Here's how the New York Times reports on the 1988 letter by Cardinal Ratzinger - and like John Allen, Donadio chooses to see it in the sense that it 'appeared to defend the Pope'. The article does not present much of the historical facts and arguments laid out in the OR article and misses its main thrust: that in 2007, Benedict XVI had asked the Pontifical Council for Legislative texts to review certain aspects of canon law to update it in a way that will remedy its loopholes in the way that the Church, starting with the bishops, should deal with priest offenders, and that as a result, such amendments are now ready to be promulgated.
However, at least, the Times acknowledged the report. Also noteworthy is that it refers to the recent Der Spiegel report of new documents in the Hullerman case while Cardinal Ratzinger was archbishop of Munich but does not belabor the point. Curiously, I have not seen it picked up so far in other Anglophone reports either, but I have not really done a search...
Pope sought in the past
to punish errant priests,
report says
By RACHEL DONADIO
ROME. Dec. 1 — Pope Benedict XVI pushed for “more rapid and simplified” procedures to punish errant priests as far back as 1988, when he was the Vatican’s chief doctrinal officer, but his request was not met, according to documents released by the Vatican on Wednesday.
At the height of the sexual abuse crisis last spring, Benedict’s defenders said he had long argued for disciplining priests who had been found guilty of grave misconduct, while other Vatican officials advocated more lenience. The new documentation is the most comprehensive made public to date supporting those claims.
It comes amid new reports in the German media questioning the Pope’s record as archbishop of Munich when a known pedophile priest was transferred to his diocese.
The new documentation, released online Wednesday by the Vatican newspaper,
L’Osservatore Romano,
appeared to defend the Pope against claims that as head of the Vatican’s doctrinal office he was part of a culture of inaction and delay that failed to swiftly discipline priests who had abused minors.
The article cited in particular a 1988 letter that the Pope, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, sent to the Vatican calling for “a swifter and simplified” procedure for disciplining priests “found guilty of grave and scandalous conduct.”
In the letter, he added that such procedures “ought in some cases, for the good of the faithful, to take precedence over the request for dispensation from priestly obligations, which, by its nature, involves a ‘grace’ in favor of the petitioner.”
In reply, his interlocutor suggested that such reforms might infringe on a priest’s ability to defend himself against false accusations, and the Vatican did not immediately adopt the cardinal’s request.
The letters appear in a lengthy article by Bishop Juan Ignacio Arrieta, the deputy of the Vatican’s office of legislative texts, about changes to the Vatican penal code.
The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said that the letters had emerged in discussions about the code, and that “it seemed useful to publish them now.”
Last month, the Vatican said it would soon issue new guidelines to bishops explaining how to discipline abusive priests, including by cooperating with civil authorities when required.
For years, bishops had complained of widespread confusion about how to handle abuse accusations and said they faced a daunting bureaucratic and canonical process with overlapping jurisdictions in Rome. [While some of that may be true, it appears equally true that for decades since the 1960s, some bishops chose to ignore clear provisions in canon law to 'protect' the reputation of the diocese and, in the process, ended up being too lenient with priest offenders.]
The AP story brings a much better context to the story and does not even bring up the 'new' report on the Hullerman case in Munich. However, it also sees the publication of the 1988 letter as a 'defense' of the Pope, as if he needed 'defending' in this matter....
Vatican releases 1988 letter
from Cardinal Ratzinger
on abusive priests
by Nicole Winfield
VATICAN CITY, Dec. 2 (AP) — The Vatican on Thursday released documentation showing Pope Benedict XVI sought as early as 1988 to find quicker ways to permanently remove priests who raped and molested children.
Then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’s Feb. 19, 1988, letter shows he complained officially that Church law made it exceedingly difficult to remove abusers if they didn’t request so-called laicization voluntarily.
He asked to get around the problem by finding “a quicker and simpler procedure” than a cumbersome Church trial to punish those priests who “during their ministry were found guilty of grave and scandalous behaviour.”
The documentation was cited by the Vatican newspaper Thursday in explaining the upcoming revision of Church law, which was last updated in 1983.
The article, penned by the No. 2 in the Vatican’s legal office, highlighted some of the problems and loopholes of the 1983 Code of Canon Law that presumably will be addressed in the revision.
The Vatican has long sought to portray Benedict as having done more than anyone else at the Vatican to crack down on pedophile priests. But it has usually cited as his starting point a 2001 decision to have all abuse cases sent to his former office, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
The 1988 letter would seem to be
the Vatican’s best defence to date that Ratzinger wanted to get tough with pedophiles far earlier but found himself unable to because of Church law at the time.
As the clerical abuse scandal erupted earlier this year, Benedict was mired by accusations that as prefect of the Congregation, he repeatedly refused bishops’ requests to have abusers removed from the clerical state.
Ratzinger at the time was following Church
law and rules introduced by Pope John Paul II which largely left punishing such priests in the hands of the local bishops.
John Paul had made it tougher to leave the priesthood after assuming the papacy in 1978, hoping to stem the tide of thousands of priests who left the priesthood in the 1970s to marry.
A consequence of that policy was that, as the priest sex abuse scandal arose in the U.S., bishops were no longer able to sidestep the lengthy Church trial necessary for laicization.
Here is Sandro Magister's preliminary presentation of it in his blog today (I am sure he will be posting the full Civilta Cattolica article on www.chiesa eventually):
No-longer-secret Vatican documents:
Three Ratzinger letters from 1988
Translated from
Dec. 2, 2010
In the midst of the worldwide 'fever' over Wikileaks, the Vatican has some revelations of its own - three previously unpublished
[and unreported] letters of Joseph Ratzinger in 1988 on the hot issue of canonical sacntions against priests found guilty of abuses against minors.
The revelations come in the pages of
La Civilta Cattolica with a preview in today's issue of
L'Osservatore Romano which has substantial excerpts of a report that will appear later this week in the Jesuit monthly journal that has the imprimatur of the Vatican Secretariat of State.
One can tell that the article is unusual even from its byline - Bishop Juan Ignacio Arrieta, an Opus Dei prelate who is the secretary of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts - since usually Civilta only publishes Jesuit writers. (That the rule-breaker is from Opus Dei is something unprecedented in human memory!]
Arrieta's article contains legitimate news, as well as the background to that news. The news comes in its opening paragraph:
In the next few weeks, the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts will sends its members and counsultants a draft with proposals for the reform of Book VI of the Codex iuris canonici (Code of Canon Law), the basis for the Church's penal system.
A commission of penal experts have worked for almost two years, reviewing the text promulgated in 1983 not just to keep its overall structure adn the humebring of the canons, but also to make decisive modifications to some choices made at the time which have proven to be less than successful.
The rest of the article explains the background and antecedents for these changes.
The initiative was born from a mandate conferred by Benedict XVI on the new superiors of the dicastery on September 28, 2007. From a meeting then, it was evident that his instruction corresponded to a profound belief by the Pope, matured during years of direct experience, and out of his concern for the integrity and consistent application of discipline in the Church - a conviction and concern that have guided the steps taken by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger since he became the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, despite the objective difficulties resulting, among others, from the promulgation of the Codex in 1983. In order to better appreciate (the initiative), one must recall some particulars of the legislative framework that was modified and promulgated in 1983.
Substantial excerpts from Arrieta's article are in the 12/2/10 issue of
Osservatore Romano and on the Vatican website, under the title "
Cardinal Ratzinger and the revision of the canonical penal system in three unpublished letters from 1988".
Arrieta publishes the correspondence that year between Cardinal Ratzinger and the then president of the Commission for the authentic interpretation of the Code of Canon Law, Cardinal José Rosalio Castillo Lara.
Ratzinger had urged modification of some points of the penal system in the 1983 revision of the Code of Canon law, which he considered
too 'protective' [of the accused priest] and therefore, an obstacle to the effective application of penalties.
He also says that at the time, there was
"a widespread anti-juridical attitude that translated itself, among others, in the difficulty of balancing the demands of pastoral charity with those of justice and good government".
The article must be read in full. It allows a better appreciation of the role that Ratzinger played in the promulgation of the Norms on Grave Crimes in 2001, and in his bid for a faster way to administer penalties to priests found guilty of committing these grave offenses.
Further on this subject, see the article on
www.chiesa -
chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1345646?eng=y
[I must confess I completely overlooked this article dated 11/20/10. Although its title is misleading to the effect that some cardinals have doubts over a 'zero tolerance' policy for [edophilia in the clergy, it is actually about the lreservations that some canon law experts have to the fact that the CDF now has jurisdiction over such crimes. I will post it after I have translated it properly from the Italian, but you may read the translation courtesy of Mr. Magister's English translator, which is the link above.]
The interview-book
Light of the World also contains some illuminating words from Benedict XVI on this subject.
My addendum:
[This is the pertinent excerpt from LOTW:
Seewald: It is not only the abuse that is upsetting, it is also the way of dealing with it. The deeds themselves were hushed up and kept secret for decades. That is a declaration of bankruptcy for an institution that has love written on its banner.
B16: The Archbishop of Dublin told me something very interesting about that. He said that ecclesiastical penal law functioned until the late 1950s; admittedly it was not perfect – there is much to criticise about it – but nevertheless it was applied. After the mid-1960s, however, it was simply not applied any more.
The prevailing mentality was that the Church must not be a Church of laws but, rather, a Church of love; she must not punish. Thus the awareness that punishment can be an act of love ceased to exist. This led to an odd darkening of the mind, even in very good people.
Today we have to learn all over again that love for the sinner and love for the person who has been harmed are correctly balanced if I punish the sinner in the form that is possible and appropriate.
In this respect there was in the past a change of mentality, in which the law and the need for punishment were obscured. Ultimately this also narrowed the concept of love, which in fact is not just being nice or courteous, but is found in the truth. And another component of truth is that I must punish the one who has sinned against real love.
Compare the above to what he wrote in 1988 - THAT'S CONSISTENCY!
**************************************************************************************************
In a related matter, here's some news on a Delaware jury that has just awarded $30-million in damages to a man who claimed he was abused more than 100 times by a Catholic priest.
www.nytimes.com/2010/12/02/us/02church.html
I will post the full story later in the CHURCH thread.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 03/12/2010 00:26]