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BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

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13/04/2010 17:24
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The Pope will meet sex abuse victims
but away from media's glare




Vatican City, April 13 (dpa) - Pope Benedict XVI is willing to continue meeting victims of sexual abuse by priests, but not under media pressure, his spokesman said Tuesday.

Father Federico Lombardi was replying to a question at a Vatican briefing on whether the Pontiff intended to meet abuse victims during his visit to Malta scheduledfor Saturday and Sunday.

The Pontiff's trip is a "short," one Lombardi said, indicating that no meeting with abuse victims was planned.

Benedict, who has met victims during previous trips to the US and Australia, intends to continue the practice, but only in "a climate of meditation and reflection and not under media pressure," Lombardi said.

On Monday a group of Maltese men - who allege they were the victims of child abuse at the hands of priests at an orphanage in the 1980s -called for a meeting with the Pontiff during his visit to the Mediterranean island-nation.

They told a news conference they were seeking justice from the Catholic Church but were not after financial compensation.

Benedict's visit to Malta, his first trip abroad of 2010, comes in the wake of a series of child abuse claims and revelations in Ireland and the US that have rocked the Catholic Church.

Fr. Lombardi said much more about this but I have to translate the Italian reports...


Here's how Reuters reported Fr. Lombardi's briefing. The 'Vatican' in the headline is Fr. Lombardi. This is an annoying, terribly wrong and deliverately misleading media habit most absurdly reflected lately in the media to-do over the past two days of Osservatore Romano's silly glorification of the Beatles last weekend - on a day when the OR carried not a word about the abuse question - which naturally MSM trumpeted as 'Vatican forgives the Beatles', since the MSM routinely equate Mr. Vian's questionable editorial judgments reflected in his OR now, to official 'positions' by 'the Vatican', by which MSM mean indiscriminately the Church, the Holy See and the Pope separately or altogether.


Vatican scoffs at idea
of arresting Pope in Britain

By Philip Pullella


VATICAN CITY, April 13 (Reuters) – The Vatican said on Tuesday Pope Benedict was willing to meet more sexual abuse victims but not under media pressure, and scoffed at calls for the Pope to be arrested when he visits Britain in September.

A lawyer for British author and atheist campaigner Richard Dawkins said in London at the weekend he would try to have Pope Benedict arrested to face questions over accusations the Church covered up cases of sexual abuse of children by priests.

Asked about this at a briefing on the Pope's trip to Malta this weekend, Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi scoffed.

"This is a bizarre idea to say the least. It looks like the intent is to make a public opinion splash. I think they should look for something more serious and concrete before we can respond to it," he said.

"The Pope's visit (to Britain) is a visit of state, and so it would be very strange if during a state visit the person who is invited to make a state visit is arrested," he said.

Dawkins, a scientist and outspoken critic of religion [who surrenders every iota of reason and scientific thinking in his absolute hatred of religion], has asked human rights lawyers to examine whether charges could be brought against the Pope during the September 16-19 trip.

The Vatican has rejected accusations the Pope helped to cover up abuse by priests in jobs he held before his election in 2005 and has accused the media of waging a "despicable campaign of defamation" against him.

In Washington, the American Humanist Association, which advocates the rights of non-believers, backed Dawkins's view that the Pope should not have diplomatic immunity as a head of state and called for a "criminal investigation" of the church.

"Religious institutions should not be exempt from such scrutiny just because they are religious, and they should be held accountable for any criminal wrongdoing
," the AHA said in a statement. [Backed up by all their infallible experts on international law, of course!]

The Vatican said last week that Benedict, who travels to Malta on Saturday, would be willing to meet more victims, as he had during his trips to the United States and Australia.

The Pope feels that meetings with victims should take place "in a climate that is intentionally one of reflection, discreet, and not under pressure of the glare of the media, so he can have a real possibility to listen and communicate personally," Lombardi said.

Ten Maltese men who are suing three priests for alleged child abuse have requested a private meeting with the Pope.

Lombardi said he could not say if a meeting would take place. "I am not the one who decides what the Pope does during his trips," Lombardi said, adding that such meetings were not announced in advance but confirmed only after they take place.

A spokesman for the Maltese men said they wanted a meeting "to help us heal and to overcome this trauma".

So far, the Pope has not spoken out directly on the new wave of sexual abuse allegations that is besetting the Church in a number of countries, including the United States, Italy and his native Germany. He last spoke about it in a letter to the Irish people on March 20.

In Malta, which is about 95 percent Catholic, billboards publicizing the papal visit were daubed last week with images related to sexual abuse.

The crisis over abuse of children by priests shows no sign of abating, with new revelations emerging almost daily and the Vatican scrambling to find a response strategy. [Pullella's wishful thinking not supported by objective fact. What new 'revelations' have come out since the patently rigged-up Kiesle case?]

On Monday the Vatican published an online guide to rules for handling sex abuse charges against priests. [Something that was pre-announced at least a week earlier! That's hardly scrambling.]

It made clear high up that bishops must report crimes to the police, saying that "civil law concerning reporting of crimes to the appropriate authorities should always be followed".

Also on Monday, a new report commissioned by the Church in Germany said children were "sadistically tormented and also sexually abused" at a Catholic monastery in the heavily Catholic Bavaria region.


What exactly is 'the Vatican'
and how does it communicate?


When I decided back in 2005 that I wanted to 'follow' very closely the Pontificate of Benedict XVI, the first thing I did was to set myself straight about certain concepts - what is 'the Vatican' exactly and how does it relate to the Catholic Church and to what is called the Holy See. It's a bit confusing at first, but fairly well-defined.

Which is why I find it both careless and mindless for the MSM, including some Catholics in the US media, to speak of a 'Vatican communications strategy' - because there are separate entities in play, not a single homogeneous one, for the simple reason that 'the Vatican' represents many overlapping entities:

- The Pope generally speaks for himself. Subordinates with the appropriate competence can amplify his statements on the practical level, without attributing direct quotations.
- The Holy See, in the strictest sense, is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome, seat of the Bishop of Rome, who is also the Pope.
- The Holy See, as a religious ecclesiastical entity, is the central 'government' of the Church, with the Supreme Pontiff as its head, and speaks through the various Vatican Curial offices on their respective competencies, always by means of formal documents, with the express approval of the Pope.
- The Holy See, as a sovereign state with full statehood under international law, operates from the territory of the State of Vatican City, with the Pope as chief of state, who maintains relations with other states and international organizations through the Secretariat of State.
- The Holy See as a legal person is similar to the Crown in secular monarchies like Britain.
- The state formally called Stato della Citta del Vaticano (SCV), refers to the territory of the Vatican (and its extra-territorial possessions, including its Nunciatures in foreign countries). The state was created by the Lateran Pacts of 1929 precisely to "ensure the absolute and visible independence of the Holy See" and "to guarantee to it an indisputable sovereignty in international affairs". [This is very important these days, in view of the ridiculous Ditchkins-and-Loonies game of 'Arrest the Pope". 'Ditchkins' is some clever person's conflation of Dawkins and Hitchens, the two head loonies.] SCV is administered by a Governatorate as its local government.

Before 1929, the Holy See, represented by the See of Rome, was recognized since medieval times as a sovereign entity. And if we go back to the first See of Rome, under the Apostle Peter, the Holy See is the oldest continuing institution in the world both as a Church and as a sovereign entity.

Father Lombardi speaks for the Holy See headed by the Pope - the official Vatican website is tagged 'Holy See' in all the official Vatican languages, and the press bulletins are clearly labelled 'Bulletin, Press Office of the Holy See'. These statements are generally about the Church Magisterium and affairs of the Universal Church. It also documents the Pope's meetings with international leaders and with ambassadors to the Holy See. And it publishes the texts of important policy declarations made by the diplomatic representatives of the Holy See, especially those to the United Nations and its various agencies,

All other individual statements spoken by Vatican officials, no matter how high-ranking (or issued under their own personal signature) are not official Vatican positions, but personal opinions, and should be reported as such.

In Chile during his current visit, for instance, Cardinal Bertone said he pedophilia in priests was linked to homosexuality, which many in MSM have already jumped upon and presented as the 'Vatican position'!

On his inflight Q&A enroute to Washington DC in 2008, the Holy Father said expressly, "I am talking here about pedophilia, not about homosexuality, which is a different matter".

Obviously, Cardinal Bertone erred in volunteering such a statement - even if he attributed the link with homosexuality to "many experts who have studied the matter".



Meanwhile, on her site, Beatrice reminds her viewers of a 2008 drawing from a German language picture book published on the occasion of the Holy Father's summer vacation in Bressanone... The panel is self explanatory...


A seocnd panel is just as appropriate these days, on the eve of his Malta trip, only it does not reduce well in size for a frieze...


[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 13/04/2010 22:00]
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