I spoke too soon when I said earlier that the muck-rakers seem to have come up with nothing new so far. Boy, was I wrong.... and remember that I warned the Associated Press was engaged in one-upmanship with the New York Times?
They've come out crowing with a new case now, complete with the photocopy of a 1985 letter in Latin signed by Cardinal Ratzinger,
which they are free to translate any way they want, in this case, to make it appear what they claim it is - because how many newspaper readers, after all, know enough Latin to read an official Vatican document? Meanwhile, they have already planted the poison...
LOS ANGELES, April 9 (AP) -The future Pope Benedict XVI resisted pleas to defrock a California priest with a record of sexually molesting children, citing concerns including "the good of the universal church," according to a 1985 letter bearing his signature.
The correspondence, obtained by The Associated Press, is the strongest challenge yet to the Vatican's insistence that Benedict played no role in blocking the removal of pedophile priests during his years as head of the Catholic Church's doctrinal watchdog office.
As you can see from the first two paragraphs of the story, the gloating is so palpable I can't stand to post the story here so you may check it out in TOXIC WASTE.
According to Lella:
THE 1985 LETTER WAS ABOUT THE REQUEST BY THE PRIEST HIMSELF TO LEAVE THE PRIESTHOOD AFTER HE WAS ACCUSED OF A SEXUAL OFFENSE. IN 1985, THE CDF WAS 16 YEARS AWAY FROM BEING ASSIGNED COMPETENCE OVER SEX CRIMES BY PRIESTS [AND IT HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH DEFROCKING PRIESTS, WHICH WAS THEPREROGATIVE OF CANONICAL TRIBUNALS IN THE VATICAN.]
AP has been busy in Canada, too, with a story about a Canadian bishop whom they identify as a 'good friend of John Paul II', whom he apparently named to a Curial position even after the Vatican had been told that the priest had a sex-offense record. I have also posted this story in TOXIC WASTE.... They have so far been unable to connect Joseph Ratzinger to this story, but they'll find a way somehow.....
And to complete their anti-Ratzinger package for the day, AP has apparently also previaled on Fr. Nulelrmann's first victim in Essen (before he came to Munich) to come public and demand that the Pope apologize to him and compensante him or some such nonsense... Also in the TOXICWASTE*LOONYBIN...
Vatican responds to
AP allegation
VATICAN CITY, April 9 (Translated from AGI) - The Vatican's deputy vice director, Fr. Ciro Benedettini, told newsmen today that the 1985 letter from Cardinal Ratzinger to the Bishop of Oakland about reducing a priest to the lay state clearly showed he advised "the need to study the case with greater attention".
Benedettini also pointed out that in 1985, administrative discipline over priests involved in sex abuse cases was entirely the responsibility of the local bishop.
"The dogged attempts by media to involve Joseph Ratzinger directly in the scandal over pedophile priests continues," he said in an initial reaction to the letter brandished by the Associated Press today from the then prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to the then Bishop of Oakland, Mons. Joseph Cummins.
Cummins had written the cardinal about the request of a priest accused of pedophile acts to leave the priesthood.
"What the cardinal asked was nothing more than a normal call to prudence in order to examien more clearly what the diocese was proposing," the Vatican official noted, provided that the priest was not returned to pastoral work.
But he also pointed out that sex abuse cases were not within the competence of the CDF in 1985, and that there appeared to be a confusion about relieving a priest of his pastoral responsibilities and reducing him to lay state. The first is the responsibility of the local diocese; the second has to be authorized by the Holy See [but not by the CDF].
I still wish the Vatican could have provided a full translation of the letter ASAP! After all, it has only five sentences. The initial reaction of Fr. Lombardi reported by AP in their original report, and these statements by Fr. Benedettini are not up to par.
It is still not clear to me why Bishop Cummins wrote to Cardinal Ratzinger about this case at all, since if it was about reducing the priest to a lay state, the CDF had nothing to do with that at the time. Was he merely asking his advice as a brother bishop? Even more strange, Cummins reportedly told the AP today he does not remember having written to Cardinal Ratzinger and wishes now that he had! NO, I don't think the Vatican Press Office handles this so well.
NB:
Father Z has heavily fisked the AP story from Los Angeles
wdtprs.com/blog/
but surprisingly, he did not provide a translation of the letter (I actually went to his site hoping to find the translation!)... Anyway, in his fisking, Fr. Z, who worked in a Curial dicastery for some time in Rome, describes how the Vatican dealt with the matter of priests asking to be laicized in the decades that followed Vatican-II:
In the 60’s and 70’s hordes of priests simply leftthe ministry or, if they requested a dispensation from the obligations of the clerical state, they were often caused to wait a great deal of time – often a decade or more – with the hope that somehow they might be recovered as priests.
Clearly this case is more complicated because the priest concerned had harmed children. But back in the day, the standard operating procedure was to try to save priests from quitting. Therefore, when a petition for dispensation had been made, the Congregation followed their standard operating procedure....
In the meantime, Rome, which usually wanted sometimes many years to pass before dispensing men from the obligations of the clerical state, was following its usual procedure before putting the dispensation on the Holy Father’s desk for his signature. The Pope would ultimate have to sign it.
If one understands right, until the competence for canonical adjudication of sex abuse cases was given to the CDF in 2001, it did not have the competence to decide which priests should be dismissed from the clerical state for these offenses.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 10/04/2010 20:27]