Here's a belated post reporting something I have not seen elsewhere - though I had wondered why there were really no reports - only photos - about what Archbishops Martin and Brady had told newsmen who besieged them after they emerged from their audience with the Pope yesterday.
Archbishop Martin says
pastoral letter to Irish faithful
was entirely the Pope's idea
VATICAN CITY, Dec. 11 (Translated from ASCA) - The idea of writing a pastoral letter to the Catholics of Ireland, shaken by the revelations of the government inquiry on child abuses committed by Irish priests, came directly from Pope Benedict XVI and was not the result of a request by the Irish bishops.
This was stated by Archbishop Darmuid Martin of Dublin, speaking to newsmen who spoke to him and the Archbishop of Armagh, Sean Brady, Primate of Ireland, after their 90-minute meeting with the Pope and leading members of the Roman Curia.
Martin said the letter would probably be ready shortly after the New Year, and anticipated a 'very important reorganization' of the Church in Ireland after this crisis.
An Irish Times article today - which did not make any reference to Martin's comment about the Pope's pastoral letter adds the following information:
Last night the retired professor of moral theology at St Patrick’s College, Maynooth, Dr Vincent Twomey, said it was rare for a Pope to address a local church through a pastoral letter and that it was “very significant”.
Dr Twomey, who was a doctoral student of the Pope for many years at Regensburg University in Germany, said such letters were sent at times “of major crisis for both the Church and the society” to whom they were addressed.
I must confess that because of the precedent of the Pope's pastoral letter to the Catholics of China, I did not appreciate the singular new precedent itself of a pastoral letter to the Irish, as Mons. Twomey points out.
The letter to the Chinese Catholics was historically necessary for obvious reasons - nowhere else in the world today is there a Church divided into 'official' and 'underground', and all Chinese Catholics, whatever side they belong to, needed an authoritative voice speaking to all of them, after more than 50 years of being rudderless and leaderless.
The Church in the United States was shaken to the roots by the scandal of abusive priests and bishops covering up for them, much earlier than the Church of Ireland - and it is still paying for its sins, literally. But the Church in the US did not get a pastoral letter from the Pope - it may have had to do with timing, since the US scandal peaked in the final years of John Paul II's life, when from all accounts, his Polish 'kitchen cabinet' was running the Church administration. [Also, I don't think that in his 26+ years as Pope, John Paul II ever had to write one of these special pastoral letters.]
[For instance, I share the perplexity of many American Catholics that Cardinal Law of Boston, who covered for his erring priests as badly as any of the Irish bishops mentioned in the Ryan and Murphy reports, appeared to have been rewarded by the Vatican by being named Arch-Priest of Santa Maria Maggiore. Assignment to a monastery or a foreign mission might have been more appropriate.]
But Benedict XVI is able to use every tool available to a Pope to drive home his message when he has to - so the letter to China; perhaps more so, the letter to all the bishops in March this year - a historic precedent that most people may tend to forget or overlook, probably the most dramatic gesture so far from a man little given to histrionics; and now, a letter to the Catholics of Ireland who need reassurance that their present bishops cannot give them because their immediate predecessors had failed their flocks too obviously.
Still unresolved - or at least not made public yet - is what the Pope will decide about the erring irish bishops who are still alive and leading dioceses.
Archbishop Martin said he has asked the Bishop of Limerick, who has submitted his resignation, to desist from performing any episcopal duties like confirmation.
Another belated post, but that's because I wasn't expecting this reaction to come from where it does! I was looking for what John Allen has to say this week - but his Friday column is all about the week he spent in New York with Archbishop Dolan. And Winters is often a very dependable mouthpiece for the ultra-liberals.
Benedict XVI speaks on the Irish scandal -
and does not mince words
by Michael Sean Winters
December 11, 2009
Pope Benedict XVI met with leaders of the Church in Ireland today to discuss the Dublin Report on the sexual abuse of minors by clergy and the resulting cover-up. One thing you have to give this Pontiff: He does not mince words.
Usually, the communiqués that follow such meetings are exercises in diplomatic speech, saying precisely nothing. Not so the statement issued after today’s meeting.
“The Holy Father shares the outrage, betrayal and shame felt by so many of the faithful in Ireland, and he is united with them in prayer at this difficult time in the life of the Church,” it read.
Even more important was another sentence from the communiqué: “The Holy See takes very seriously the central issues raised by the Report, including questions concerning the governance of local Church leaders with ultimate responsibility for the pastoral care of children.”
Finally, someone – and not just someone, but the Successor of Peter - said what needed to be said. This scandal started as a sex scandal the way Watergate started as a burglary. It was the cover-up that has become the thing that is impossible to understand, still less to justify. It is time not only to remove priests who were pedophiles but the prelates who abetted their crime.
[According to the Italian Vaticanistas, the Pope himself had a hand in formulating the Vatican communique. He did the same thing with the statements issued after his meeting with priests' victims in the US and in Australia.]
The Pope’s stand could not be more different from that on evidence in the recently released documents from Bridgeport that showed a prelate, then-Bishop, later Cardinal Edward Egan, exhibiting a moral callousness that was stupefying.
But, even in 2002, at the height of the sex abuse crisis in the states, and not just in a deposition he thought no one would see but in his public comments, Egan was morally deficient.
“If in hindsight we also discover that mistakes may have been made as regards prompt removal of priests and assistance to victims, I am deeply sorry,” Egan told his flock in 2002.
Note the distance between the word “mistakes” and the pronoun “I.” That is the measure of a man determined to avoid responsibility for anything and someone who should be asked to surrender his red hat.
I hope Cardinal Egan gets a chance to give his side.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 13/12/2009 04:00]