BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

Pope's pastoral letter to
Irish Catholics out Friday
By RACHEL DONADIO

March 17, 2010


ROME — As hundreds of new allegations of sexual abuse surface in the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Benedict XVI said Wednesday that he hoped a forthcoming letter dealing with one part of the scandal in Ireland would help “repentance, healing and renewal.”

The Pope, the former Archbishop ['Cardinal' has precedence over 'Archbishop' as an honorific] Joseph Ratzinger, was addressing his weekly general audience at the Vatican after days of disclosures concerning the German church, where one case happened on his watch before he became Pope in 2005.

The Pope’s comments on the scandal in Ireland came a day after a top Vatican official acknowledged on Tuesday that, with only 10 people handling such cases, his office might not be adequate for the task. [The limited investigative staff of the CDF was never a secret! There was nothing for Scicluna to acknowledge that was not obvious to anyone.]

But the official, Msgr. Charles J. Scicluna, who is effectively the Vatican’s internal prosecutor, said the Church was working to bring more “transparency” to the delicate and emotional process of settling allegations of abuse by priests, which have severely damaged the Church’s moral standing. [I think, only among the holier-than-thou moralizers outside the Church and among Church dissidents themselves - not with the overwhelming majority of the worlds 1.16 billion Catholics! This tendency by MSM to project their own personal opinions to the entire Catholic universe is preposterous.]

“We have to get our act together and start working for more transparency in investigations and more adequate responses for the problem,” Monsignor Scicluna said, adding that this should happen “on every level of the Church.”

Speaking on Wednesday in English, the Pope said he would sign a promised pastoral letter to Irish Catholics on Friday and send it out soon afterwards. He said the Irish church had been “severely shaken” and he was “deeply concerned.”

The Irish Church has been reeling from two reports. One, released in November, accused Church leaders of covering up decades of child sexual abuse by priests. Another, released in May, documents decades of widespread sexual, physical and emotional abuse of children by priests and nuns in Church-run schools.

In a meeting with Irish bishops at the Vatican last month, Benedict announced that he would issue a letter addressing the issue. But as hundreds of victims of abuse have come forward in the Netherlands and in Germany in recent weeks, several high-ranking Vatican officials have said this week that they expect the letter to speak to the broader situation beyond Ireland.

Separately, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany on Wednesday called the sex abuse scandal a major challenge to German society and warned the only way to come to terms with it was “truth and clarity about everything that took place.”

At the Vatican, Monsignor Scicluna’s comments on Tuesday, rare for an official in the famously reticent Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, were part of a broader Vatican defense against the rising abuse scandal in Germany.

Last weekend, Monsignor Scicluna told L’Avvenire [the newspaper is called Avvenire, not L'Avvenire, or has Donadio ever bothered to look at it at all?], the newspaper of the Italian Bishops Conference, that his office had examined 3,000 abuse cases in the past decade, most of them from the United States.

The ratio of 10 people handling 300 cases a year did not go over well in some quarters. “It seems like an extraordinarily paltry effort, given the scope of the crisis,” said David Clohessy, the national director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests. [Of course, he would say that!]

In a rare interview, by telephone on Tuesday, Monsignor Scicluna acknowledged the concern. Asked if he wanted reinforcements, he said with a laugh: “I would hope we have less work. That’s my hope. Not more people, less work.” [Great answer!]

He added that if the number of cases averaged 300 a year, “We can continue doing our job well with 10 people. The problem is: Are these numbers going to settle?”

A decade after the Roman Catholic Church in the United States was shaken by revelations of widespread sexual abuse of minors by priests, a similar phenomenon is sweeping Germany.

This week, the German church suspended a priest who had been allowed to work with children for decades after a court convicted him of molesting boys. In 1980, Archbishop Ratzinger allowed the priest to move to Munich for therapy after allegations of abuse. [The writer does not mention that the priest was sent to Munich from the Diocese of Essen, which is a relevant fact - i.e., the Archbishop welcomed him as a guest - the approval he gave was specifically to provide him accommodation in a parish residence - not as a pastor. How quickly the media ignore facts that do not fit their narrative, considering that the Munich archdiocesan statement only came out two weeks ago.]

Although last week the auxiliary bishop who approved the priest’s return to pastoral work stepped down, some have raised questions about Benedict’s responsibility in the matter.

“It depends what you mean by responsible,” Monsignor Scicluna said. “If he was involved in the decision [to assign the guest priest to pastoral duties], he would be. If he was not involved, it’s a responsibility that comes from his office, a ‘the buck stops here’ sort of thing.’ But I think that the person concerned has already taken responsibility for what he did; the answer to that question has already been given.”

Despite the small number of people in the Vatican working on such cases, he stressed that his office was the last step in a long process for the cases, after they have been investigated by “hundreds of canon lawyers” in dioceses worldwide.

“It’s not that these people are doing every case from A to Z, otherwise we’d really be bonkers,” he said.

The German Bishops Conference announced Tuesday that it would open a sexual-abuse phone line on March 30. The line would be for victims and professionals, but also for abusers.

Bishop Ludwig Schick of Bamberg told Bavarian Radio on Tuesday that he was surprised by the number of cases that had come to light [That's probably because he was among those who kept their head buried in the sand for so long! - Besides 170 cases so far that span decades has to be placed in context! If the earliest allegations date back to the 1950s, then 170 cases in 60 years, although 170 too many, is probably far less than 'par for the course'], and that the matter had to be dealt with openly and directly.

“It’s bitter and it’s hard, but it absolutely has to be worked through,” he said. “This abscess must be opened and dried out so that it can heal.”


Cardinal Brady says he is 'ashamed'
at his 'failure to uphold values'
in incident from the 1970s
CHARLIE TAYLOR and PATSY McGARRY

March 17, 2010


The Catholic Primate of Ireland, Cardinal Séan Brady, said today he "will reflect on what he has heard from those who have been hurt by abuse".

In his St Patrick's Day homily at Armagh Cathedral this morning, Dr Brady said he was "ashamed" by the fact that he has not always upheld the values that he professes and believes in.

There has been calls on the cardinal to consider his position after it emerged at the weekend that he had conducted canonical inquiries into allegations of child sex abuse by Fr Brendan Smyth 35 years ago, involving two young people, without reporting the allegations to civil authorities. [He was assigned by his bishop to investigate the allegations, so he reported to the bishop, whose duty it was to report to civilian authorities but did not do so because it was not 'done' at the time. Nor could Brady have been expected to go over his bishop's head to report to the police which, however, he did not think of doing then.]

Speaking today, the cardinal apologised again to victims of clerical child sex abuse.

"This week a painful episode from my own past has come before me. I have listened to reaction from people to my role in events thirty five years ago," he said.

"I want to say to anyone who has been hurt by any failure on my part that I apologise to you with all my heart. I also apologise to all those who feel I have let them down. Looking back I am ashamed that I have not always upheld the values that I profess and believe in," he added.

In his homily the cardinal said there was a need to take responsibilty for any mismangement or cover-up of child abuse.

"We must humbly continue to deal with the enormity of the hurt caused by abuse of children by some clergy and religious and the hopelessly inadequate response to that abuse in the past," said Dr Brady.

"For the sake of survivors, for the sake of all the Catholic faithful as well as the religious and priests of this country, we have to stop the drip, drip, drip of revelations of failure," he added.

"Be certain that I will be reflecting carefully as we enter into Holy Week, Easter and Pentecost. I will use this time to pray, to reflect on the Word of God and to discern the will of the Holy Spirit. I will reflect on what I have heard from those who have been hurt by abuse. I will also talk to people, priests, religious and to those I know and love," he added.

Andrew Madden, who in 1995 became the first in Ireland to go public with an abuse lawsuit against the church, dismissed the latest comments from Cardinal Brady.

“The notion of careful reflection is nonsense — he’s had 35 years to reflect on what he did then,” said Mr Madden.

“If the Catholic Church in Ireland is to be led by a man who accurately reflects it in its current state, then maybe it’s only right and fitting that it should be led by a man who has covered up the sexual abuse of children by a priest.

“He’s either going to go or he’s not going to go and if he doesn’t, the Catholic Church can’t pretend to be serious in any way about the issue of child protection and about reaching out to people who have been abused.”

Speaking in Washington this morning where he is attending St Patrick's Day festivities, Northern Ireland Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness became the latest person to say he believed Cardinal Brady should consider his position.

Mr McGuinness described the revelations as "a very grave situation for the Catholic Church".

Making his first comments about the weekend's revelations last night, the Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin said people want the truth to come out about clerical child sex abuse in Ireland and it may be necessary to extend the remit of the Murphy commission to ensure this is done.

However, he said he would not be calling for the resignation of Dr Brady as this was a personal decision.

“I’ve always said it is not my job to tell people to resign or tell people to stay. I’ve never done that. People should be accountable, render an account of what they have done. Resignations are a personal matter," he said.

In a statement yesterday, the Catholic Communications Office issued further details of the 1975 investigation into Fr Smyth, saying “on 29 March 1975, Fr Brady and two other priests interviewed a boy (14) in Dundalk. Fr Brady’s role was to take notes. On 4 April 1975, Fr Brady interviewed a second boy (15) in the Parochial House in Ballyjamesduff. On this occasion, Fr Brady conducted the inquiry by himself and took notes”.

The Catholic Communications Office said the intention of the oath taken by the two young people at the end of the inquiry “was to avoid potential collusion in the gathering of the inquiry’s evidence and to ensure that the process was robust enough to withstand challenge by the perpetrator, Fr Brendan Smyth”.

On April 12th, 1975, Bishop McKiernan reported the findings to the Abbot of Kilnacrott.

“The specific responsibility for the supervision of Fr Smyth’s activities was, at all times, with his religious superiors. Bishop McKiernan withdrew Brendan Smyth’s priestly faculties and advised psychiatric intervention,” the statement said.

Until yesterday, it was understood the 1975 inquiries involved a boy and a girl and that it was the latter who has undertaken the High Court proceedings which led to the weekend revelations.

Attempts to clarify this with the Catholic Communications Office yesterday were unsuccessful. That office did not respond either to a series of questions e-mailed to it by The Irish Times. Included was a query as to whether it was two boys who were involved in the 1975 inquiries.

The office was also asked whether Cardinal Brady had followed Brendan Smyth’s movements after 1975, with possible further abuse of children in mind, and if not, why not.



It's hard not to feel the pain of Cardinal Brady, and not to feel pain for him. The pressure on him in Ireland and the UK to resign as Archbishop is enormous and mounting by the minute.

One can surely reproach him for living according to the culture of the day and therefore not bothering more about the case after he had carried out the questioning he had to do. After all, the matter was now in his bishop's hands, who did the right thing: 'relieving him [Fr. Smyth] of his priestly faculties' and remanding him to his order, the Norbertines. Thereafter, Smyth was strictly the responsibility of his order, not the bishop or the diocese - and apparently went on to abuse many more girls and boys.

Nonetheless, all the critics of the Church will capitalize on this moral ambiguity, that Brady admits today, to claim he is unfit to be Primate of Ireland. Was Augustine unfit to be Bishop of Hippo because of his sinful past? Cardinal Brady, who from all other accounts, appears to be a genuinely holy man, was not more sinful than Augustine for that one lapse, as terrible as it was, and especially, as it may seem today. So, he failed to do the heroic thing - buck the prevailing culture, go over the bishop's head, and denounce the priest to the police. And if he had done so, who knows, he may have advanced the public crusade against sexual abuse by priests three decades! Yet we cannot expect all priests to be heroes in the conventional sense - they are are heroic enough to have chosen the priesthood and for being able to uphold their vow of chastity afterwards.

Even if Brady submits his resignation, I don't think the Pope will accept it, because his lapse does not rise to the level of criminal culpability. Even today, apparently, there is no Irish law that requires priests to report sexual offenses to the police. But it will be a decision that would cost the Church and the Pope more damage in terms of public opinion [that incidentally, is so forgiving of celebrities and politicians who confess in public to their misdeeds, but lose every shred of Christian charity and becomes relentlessly moralizing when it comes to priests who sin or make mistakes].

But will Irish public opinion allow the cardinal to remain in his position without further recrimination? His position can become so untenable he has no choice but to resign - which would place the Pope in a situation that also leaves him with no choice. This is probably a more terrible 'PR' crisis for the Church than what's happened in Germany so far.

In any case, it now behooves every bishop and priest who holds pastoral responsibility to look back into his past and see if there are any incidents like these that can come up to besmirch them, fairly or unfairly, and come clean ASAP.

Perhaps the Congregation for Bishops should adopt for Church appointees to high positions the kind of detailed questionnaire that US presidential appointees who require Senate consent must fill out about their past. Only instead of "Did you ever hire an illegal alien?", the obligatory question would be "Did you ever have anything to do, directly or indirectly, with any case involving sexual abuse of minors?"


NB: I posted the background to this case in the CHURCH&VATICAN thread yesterday.