrario al deseado.
Es necesario finalmente recordar que la carta fue escrita en un tiempo precedente a las normas de 2001 y a aquella unificación de las competencias en la materia bajo la jurisdicción de la Congregación para la Doctrina de la Fe, que ha ciertamente ayudado a la claridad de los ordenamientos y a la eficacia de los procesos.
El contexto de la carta de 1997

En 1996 los obispos irlandeses hicieron llegar a Roma sus nuevas normativas (de 1996) para luchar contra los abusos sexuales a menores. En esas normas se decía: "en todos los casos en que se sepa o sospeche que un niño haya sido, o esté siendo, abusado sexualmente por un sacerdote o religioso, el caso deberá ser comunicado a las autoridades civiles" (lo mismo se aplicaba a casos de adultos comentando abusos en su infancia). La norma decía también: "debe informarse sin demora al oficial de policiía", y añadía que si el denunciante pedía confidencialidad y privacidad (por ejemplo, cuando el caso había pasado décadas atrás, quizá con el culpable ya muerto y no queriendo alarmar a parientes o familiares) "aún así, no se debe dar confidencialidad absoluta, sino que expresamente hay que explicar esta política de informar".

Estas nuevas normas de 1996 de los obispos irlandeses, que implicaban denunciar a personas sólo porque "se sospeche", e incluso contra la voluntad del denunciante y eliminaban el derecho a la confidencialidad (normas que ni la ley irlandesa establecía, ni la de muchos países tampoco) no encajaban con el derecho canónico de 1983. Muchos pederastas reales podían utilizar a Roma declarando defectos en el proceso, y muchos acusados inocentes podían ver su nombre ensuciado sin derecho a ninguna defensa, por un mero rumor o chismorreo.

La carta tergiversada por la prensa
La respuesta llegó a través del Nuncio para Irlanda, Luciano Storero, en enero de 1997: es la carta que se ha hecho famosa ahora. Aunque Associated Press y muchos medios que han copiado su comunicado afirman que "Storero pidió a los dirigentes eclesiásticos abstenerse de cooperar con la policía", la realidad no tiene nada que ver.

Por un lado, muchos aspectos del documento de 1996 de los obispos chirriaban con el Código de Derecho Canónico: un caso juzgado en Irlanda podía apelar a Roma, y en Roma ser absuelto por mil defectos de forma. Por eso, la carta de Storero (quien se limita a transmitir un recado de la Congregación para el Clero), dice: "la Congregación desea enfatizar que el documento ha de conformarse según las normas canónicas actuales". No es una situación muy distinta a si una autonomía española crea una ley de delación y detención rápida de sospechosos de pederastia y un órgano consultivo dictaminase, con carácter previo, que no es constitucional.

El texto de Storero no dice "que se silencien los casos de pederastia porque podrían resultar vergonzosos e ir en detrimento de la Iglesia". Lo que dice es que si se aplica la nueva normativa irlandesa y se producen recursos canónicos hasta Roma (acusados que defiendan su inocencia), muchos juicios irlandeses podrían verse anulados y "los resultados podrían resultar vergonzosos e ir en detrimento de las autoridades diocesanas".

El caos de competencias antes de 2001
Por otro lado, la Congregación para el Clero sólo podía hacer sugerencias en 1997, porque no tenía la competencia sobre los casos de pederastia. La verdadera competencia correspondía a cada obispo, que debía usar el Código de 1983. Pero ya en 1997 se veía que esta fórmula no funcionaba: muchos obispos se desentendían o no querían usar el Derecho Canónico o querían pasar sus casos escabrosos "a quien sea en Roma".

Por eso, la carta de Storero explica a la jerarquía irlandesa que ya entonces la Congregación del Clero estaba estudiando a nivel global los casos de abusos en distintos países anglohablantes para, "en el momento adecuado, con la colaboración de las conferencias episcopales interesadas" establecer "directivas concretas respecto a estas políticas".

Es decir, en 1997 se buscaba una normativa común y eficaz para todos estos países: llegó en 2001, cuando se estableció que todos los casos de abusos a menores (con causa fundada, después de una investigación diocesana) debían comunicarse a la Congregación de Doctrina de la Fe, es decir, al cardenal Joseph Ratzinger, que antes de esa fecha no tenía apenas competencias en este tema. Desde que Roma centralizó los casos y la normativa en 2001, pudo darse cuenta de la gravedad del asunto y la ineficacia de las políticas locales o regionales previas.

Por último, la carta de Storero no pide encubrir ni silenciar nada, ni comenta nada sobre ocultar pederastas a las autoridades civiles. El texto sólo afirma que: "la situación de "informar obligatoriamente" [a la policía de meros sospechosos] plantea serias reservas de naturaleza moral y canónica". Ni prohíbe investigar, ni informar a las autoridades de casos buen fundados, ni prohíbe tomar medidas a los obispos... sólo plantea "reservas morales y canónicas".

"Vatican Warned Bishops Not To Report Child Abuse"!

by Jimmy Akin

In National Catholic Register

That’s the sensationalistic headline of this story in the New York Times. As usual, it’s by Laurie Goodstein, and as usual she makes significant errors in her reporting that make the story more sensationalistic in a way that (just coincidentally) paints the Holy See in an unfavorable light. (So . . . what’s up with that, Laurie? You’ve been on the beat long enough that you should be better informed on these matters.)

As with previous stories of the same nature, this one involves a document from back in the 1990s that has now come to the attention of the press. It was a letter written by the Apostolic Nuncio of Ireland (that’s basically the Holy See’s ambassador to Ireland, though he also has a liaising role with the local bishops). In the letter the Nuncio—then Luciano Storero—communicated a message to the Irish bishops from the Congregation for Clergy concerning a document that the Irish bishops had drafted on child sexual abuse.

This letter was immediately hailed by groups like SNAP as the “smoking gun” they’ve been waiting for, showing that the Holy See took part in the cover up of sexual abuse, allowing it to be sued in court, humiliated, and have money extracted from it.

You can read (a tiny, low resolution image of) the letter itself here.

Now let’s walk through it and see how the claims made about it stack up against the document itself . . .

APOSTOLIC NUNCIATURE IN IRELAND
N. 808/97
Dublin, 31 January 1997

Strictly Confidential

To: the Members of the Irish Episcopal conference
—their Dioceses

Your Excellency,

The Congregation for the Clergy has attentively studied the complex question of sexual abuse or minors by clerics and the document entitled “Child Sexual Abuse: Framework for a Church Response”, published by the Irish Catholic Bishops Advisory Committee.

So here is what has happened at the time the letter was written: Priests and religious in Ireland abused children. This came to light and caused an enormous scandal. (In fact, it brought down the Irish government.) In response, the Irish bishops conference (in conjunction with the Conference of Religious in Ireland) created an Advisory Committee to draft a document proposing how to respond to cases of child sexual abuse. The result was the document referenced above, which is online here in .pdf form. At least that’s a version of the document. Whether it was the version referenced in the letter is not 100% clear. In any event, this document came to the attention of the Congregation for Clergy in Rome, and now the Congregation for Clergy has asked the Irish nuncio to convey its impressions to the Irish bishops.

Note well: The Congregation for Clergy is not the same as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict) was the head of the doctrinal body, not the Congregation for Clergy. The head of that in 1997 was Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos. More on him in a bit. For now the important point—given the press’s invariable attempt to read everything Vatican in terms of the pope himself—is that Cardinal Ratzinger/Pope Benedict has no connection with this letter. It wasn’t his department that was involved.

The congregation wishes to emphasize the need for this document to conform to the canonical norms presently in force.

So: The Congregation for Clergy has concerns that provisions in the document did not conform to canon law as it was in 1997. Fair enough. That’s not anything sinister. To give a civil law analogy, it’s a little like warning someone that parts of his proposed law appear to violate the U.S. Constitution. Warning someone that parts of his law appear unconstitutional is not a sinister thing. It’s a way of ensuring justice and avoiding a lot of headaches for everybody.

One might be wrong, and provisions of the law in fact might be fully constitutional (read: canonical), but saying, “Your policy needs to be legal in terms of Church law” is not evidence of evil intent.

The text, however, contains “procedures and dispositions which appear contrary to canonical discipline and which, if applied, could invalidate the actions of the same Bishops who are attempting to put a stop to these problems. If such procedures were to be followed by the Bishops and there were cases of eventual hierarchical recourse lodged at the Holy See, the results could be highly embarrassing and detrimental to those same Diocesan authorities.

So the Congregation for Clergy (who is being quoted in this paragraph; note the open quotation marks) is concerned that some proposals in the Irish Advisory Committee document appear to be contrary to canon law. As a result, bishops acting on those parts of the proposal might take canonical actions against priests that are legally invalid. In other words, there could be miscarriages of justice. So what happens if miscarriages of justice occur? Well, the priests might appeal their case to Rome, and Rome might agree that there was a miscarriage of justice because the law was not applied correctly. In that case the bishop would be put in an embarrassing position.

And that’s quite true. A bishop would be put in an embarrassing and detrimental position if he violated canon law and a miscarriage of justice resulted and his actions had to be undone. There’s nothing sinister about telling a bishop that. People in positions of power need to be reminded regularly that their authority has limits and they must provide justice for those whose cases they handle. The law needs to be followed closely so that we (a) don’t have innocent priests being wrongly convicted and (b) we don’t have predator priests escaping punishment because the law wasn’t followed. The exact same concerns apply in civil courts: We need to follow the law to avoid miscarriages of justice.

Now, you’ll notice something that hasn’t yet been mentioned in this letter: the issue of reporting predators to the police. That hasn’t come up yet. All the discussion so far has been about making sure the Church’s own internal legal system is followed so that we don’t have miscarriages of justice.

How did Laurie Goodstein frame this in her article for the Times? She wrote: “It [the letter] said that for both ‘moral and canonical’ reasons, the bishops must handle all accusations through internal church channels. Bishops who disobeyed, the letter said, may face repercussions when their abuse cases were heard in Rome.”Read more

La crisis de la pederastia en la Iglesia en 1.001 palabras

In http://bxvi.wordpress.com/

Los cargos

New York Times (NYT) publica (12/3/10) que en 1980 la archidiócesis de Múnich y Freising, siendo Joseph Ratzinger obispo, acogió y finalmente reincorporó a un sacerdote acusado de abusar sexualmente de niños. El cura perpetró más tarde nuevos abusos y fue procesado. Como se ha demostrado después, quien tomó la decisión de readmisión no fue Ratzinger sino el vicario general: la reasignación tuvo lugar en septiembre de 1982, cuando Ratzinger ya estaba en Roma .

Por las mismas fechas (5/03/10) se intenta implicar al hermano de Ratzinger, pero la acusación no se sostiene.

La respuesta de Benedicto XVI

Benedicto XVI (19/03/10) escribe una carta a los católicos de Irlanda [inglés, castellano] sobre los abusos a niños y jóvenes por parte de clérigos, destapados por los informes Murphy (julio 2009) y Ryan (mayo 2009). Irlanda es el segundo país tras Estados Unidos donde se investiga a fondo.

En la misiva, Benedicto XVI apunta 8 causas de este desastre: 1) inadecuada respuesta a la secularización, 2) descuido de prácticas sacramentales y devocionales (confesión frecuente, oración diaria y retiros anuales), 3) tendencia a adoptar formas de pensamiento y juicio sin referencia suficiente al Evangelio; 4) tendencia a evitar enfoques penales de las situaciones canónicamente irregulares; 5) procedimientos inadecuados para determinar la idoneidad de los candidatos al sacerdocio y a la vida religiosa; 6) insuficiente formación humana, moral, intelectual y espiritual en los seminarios y noviciados; 7) tendencia social a favorecer el clero y otras figuras de autoridad y 8 ) preocupación fuera de lugar por el buen nombre de la Iglesia y para evitar escándalos.

A las víctimas dice: “Habéis sufrido inmensamente y eso me apesadumbra en verdad. Sé que nada puede borrar el mal que habéis soportado. (…) Es comprensible que os resulte difícil perdonar o reconciliaros con la Iglesia. En su nombre, expreso abiertamente la vergüenza y el remordimiento que sentimos todos. Al mismo tiempo, os pido que no perdáis la esperanza”. A los sacerdotes y religiosos que han abusado de niños: “Debéis responder de ello ante Dios todopoderoso y ante los tribunales debidamente constituidos”. A los obispos: ”No se puede negar que algunos de vosotros y de vuestros predecesores habéis fallado, a veces gravemente, a la hora de aplicar las normas, codificadas desde hace largo tiempo, del derecho canónico sobre los delitos de abusos de niños. Se han cometido graves errores en la respuesta a las acusaciones”.

Benedicto XVI propone cinco medidas: 1) un año de penitencia, 2) redescubrir el sacramento de la Reconciliación (la confesión), 3) fomentar la adoración eucarística; 4) una Visita Apostólica (una inspección) en algunas diócesis, seminarios y congregaciones religiosas; 5) una misión para todos los obispos, sacerdotes y religiosos. En otras palabras: hacer limpieza.

Más cargos aún

El 24/03/10, NYT apunta directamente a Benedicto XVI como responsable de un caso, cuando era todavía cardenal: el de Lawrence Murphy, que abusó de niños sordos en los 70 en Milwaukee y no fue condenado ni por la justicia ordinaria ni por el arzobispado. Como se ha visto después, la falta de diligencia en el castigo del malhechor fue culpa del propio arzobispado local: el caso no llegó al Vaticano hasta los 90. El sesgo de la noticia periodística puede explicarse por errores de traducción y porque el artículo bebe de dos fuentes: los abogados que han denunciado al Arzobispado (uno de ellos, Jeffrey Anderson, tiene litigio abierto contra la Santa Sede) y el arzobispo retirado de Milwaukee Rembert Weakland, en activo cuando sucedió todo.

El 2/2/10 Associated Press lanzó otra acusación contra Benedicto XVI, cuya pruebas se demostraron falsas. El 9/4/10 volvió a la carga NYT con más acusaciones, con igual suerte.

En resumen, las acusaciones contra la Iglesia son tres: 1) algunos sacerdotes católicos abusaron de niños, 2) muchos obispos lo ocultaron, y 3) Benedicto XVI es personalmente responsable. Con datos en la mano, el n. 1 es lamentablemente cierto en una ínfima minoría del colectivo; n. 2 se afirma en determinados prelados y n. 3 es rotundamente falso.

Las consecuencias

Algunos piden juzgar al Papa por encubrimiento, y aprovechan para suspender al catolicismo en su conjunto. Otros de funesto recuerdo ya habían intentado, tiempo atrás usar los delitos de unos pocos para desacreditar a toda la institución. Algunos abogados intentan sacar provecho. No han faltado voces amigas del Papa desde el judaísmo, desde el agnosticismo y, en general, desde ambientes intelectuales.

El Vaticano ha puesto sobre la mesa la información que tiene. Tal ejercicio de transparencia ha llegado al extremo de que el fiscal del Vaticano hable sobre los casos de abusos en una documentada entrevista. La Santa Sede ha publicado los reglamentos por los cuales se juzgan estos casos y abundante documentación.

Dentro de la Iglesia, ha habido partidarios de la ruptura y partidarios de la renovación. Ruptura: 1) algunas voces reclaman una revisión del celibato y de la moral católica, aunque expertos y opinadores incluso no católicos han denunciado con datos la inexistencia de tal vinculación causa-efecto. 2) exponentes antirromanos de cierta edad han reclamado la dimisión del Papa o una reforma.

Renovación: muchos han aplaudido el posicionamiento de Benedicto XVI de tolerancia cero, petición de perdón y penitencia y conversión. Muchos católicos han salido de la perplejidad buscando la verdad de los hechos. La operación limpieza iniciada años atrás ha retomado impulso: desde la carta a Irlanda han dimitido dos obispos irlandeses, un americano, un alemán, un noruego y un belga. El liderazgo interno de Benedicto XVI es mayor ahora: se percibe Benedicto XVI como parte de la solución, y no parte del problema.

Además de la Iglesia, pocos han priorizado la protección de las víctimas y las medidas para acabar con la pederastia. Es una lástima, tanto más cuando se constata que es un problema transversal: afecta más gravemente a muchos otros colectivos sociales. Países como Alemania, ya lo afrontan globalmente. Algunos articulistas han apuntado a la culpa que en la extensión del fenómeno haya podido tener la revolución sexual de los sesenta y su simpatía declarada hacia la pedofilia.

Marc Argemí

An Open Letter to Hans Küng - by George Weigel

In: On the Square

21. 04. 2010

Ler tradução portuguesa aqui

Dr. Küng:

A decade and a half ago, a former colleague of yours among the younger progressive theologians at Vatican II told me of a friendly warning he had given you at the beginning of the Council’s second session. As this distinguished biblical scholar and proponent of Christian-Jewish reconciliation remembered those heady days, you had taken to driving around Rome in a fire-engine red Mercedes convertible, which your friend presumed had been one fruit of the commercial success of your book, The Council: Reform and Reunion.

This automotive display struck your colleague as imprudent and unnecessarily self-advertising, given that some of your more adventurous opinions, and your talent for what would later be called the sound-bite, were already raising eyebrows and hackles in the Roman Curia. So, as the story was told me, your friend called you aside one day and said, using a French term you both understood, “Hans, you are becoming too evident.”

As the man who single-handedly invented a new global personality-type—the dissident theologian as international media star—you were not, I take it, overly distressed by your friend’s warning. In 1963, you were already determined to cut a singular path for yourself, and you were media-savvy enough to know that a world press obsessed with the man-bites-dog story of the dissenting priest-theologian would give you a megaphone for your views. You were, I take it, unhappy with the late John Paul II for trying to dismantle that story-line by removing your ecclesiastical mandate to teach as a professor of Catholic theology; your subsequent, snarling put-down of Karol Wojtyla’s alleged intellectual inferiority in one volume of your memoirs ranked, until recently, as the low-point of a polemical career in which you have become most evident as a man who can concede little intelligence, decency, or good will in his opponents.

I say “until recently,” however, because your April 16 open letter to the world’s bishops, which I first read in the Irish Times, set new standards for that distinctive form of hatred known as odium theologicum and for mean-spirited condemnation of an old friend who had, on his rise to the papacy, been generous to you while encouraging aspects of your current work.

Before we get to your assault on the integrity of Pope Benedict XVI, however, permit me to observe that your article makes it painfully clear that you have not been paying much attention to the matters on which you pronounce with an air of infallible self-assurance that would bring a blush to the cheek of Pius IX.

You seem blithely indifferent to the doctrinal chaos besetting much of European and North American Protestantism, which has created circumstances in which theologically serious ecumenical dialogue has become gravely imperiled.

You take the most rabid of the Pius XII-baiters at face value, evidently unaware that the weight of recent scholarship is shifting the debate in favor of Pius' courage in defense of European Jewry (whatever one may think of his exercise of prudence).

You misrepresent the effects of Benedict XVI’s 2006 Regensburg Lecture, which you dismiss as having “caricatured” Islam. In fact, the Regensburg Lecture refocused the Catholic-Islamic dialogue on the two issues that complex conversation urgently needs to engage—religious freedom as a fundamental human right that can be known by reason, and the separation of religious and political authority in the twenty-first century state.

You display no comprehension of what actually prevents HIV/AIDS in Africa, and you cling to the tattered myth of “overpopulation” at a moment when fertility rates are dropping around the globe and Europe is entering a demographic winter of its own conscious creation.

You seem oblivious to the scientific evidence underwriting the Church’s defense of the moral status of the human embryo, while falsely charging that the Catholic Church opposes stem-cell research.

Why do you not know these things? You are an obviously intelligent man; you once did groundbreaking work in ecumenical theology. What has happened to you?

What has happened, I suggest, is that you have lost the argument over the meaning and the proper hermeneutics of Vatican II. That explains why you relentlessly pursue your fifty-year quest for a liberal Protestant Catholicism, at precisely the moment when the liberal Protestant project is collapsing from its inherent theological incoherence. And that is why you have now engaged in a vicious smear of another former Vatican II colleague, Joseph Ratzinger. Before addressing that smear, permit me to continue briefly on the hermeneutics of the Council.

While you are not the most theologically accomplished exponent of what Benedict XVI called the “hermeneutics of rupture” in his Christmas 2005 address to the Roman Curia, you are, without doubt, the most internationally visible member of that aging group which continues to argue that the period 1962–1965 marked a decisive trapgate in the history of the Catholic Church: the moment of a new beginning, in which Tradition would be dethroned from its accustomed place as a primary source of theological reflection, to be replaced by a Christianity that increasingly let “the world” set the Church’s agenda (as a motto of the World Council of Churches then put it).

The struggle between this interpretation of the Council, and that advanced by Council fathers like Ratzinger and Henri de Lubac, split the post-conciliar Catholic theological world into warring factions with contending journals: Concilium for you and your progressive colleagues, Communio for those you continue to call “reactionaries.” That the Concilium project became ever more implausible over time—and that a younger generation of theologians, especially in North America, gravitated toward the Communio orbit—could not have been a happy experience for you. And that the Communio project should have decisively shaped the deliberations of the 1985 Extraordinary Synod of Bishops, called by John Paul II to celebrate Vatican II’s achievements and assess its full implementation on the twentieth anniversary of its conclusion, must have been another blow.

Yet I venture to guess that the iron really entered your soul when, on December 22, 2005, the newly elected Pope Benedict XVI—the man whose appointment to the theological faculty at Tübingen you had once helped arrange—addressed the Roman Curia and suggested that the argument was over: and that the conciliar “hermeneutics of reform,” which presumed continuity with the Great Tradition of the Church, had won the day over “the hermeneutics of discontinuity and rupture.”

Perhaps, while you and Benedict XVI were drinking beer at Castel Gandolfo in the summer of 2005, you somehow imagined that Ratzinger had changed his mind on this central question. He obviously had not. Why you ever imagined he might accept your view of what an “ongoing renewal of the Church” would involve is, frankly, puzzling. Nor does your analysis of the contemporary Catholic situation become any more plausible when one reads, further along in your latest op-ed broadside, that recent popes have been “autocrats” against the bishops; again, one wonders whether you have been paying sufficient attention. For it seems self-evidently clear that Paul VI, John Paul II, and Benedict XVI have been painfully reluctant—some would say, unfortunately reluctant—to discipline bishops who have shown themselves incompetent or malfeasant and have lost the capacity to teach and lead because of that: a situation many of us hope will change, and change soon, in light of recent controversies.

In a sense, of course, none of your familiar complaints about post-conciliar Catholic life is new. It does, however, seem ever more counterintuitive for someone who truly cares about the future of the Catholic Church as a witness to God’s truth for the world’s salvation to press the line you persistently urge upon us: that a credible Catholicism will tread the same path trod in recent decades by various Protestant communities which, wittingly or not, have followed one or another version of your counsel to a adopt a hermeneutics of rupture with the Great Tradition of Christianity. Still, that is the single-minded stance you have taken since one of your colleagues worried about your becoming too evident; and as that stance has kept you evident, at least on the op-ed pages of newspapers who share your reading of Catholic tradition, I expect it’s too much to expect you to change, or even modify, your views, even if every bit of empirical evidence at hand suggests that the path you propose is the path to oblivion for the churches.

What can be expected, though, is that you comport yourself with a minimum of integrity and elementary decency in the controversies in which you engage. I understand odium theologicum as well as anyone, but I must, in all candor, tell you that you crossed a line that should not have been crossed in your recent article, when you wrote the following:

There is no denying the fact that the worldwide system of covering up sexual crimes committed by clerics was engineered by the Roman Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith under Cardinal Ratzinger (1981-2005).

That, sir, is not true. I refuse to believe that you knew this to be false and wrote it anyway, for that would mean you had willfully condemned yourself as a liar. But on the assumption that you did not know this sentence to be a tissue of falsehoods, then you are so manifestly ignorant of how competencies over abuse cases were assigned in the Roman Curia prior to Ratzinger’s seizing control of the process and bringing it under CDF’s competence in 2001, then you have forfeited any claim to be taken seriously on this, or indeed any other matter involving the Roman Curia and the central governance of the Catholic Church.

As you perhaps do not know, I have been a vigorous, and I hope responsible, critic of the way abuse cases were (mis)handled by individual bishops and by the authorities in the Curia prior to the late 1990s, when then-Cardinal Ratzinger began to fight for a major change in the handling of these cases. (If you are interested, I refer you to my 2002 book, The Courage To Be Catholic: Crisis, Reform, and the Future of the Church.)

I therefore speak with some assurance of the ground on which I stand when I say that your description of Ratzinger’s role as quoted above is not only ludicrous to anyone familiar with the relevant history, but is belied by the experience of American bishops who consistently found Ratzinger thoughtful, helpful, deeply concerned about the corruption of the priesthood by a small minority of abusers, and distressed by the incompetence or malfeasance of bishops who took the promises of psychotherapy far more seriously than they ought, or lacked the moral courage to confront what had to be confronted.

I recognize that authors do not write the sometimes awful subheads that are put on op-ed pieces. Nonetheless, you authored a piece of vitriol—itself utterly unbecoming a priest, an intellectual, or a gentleman—that permitted the editors of the Irish Times to slug your article: “Pope Benedict has made worse just about everything that is wrong with the Catholic Church and is directly responsible for engineering the global cover-up of child rape perpetrated by priests, according to this open letter to all Catholic bishops.” That grotesque falsification of the truth perhaps demonstrates where odium theologicum can lead a man. But it is nonetheless shameful.

Permit me to suggest that you owe Pope Benedict XVI a public apology, for what, objectively speaking, is a calumny that I pray was informed in part by ignorance (if culpable ignorance). I assure you that I am committed to a thoroughgoing reform of the Roman Curia and the episcopate, projects I described at some length in God’s Choice: Pope Benedict XVI and the Future of the Catholic Church, a copy of which, in German, I shall be happy to send you. But there is no path to true reform in the Church that does not run through the steep and narrow valley of the truth. The truth was butchered in your article in the Irish Times. And that means that you have set back the cause of reform.

With the assurance of my prayers,

George Weigel

George Weigel is Distinguished Senior Fellow of Washington’s Ethics and Public Policy Center, where he holds the William E. Simon Chair in Catholic Studies.

Another Long Lent (sexual abuses) by George Weigel

Apr 12, 2010

In On the Square (First Things)

On March 25, the New York Times published a now thoroughly discredited front-page story suggesting that Joseph Ratzinger, while prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, had willfully impeded sanctions against a clerical sexual abuser in Milwaukee who had preyed on the deaf children in his care.

Taking that date, and that calumny against Benedict XVI, as an arbitrary American ground zero in the latest round of assaults depicting the Catholic Church as a Rome-based global criminal conspiracy of perverts and their enablers, where do things stand, two and a half weeks into what at first seemed poised to become a scandal as devastating as the Catholic Church in America’s Long Lent of eight years ago?

It’s not 2002. During the Long Lent, the press played an important role in dragging into the light of day awful things the Church had failed to confront, or had confronted ineptly. The shame of that period still stings, as do the wounds suffered by victims. Yet 2010 is not 2002, and that is in large measure due to 2002.

Despite the ignorance and tendentiousness displayed by too many journalists and commentators in recent weeks (including Catholic commentators seeking another opportunity to revive the Revolution That Never Was—or, in the case of Patrick J. Buchanan, to revive the Golden Age That Never Was), the facts are slowly getting out, thanks in part to the unprecedented studies and audits authorized by the bishops of the United States in the wake of the Long Lent.

Reasonable people whose perceptions are not warped by the toxin of anti-Catholicism or who are not pursuing other (often financially-driven) agendas now recognize that the Church in the U.S. and Canada has bent enormous efforts towards cleaning up what Cardinal Ratzinger called in 2005 its “filth,” to the point where the Catholic Church today can be empirically shown to be the safest environment for young people and children in North America. The paralyzing drumbeat of one ghastly new story after another that went on all during 2002 has not been repeated. What we now have is, largely, the recycling of old material, usually provided to the press by contingent-fee attorneys whose strategic goal is to build a public “narrative” of conspiracy that will shape American courts’ decisions as to whether the Vatican and its resources can be brought within range of U.S. liability law.

The realization among serious Catholics that this is not 2002 and that things have changed dramatically since 2002, has led to a far more confident effort to fight back against misrepresentations such as those the Times perpetrated on March 25. There is a danger here: to recognize that this is not 2002 cannot blind us to the fact that there are wounds that remain to be healed, reforms of priestly formation that remain to be completed, bishops whose failures remain to be recognized and dealt with, new norms for the selection of bishops to be implemented, and accounts rendered as to why the Vatican, prior to Ratzinger’s taking control of the issue of clerical sexual abuse in the late 1990s, was sometimes sluggish in its response to scandalous behavior by priests and deficient leadership by bishops.

Assuming, however, that Benedict XVI has set in motion processes that will lead to all those lingering issues being forcefully addressed, a serious question can now be credibly posed: Are those most vigorously agitating these abuse/misgovernance issues today genuinely interested in the safety of young people and children, or are they using the failures of the past to cripple the moral credibility of the Catholic Church in the present and future? That question would have rightly struck many people as a dodge in 2002. It cannot be credibly regarded as a dodge today, because of what the Church has done since 2002 (and, indeed, since the 1990s, when the plague of abuse within the Church began to recede).

The Vatican response. During the first months of the Long Lent of 2002, John Paul II was not well-served by his Washington nunciature or by the Vatican Congregation for the Clergy. The nunciature was not providing the papal apartment with detailed, real-time information (in April 2002, when Cardinal Bernard Law first offered his resignation, the pope and his closest associates were at least three months behind the information-curve, and were just experiencing in April what Americans had lived through in January); the prefect of Clergy, Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, made matters worse by blowing off reporters’ questions about the scandals when presenting John Paul’s 2002 Holy Thursday letter to priests, explaining that the pope had more important things to worry about, like Middle East peace.

Things have changed for the better since those dark days. The Holy See Press Office, not previously known for prompt or effective crisis-management in this pontificate, has quickly brought serious, credible information and commentary to bear in recent weeks as different charges have been laid against Benedict XVI. The pope’s own March letter to the Church in Ireland—far too quickly consigned to media oblivion—demonstrated to those with the eyes to read such documents accurately that Benedict had wrestled the Curia into understanding that a pastoral outreach to victims, the public condemnation of abusive clergy and religious, sharp criticism of malfeasant bishops, and dramatic reform actions were necessary in this and similar situations.

There are still things that the Holy See doesn’t get quite right. During Holy Week, it was hoped that the pope would speak in his own voice, largely through the Church’s sacramental encounter with the central drama of salvation history. Yet the two most memorable moments of Holy Week 2010 were created by secondary figures. During the solemn Good Friday liturgy at St. Peter’s, the preacher to the papal household, Father Raniero Cantalamessa, inserted into his homily a commentary on the current situation in which he seemed to agree with a (Jewish) friend that what the recent assault on the Church was analogous to the horrors of historic anti-Semitism.

Two days later, at the beginning of the papal Easter Sunday Mass, the dean of the college of cardinals, Angelo Sodano, chose the unfortunate phrase “petty gossip” to describe what was in fact a determined attack on the Church’s credibility. Despite these missteps, however, the truth seems to have gotten out, if slowly and incompletely: the single most influential figure in reshaping the Roman Curia’s attitude toward these scandals and the Church’s legal practice in dealing with them, was Joseph Ratzinger, now Benedict XVI.

The plaintiff’s bar cannot concede this, for to do so would be to destroy the narrative it has been selling to the world media; Ratzinger’s enemies cannot concede this, for they have never been able to find good in him; and European secularists cannot concede this, for in their minds the Church is, in principle, irreformably corrupt—Voltaire’s L’infame. But those willing to look at facts and evidence have begun to understand just how crucial a role Ratzinger played in ensuring that 2010 did not automatically become 2002 redivivus.

Nailing down that counter-narrative would be considerably aided if, in the coming weeks, a comprehensive and documented narrative of the case of a predatory Munich priest which was mishandled during Ratzinger’s tenure as archbishop there—the revelation of which was the European ground zero for the latest set of explosions—would be published. It would also be helpful if the Holy See would provide a user-friendly explanation of how abusive priests are laicized, and how this process has been streamlined and accelerated, again under Ratzinger’s leadership. There is no harm in acknowledging that, like just about everyone else, Joseph Ratzinger was on a learning curve in dealing with abusive clergy and malfeasant bishops; the point to be stressed, however, is that he learned faster, and acted more decisively on what he had learned, than just about anyone else.

Mud Sticking. The 2010 edition of Scandal Time is by no means finished. Attorneys and others will continue to release documents implying that Ratzinger “stalled” laicizations decades ago (when in fact what he was doing was following the canonical norms of the time—norms he was later instrumental in changing).

The papal pilgrimage to Great Britain in September, which will include the beatification of John Henry Newman, is in trouble, with the clerical head of the Church of England, Dr. Rowan Williams, getting ecumenical payback by asserting that the Catholic Church has lost its credibility and the loopier elements of the British press and commentariat suggesting that the pope ought to be served with an arrest warrant on his arrival in the U.K.; the BBC has been particularly egregious in its skewed coverage and discussion of Munich, Milwaukee, and other cases. In the face of all this, the bishops of Britain must recognize that scandal-mongering has now metastasized into a full-scale assault on Catholicism itself, and ought to devote the next four months to the most vigorous defense of the truth of Catholic faith. It would also be helpful if Benedict XVI would meet with British and Irish abuse victims during his time in the U.K., as he did in the United States and Australia.

As for the future of the Church in Ireland, the gravity of the situation there would seem to provide an opportunity for Rome to take dramatic action. While the retirement of one Irish bishop, John Magee of Cloyne, was accepted in the wake of the papal letter of March 2010, it was not clear that this measure was in response to serious problems in handling abuse cases in Cloyne that had become public knowledge. Yet if 2010 is not to become 2002 redivivus, the Holy See must make unmistakably clear that it is serious about dealing with malfeasant bishops: that, in addition to swift action against abusive priests, the Church is prepared to take swift and decisive action against episcopal misgovernance.

This is not a matter of appeasing the media pack and its baying for blood; it is a matter of self-respect and the integrity of the Church’s institutional life. Over the past century and a half, the Holy See has gained the freedom to choose bishops freely throughout the world Church; that has been one of the signal accomplishments of Vatican diplomacy. To claim the right to choose bishops freely, however, carries with it the responsibility to address episcopal failure, even by the ultimate remedy of deposition in extreme cases. Procedures for accelerating the laicization of abusive clergy have been put in place in Rome; parallel procedures for determining when a bishop has lost the capacity to govern because of a thorough and irremediable collapse of his credibility as a leader and shepherd ought to be devised and implemented. It is widely expected that the upcoming apostolic visitation to certain Irish dioceses will result in sweeping change in Catholic leadership in Ireland. That change ought to be effected sooner rather than later, and explicitly linked to the reforms for which Benedict called in his letter to the Irish Church.

Cynicism and irony are powerful corrosives in ecclesiastical life. Yet they cannot withstand the power of radical conversion, joyful discipleship, and courageous evangelism. In North America, in Great Britain and Ireland, in Germany and Austria and the Netherlands, indeed all over the world Church, these are the most effective counters to the current wave of Church-bashing and Catholic-baiting.

And here, at least, there is one appropriate parallel to be drawn between 2010 and 2002: The only answer to what is at bottom a crisis of fidelity is deeper, more radical fidelity to the truth borne by the earthen vessel of the Church.

Outro disparate da imprensa sobre Padres pedófilos – A carta de 1985 do Cardeal Ratzinger

Por Massimo Introvigne (Avvenire, 10 de Abril de 2010)

In http://www.cesnur.org/2010/mi_kiesle.html

Tradução de É o Carteiro

Durou vinte e quatro horas o novo disparate lançado pela Associated Press contra o Papa. Até os media mais hostis, acossados pelos especialistas em direito canonico, fizeram marcha atrás. Mas, de acordo com o preceito segundo o qual vale a pena caluniar que sempre fica qualquer coisa, na cabeça dos utentes mais distraidos terão ficado apenas os títulos, segundo os quais, em 1985, o actual Pontífice «protegeu um padre pedófilo».

Para se compreender o significado da carta escrita pelo Cardeal Ratzinger a Mons. John Stephen Cummins (e não «Cummings»), Bispo de Oakland (California), a 6 de Novembro de 1985, é preciso ter algumas noções, ainda que básicas, de direito canónico. A perda do estado clerical pode ocorrer (a) como pena imposta pelo direito canónico por delitos especialmente graves; ou (b) quando solicitada pelo próprio sacerdote. Assim, um sacerdote acusado ou condenado por pedofilia pode perder o estado clerical (a) como pena pelo delito cometido ou (b) a seu pedido, pedido esse que o padre pedófilo pode ter interesse em fazer por razões diversas, por exemplo, para escapar à vigilância da Igreja (a vigilância do Estado é mais branda, como fica demonstrado em diversos casos), ou porque pretende casar-se. No primeiro caso, está-se a castigar o padre pedófilo. No segundo caso, está-se a fazer-lhe um favor.

Até 2001, a pena pelo delito de pedófilia – o castigo – era imposta pelas dioceses; em 2001, essa competência passou para a Congregação para a Doutrina da Fé. Em contrapartida, a análise dos pedidos de dispensa do estado clerical – o favor – já em 1985 era da competência da Congregação para a Doutrina da Fé.

Em 1985, Stephen Miller Kiesle, sacerdote acusado de abusos de menores, foi objecto de dois processos distintos. O primeiro dizia respeito à averiguação canónica susceptível de levar à demissão do estado clerical deste sacerdote como pena pelos absusos praticados, averiguação que era da estrita competência da Diocese de Oakland, e em que a Congregação para a Doutrina da Fé de modo nenhum intervinha.

O segundo processo dizia respeito à solicitação, feita pelo mesmo Padre Kiesle, de dispensa do estado clerical, solicitação que chegou à secretária da Congregação para a Doutrina da Fé, a qual – por uma praxe que adquiriu valor de regulamento – não concede a referida dispensa a um sacerdote que não tenha completado os quarenta anos. Na altura, o Padre Kiesle tinha trinta e oito anos e o Bispo Cummins solicitou à Congregação para a Doutrina da Fé que abrisse uma excepção porque, acolhendo a solicitação de Kiesle, Roma libertaria a diocese de Oakland do embaraço de prosseguir a averiguação penal pelos abusos (indagação essa que, em 1985 – antes das alterações processuais introduzidas em 2001 – era, recorde-se, da estrita competência da diocese, e na qual a Congregação dirigida pelo Cardeal Ratzinger não podia intervir).

Se a Congregação tivesse acolhido o pedido de Kiesle, não teria «castigado» o sacerdote; pelo contrário, ter-lhe-ia feito um favor. Na verdade, Kiesle pretendia abandonar o sacerdócio porque tinha a intenção de se casar.

É muito importante distinguir o acolhimento de um pedido de dispensa do estado clerical, que constitui um benefício concedido ao sacerdote e que é da competência da Congregação para a Doutrina da Fé, da demissão do estado clerical como punição, que era, até 2001, da competência das dioceses, e não de Roma.

Enquanto Prefeito da Congregação para a Doutrina da Fé, o Cardeal Ratzinger responde exprimindo a sua compreensão pela delicada posição em que o bispo se encontra – ou seja, agora em termos menos curiais, diz-lhe que compreende que o bispo preferisse que fosse Roma a tirar as castanhas do lume –, mas salienta que, para bem da Igreja, se devem respeitar rigorosamente as praxes, e que a idade do solicitante não permite dar-lhe a dispensa do estado clerical. «Considerando o bem universal da Igreja» – o que não significa, evidentemente, «para evitar escândalos» (aliás, o caso dos abusos sexuais atribuídos a Kiesle já tinha sido amplamente comentado na Califórnia, e o escândalo já se tinha verificado), mas sim «para não criar um precedente que abriria a porta a muitas outras solicitações de dispensa de sacerdotes com menos de quarenta anos» –, o Cardeal Ratzinger explica ao bispo que será necessário ter a prudência de esperar, como sempre acontece em casos de pedidos de sacerdotes que ainda não fizeram quarenta anos.

Entretanto, a Diocese de Oakland poderá, naturalmente, dar andamento à outra averiguação penal, susceptível de conduzir à demissão de Kiesle do estado clerical, não a seu pedido, mas como pena pelos abusos cometidos. Em 1987, enquanto a Diocese de Oakland prossegue as suas averiguações sobre Kiesle – depois de o ter proibido de exercer a actividade ministerial –, o sacerdote faz quarenta anos. Nesta altura, e como é da praxe, a Congregação acolhe o seu pedido de redução ao estado clerical. Kiesle abandona o exercício do ministério sacerdotal e casa-se, continuando a ser conhecido pela polícia como personalidade perturbada e suspeito de abuso de menores.

Os actos cometidos por Kiesle depois de 1987 não são, evidentemente, da responsabilidade da Igreja, mas apenas dos tribunais civis e da polícia. Se praticou outros abusos, a culpa não é da Igreja – que Kiesle abandonou e que deixou de ter quaisquer razões para o vigiar –, mas das autoridades civis.

Como é que ter recusado um pedido que um padre suspeito de pedofilia – que tencionava casar-se – apresentava como pedido de um favor, no seu próprio interesse, equivale a «proteger um padre pedófilo» é coisa que terá de ser a Associated Press a explicar.

What went wrong - What is essential throughout the world is that the church become more Catholic, not less

George Weigel

Throughout what U.S. Catholics called the "Long Lent" of 2002, when every week seemed to bring revelations of clerical sexual abuse and its mishandling by the church's bishops, some observers suggested that this crisis was the byproduct of some distinctive features of Catholic life: a celibate priesthood, a church governed by male bishops, a demanding sexual ethic. "Modernize" the church by changing all that, they argued, and these horrible problems would abate, even disappear.

Sexual abuse is indeed horrible, but there is no empirical evidence that it is a uniquely, predominantly, or even strikingly Catholic problem. The sexual abuse of the young is a global plague. In the United States, some 40 to 60 percent of such abuse takes place within families – often at the hands of live-in boyfriends or the second (or third, or fourth) husband of a child's mother; those cases have nothing to do with celibacy. The case of a married Wilmington, Dela., pediatrician charged with 471 counts of sexual abuse in February has nothing to do with celibacy. Neither did the 290,000 cases of sexual abuse in American public schools between 1991 and 2000, estimated by Charol Shakeshaft of Virginia Commonwealth University. And given the significant level of abuse problems in Christian denominations with married clergy, it's hard to accept the notion that marriage is somehow a barrier against sexually abusive clergy. (Indeed, the idea of reducing marriage to an abuse-prevention program ought to be repulsive.) Sexual abusers throughout the world are overwhelmingly noncelibates.

Too many of the church's bishops failed to grasp the drastic measures required to address the sexual abuse of the young – that's obvious, and has been admitted by the bishops of the United States and two popes. Yet it is hard to see what these failures had to do with gender. Like others, many bishops had a misplaced faith in the power of psychiatrists and psychologists to "fix" sexual predators, thinking these men could be "cured" and quietly returned to ministry without damaging the church's reputation. In his recent scathing letter to the Catholic Church in Ireland, Pope Benedict XVI denounced bishops who were more concerned with protecting the church's image than with protecting vulnerable young people. It's a critique that was applicable decades ago in the United States – but the same criticism can be made of teachers-union leaders and state legislators today who ignore or try to bury reports of sexual abuse in America's public schools.

So, yes, aspects of clerical culture in the U.S. and elsewhere contributed to the problem, but that same deplorable circle-the-wagons instinct has warped the response to this plague in other sectors of society. The difference is that the Catholic Church in America has taken more rigorous action since 2002 to protect the young people in its care than any other similarly situated institution, to the point where the church is likely America's safest environment for young people.

There may be a grain of truth in the suggestion that women's perspectives on these issues would have helped mitigate the Catholic crisis of clerical sexual abuse and episcopal misgovernance: in the past the male clerical culture of Catholicism seems to have blunted in some Catholic clergy a natural and instinctive revulsion at the sexual abuse of the young – a revulsion, it is suggested, that a woman would immediately feel and act upon. But the sad, further truth is that there are no gender guarantees when it comes to sexual abuse: the physical and sexual abuse of young Irish girls in "Magdalene Asylums" decades ago was committed by religious sisters.

Nevertheless, it should also be noted that the U.S. church's handling of abuse and misgovernance since 2002 has been immensely strengthened by the insight and professional expertise of many women – just as we also ought to recognize that laywomen, single and married, are usually the teachers who make today's Catholic schools safe and successful. Moreover, women are the great majority of the volunteers and paid staff who make Catholic parishes both safe and vital. The notion that women don't have anything to do with how the Catholic Church operates confuses the Catholic Church with the higher altitudes of "the Vatican," and ignores how Catholic life is actually lived in America and Europe.

As for doctrine: what ought to be obvious about sexual abuse in the Catholic Church is that these grave sins and crimes were acts of infidelity, denials of the truths the church teaches. A priest who takes seriously the vows of his ordination is not a sexual abuser or predator. And if a bishop takes seriously his ordination oath to shepherd the Lord's flock, he will always put the safety of the Master's little ones ahead of concerns about public scandal. Catholic Lite is not the answer to what has essentially been a crisis of fidelity.

Since 2002, with strong support from then-cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (and from him still as Benedict XVI), the Catholic Church in America has developed and enforced policies and procedures to ensure the safety of the young that offer an important model for the world church. There were only six credible reports of sexual abuse of the young in the U.S. church last year. And while that is six too many in a church that ought to hold itself to the highest standards, it is nonetheless remarkable in a community of 68 million people.

What is essential throughout the world, however, is that the church become more Catholic, not less. John Paul II's "Theology of the Body" proposed an understanding of faithful and fruitful human love as an icon of God's inner life. That vision is far nobler, far more compelling, and far more humane than the sex-as-contact-sport teaching of the sexual revolution, the principal victims of which seem to be vulnerable young people. Those who are genuinely committed to the protection of the young might ponder whether Catholicism really needs to become Catholic Lite – or whether the Augean stables of present-day culture need a radical cleansing.

Changing the priesthood’s culture

Fr. Raymond de Souza

Archbishop Timothy Dolan detailed on his website the many flaws in the now widely-discredited "smear" of Pope Benedict XVI by the New York Times. He then addressed the broader question of reform in the priesthood in the annual "Chrism Mass" for priests at St. Patrick's Cathedral.

"When we keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, we see everything in relation [to] Him – we can even begin to see as He sees," Dolan said. "At this Chrism Mass, we try to see the priesthood as Jesus sees it. Do you recall those more than twenty-five Holy Thursday letters from Pope John Paul to his brother priests? He helped us to see the priesthood as Jesus intended us to see it – a life of holy anointing, of special love, of great adventure, of heroic service, of human flourishing and of permanent commitment." Then he added: "At his side, Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict, also taught us to see as Christ sees, including those blemishes and blotches which stain the priesthood and require repentance and true reform. He has worked to clean what needs to be cleansed in the priesthood. It has not been an easy path."

Archbishop Thomas Collins of Toronto echoed that at his own Chrism Mass on Tuesday, saying that Benedict "has acted decisively, fairly, consistently and courageously to purify the priesthood."

In the media frenzy those wider reforms have been ignored. And if anyone should doubt that the frenzied spirit has reached a new low, the Associated Press ran a story yesterday covering a press conference given by Mehmet Ali Agca demanding the Pope's resignation. Mr. Agca was the would-be assassin of Pope John Paul II. Even a homicidal lunatic can get a little ink if he hops aboard the runaway anti-Catholic train.

On this Holy Thursday, the day marked by Catholics as the institution of the priesthood, the current controversy can be situated within the ongoing attempt to change the culture of the priesthood. That's really what Archbishops Dolan and Collins are talking about.

In the aftermath the 1960s, there was a concerted attempt to set aside the worst aspects of clericalism – the clubby, privileged model of the priesthood. That was the idea, but by the end of the 1970s, many priests had set aside the priesthood altogether. The 1970s were period of steep decline in priestly vocations, identity, theology and discipline. We now know that this was also the time of the greatest incidence of sexual abuse of minors.

That culture had to change for the safety of the vulnerable, though it would only become evident later. It was already evident that change in clerical culture was necessary for the health of the priesthood and the good of the Church. John Paul began that process by lifting up the priesthood as a noble ideal, and over the course some 27 years wrote annual Holy Thursday letters to priests, delivering in stages a treatise on the authentic reform of priestly identity, holiness, theology and discipline.

With a different disposition and a different role, Cardinal Ratzinger devoted attention to what needed to be pruned back and cut away. Hence his 1990s policy review and the resulting changes in 2001: obligatory reporting to Rome, extension or suspension of the time limits for such cases, more expeditious dismissals from the priestly office and subsequent embracing of the "zero tolerance" policy put in effect by the American bishops. Strong measures. Too long in coming? Yes, but for much of the 1980s and 1990s even the Pope and his chief lieutenant were fighting a flawed culture of the priesthood that had taken deep root.

It was on March 25 that The New York Times published its hit job on the Holy Father. Exactly five years earlier, Cardinal Ratzinger sent shock waves around the Catholic world when he said this on Good Friday: "How much filth there is in the Church, even among those who, in the priesthood, should belong entirely to Him."

He was calling again for radical reform. Twenty-five days later he was elected pope.

The Pope and the New York Times

Cardinal Ratzinger did more than anyone to hold abusers accountable

By William Mcgurn

Unlike the Roman papacy, in certain circles the New York Times still enjoys the presumption of authority. So when the front page carries a story headlined "Vatican Declined to Defrock U.S. Priest Who Abused Deaf Boys," people notice.

Written by Laurie Goodstein and published March 25, the thrust is twofold. First, that the Rev. Lawrence Murphy, a priest who abused children at St. John's School for the Deaf in Milwaukee from the 1950s to the 1970s, went unpunished. Father Murphy, she wrote categorically, "was never tried or disciplined by the church's own justice system."

This all feeds the kicker: "the effort to dismiss Father Murphy came to a sudden halt after the priest appealed to Cardinal Ratzinger for leniency." In other words, Murphy got off scot-free, and the cardinal looked the other way.

Ms. Goodstein cites internal church documents, which the Times posted online. The documents were provided by Jeff Anderson and Mike Finnegan. They are described as "lawyers for five men who have brought four lawsuits against the Archdiocese of Milwaukee."

What she did not tell readers is that Mr. Anderson isn't just any old lawyer. When it comes to suing the church, he is America's leading plaintiffs attorney. Back in 2002, he told the Associated Press that he'd won more than $60 million in settlements from the church, and he once boasted to a Twin Cities weekly that he's "suing the s--t out of them everywhere." Nor did the Times report another salient fact about Mr. Anderson: He's now trying to sue the Vatican in U.S. federal court.

Read more

Columnista del Wall Street Journal: Benedicto XVI no es culpable de escándalo por abusos

WASHINGTON D.C., 08 Abr. 10 / 12:19 am (ACI)

Peggy Noonan escribe un artículo en el Wall Street Journal (WSJ) en el que explica que el Papa Benedicto XVI no es culpable del escándalo por los abusos sexuales de algunos miembros del clero; y en el que afirma que los católicos fieles a la Iglesia "no son estúpidos" sino que le permiten avanzar y hacer frente a esta crisis con sus oraciones.

Noonan, quien fuera asistente especial de la Casa Blanca durante la presidencia de Ronald Reagan, señala en el texto de hace unos días que "algunos culpan de los escándalos al Papa Benedicto XVI. Pero Joseph Ratzinger es el hombre que, semanas antes de su ascensión al Papa hace cinco años, habló duramente en Viernes Santo sobre la ‘suciedad’ en la Iglesia".

Días después, explica la escritora, "en las calles de Roma, informaba el diario italiano La Stampa, el Cardenal Ratzinger se encontró con un monseñor de la curia que lo reprendió por sus agudas palabras. El Cardenal replicó: ‘no has nacido ayer, sabes de lo que estaba hablando, sabes lo que significa. ¡Somos sacerdotes! ¡Sacerdotes!"

Para Noonan, existen tres grupos de víctimas ante los casos de abusos que se ventilan actualmente y que, casi en su totalidad, tienen décadas de antigüedad: "el primero y el más obvio, son los niños que fueron abusados", el segundo es el de "los buenos sacerdotes y religiosas, los grandes líderes de la Iglesia en el día a día, que salvan a los pobres, enseñan a los inmigrantes y, literalmente, salvan vidas. Ellos han sido estigmatizados cuando merecen ser alabados".

El tercer grupo, prosigue, está compuesto por "los heroicos católicos de Estados Unidos y Europa en las bancas de sus parroquias, las fuertes almas que pese a lo que se le hace a su Iglesia está todavía allí, haciendo la vida parroquial posible, sosteniendo su bandera, con su fe inquebrantable".

"Nadie le agradece a esos católicos, nadie ve su heroísmo, ni respeta su paciencia y fidelidad. El mundo piensa que son estúpidos. No lo son. Y con sus oraciones mantienen al mundo avanzando, así como a su Antigua Iglesia", concluye.

Vatican responds to media distortions on Tucson abuse cases

In CatholicCulture.org

In an extraordinary display of media bias, the Associated Press has reported that “the abuse cases of two priests in Arizona have cast further doubt on the Catholic church's insistence that Pope Benedict XVI played no role in shielding pedophiles before he became pope.”

Far from “shielding pedophiles,” the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, at Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’s direction, ruled that the two priests-- Fathers Michael Teta and Robert Trupia-- be removed from the priesthood, as Catholic World News had earlier reported. Both priests exercised their right to lengthy canonical appeals of earlier disciplinary actions, but were suspended from ministry during that time.

Father Federico Lombardi, director of the Holy See Press Office, issued a statement on the Teta case.

“The Diocese of Tucson contacted the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith regarding the case, because it regarded the canonical crime of solicitation in the confessional,” he said. “The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith took an active interest in the case throughout the 1990’s, in order to guarantee that the Church trial underway in the Diocese of Tucson was properly completed. The trial was completed in 1997. The cleric in question was found guilty and laicized. The evidence clearly and certainly shows this.”

Father Teta’s “appeal reached the Congregation Tribunal during a period in which the revision of the canonical norms previously in force had already started,” Father Lombardi continued. “The appeals were therefore pending until the entry into force of new legislation in 2001, which resulted in all cases of ‘serious crimes’ being placed under the jurisdiction of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith for a faster and more secure treatment.”

“Beginning in 2001, all pending appeals have been handled promptly, and the Teta appeal was one of the first to be handled,” Father Lombardi added. “This took time, because there was a particularly large volume of documentation. In any case, the decision of the trial court was confirmed in toto, and Teta was defrocked in 2004.”

“It must not be forgotten that even when appeals are pending and the sentence is suspended, precautionary measures are imposed by the bishop on the accused. Indeed, Teta had been suspended from the exercise of priestly ministry in 1990.”

Source(s): these links will take you to other sites, in a new window.

• AP: Vatican waited years to defrock Arizona priest
• Fr. Lombardi on Teta Case (Vatican Radio)
• Bishop defends Vatican’s handling of Tucson abuse cases (4/1)

Lições de um Escândalo

Pedro Vaz Patto

Acabo de ler a carta do Papa Bento XVI sobre o escândalo dos abusos sexuais de crianças e adolescentes praticados durante vários anos por sacerdotes irlandeses. Será oportuno reflectir a respeito das lições que podem ser extraídas desta tão triste ocorrência.

Um dos maiores erros cometidos por responsáveis da Igreja irlandesa foi o de sobrepor as exigências de salvaguarda da imagem e reputação da Igreja às da protecção das vítimas de crimes tão graves. Essa reputação não pode assentar na mentira, sobretudo se esta prejudica as pessoas que a Igreja deve servir. A humildade de reconhecer e pedir perdão pelos erros dos seus filhos, na linha do que fez João Paulo II a propósito de dois mil anos de História e do que faz agora inequivocamente a este propósito Bento XVI, de modo algum descredibiliza a Igreja.

Outra lição a retirar destes factos é a de que a compreensão e misericórdia para com os autores de crimes não dispensam as exigências da justiça, eclesiástica e civil, com o que isso supõe de atenção às vítimas, de reparação dos danos, e até de castigo e penitência. Como afirma o Papa nesta carta aos católicos irlandeses, os autores destes crimes devem «responder perante Deus e os homens». O que se passou na Irlanda, ao contrário do que por vezes se tem afirmado, nunca teve cobertura nas normas de direito canónico, que foram esquecidas e violadas. Essas normas foram mais tarde modificadas no sentido de uma maior severidade precisamente pelo cardeal Ratzinger, razão pela qual se revela profundamente injusta a obstinada tentativa, da parte de alguns sectores de opinião, de o responsabilizar por factos como os ocorridos na Irlanda.

A “avalanche”, a que vimos assistindo, de notícias sobre abusos sexuais de crianças e adolescentes praticados por sacerdotes (algumas relativas a factos de há mais de cinquenta anos e já conhecidos) pode criar (de forma não certamente inocente) uma imagem distorcida da realidade, quase como se estes fenómenos fossem exclusivos ou característicos da Igreja católica e não se verificassem, até em proporções maiores, em ministros de outras denominações cristãs ou de outras religiões, e, sobretudo, noutros grupos profissionais. Distorção que também faz esquecer o testemunho de integridade (nalguns casos, até de santidade) da esmagadora maioria dos sacerdotes.

Como têm salientado os especialistas e até quem contesta a disciplina canónica a tal respeito, não é o celibato que está na origem destas condutas, perpetradas noutros âmbitos na sua grande maioria por pessoas não celibatárias. Mesmo assim, nem sequer a ocorrência de um destes casos seria de esperar ou aceitar, pelo que representam, como também salienta a carta em apreço, de atentado à “santidade do sacramento da Ordem” e à confiança que devem merecer quaisquer agentes de formação da juventude. Que sacerdotes tenham praticado factos tão graves faz realçar a importância da sua adequada e criteriosa selecção e preparação. Um cuidado que instruções recentes da Santa Sé têm procurado reforçar.

Alguns sectores de opinião normalmente hostis para com a Igreja católica (a revista alemã Der Spiegel, por exemplo) têm aproveitado este escândalo não só para contestar a disciplina do celibato sacerdotal, mas para descredibilizar a própria ética sexual veiculada pela Igreja católica. Também por esta via se distorce gravemente a realidade. Estes fenómenos revelam a pertinência dessa ética sexual, não o contrário.

O abuso sexual de menores representa, talvez, o ápice de violação daqueles princípios de ética sexual que a Igreja católica tem defendido contra a corrente da opinião dominante, muitas vezes quase sozinha (apesar de decorreram, em grande parte, de uma perspectiva simplesmente “humanista” e não especificamente cristã). Falar de auto-domínio, de controlo dos impulsos e tendências sexuais é contrariar a opinião dominante, mas é a falta desse auto-domínio que está na origem destes comportamentos. Salientar os malefícios da actividade sexual precoce, porque normalmente dissociada da comunhão interpessoal que a humaniza, também vai contra a opinião dominante, mas são malefícios desse tipo que, de uma forma extremada, decorrem do abuso sexual de menores. Quando a corrente dominante vai no sentido da apologia de uma sexualidade como um campo sem regras (quantas vezes não se ouve dizer que não há “sexualidades normais”?), é pertinente contrariar essa visão. E salientar, como faz o magistério da Igreja, a importância de evitar a coisificação do outro, neste como noutros campos. Essa coisificação caracteriza vários comportamentos sexuais cada vez mais tolerados e atinge, talvez, a sua máxima expressão precisamente no abuso sexual de crianças e adolescentes.

Também esta é uma lição que pode ser extraída deste escândalo.