Conclave brings out
cardinals' dirty laundry
By NICOLE WINFIELD
VATICAN CITY, February 20, 2013 (AP) — Popular pressure is mounting in the U.S. and Italy to keep California Cardinal Roger Mahony away from the conclave to elect the next Pope because of his role shielding sexually abusive priests, a movement targeting one of the most prominent of a handful of compromised cardinals scheduled to vote next month.
Amid the outcry, Mahony has made clear he is coming, and no one can force him to recuse himself. A Vatican historian also said Wednesday that there is no precedent for a cardinal staying home because of personal scandal.
But the growing grass-roots campaign is an indication that ordinary Catholics are increasingly demanding a greater say in who is fit to elect their Pope, and casts an ugly shadow over the upcoming papal election.
Conclaves always bring out the worst in cardinals' dirty laundry, with past sins and transgressions aired anew in the slow news days preceding the vote. This time is no different — except that the revelations of Mahony's sins are so fresh and come on the tails of a recent round of sex abuse scandals in the U.S. and Europe.
This week, the influential Italian Catholic affairs magazine
Famiglia Cristiana asked its readers if the Los Angeles-based Cardinal Mahony should participate in the conclave given the revelations. "Your opinion: Mahony in the conclave: Yes or No?" reads the online survey of one of Italy's most-read magazines. The overwhelming majority among more than 350 replies has been a clear-cut "No."
The magazine is distributed free in Italian parishes each Sunday. The fact that it initiated the poll is an indication that the Catholic establishment in Italy has itself questioned whether tarnished cardinals should be allowed to vote — a remarkable turn of events for a conservative Catholic country that has long kept quiet about priestly abuse and still is deferential to the Church hierarchy in its backyard.
That initiative followed a petition by a group in the United States, Catholics United, demanding that Mahony recuse himself. So far 5,600 people have signed the petition, according to spokesman Chris Pumpelly.
"It's the right thing to do," Andrea León-Grossman, a Los Angeles member of Catholics United, said in a statement on the group's website. "In the interests of the children who were raped in his diocese, he needs to keep out of the public eye. He has already been stripped of his ministry.
[He was not - just prohibited from ministering in public in the Archdiocese of Lons Angeles.] If he's truly sorry for what has happened, he would show some humility and opt to stay home."
Mahony, however, has made clear he will vote. "Count-down to the papal conclave has begun. Your prayers needed that we elect the best pope for today and tomorrow's church," he tweeted earlier this week. He promised daily Twitter updates.
Separately on Wednesday, New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan was deposed about clergy abuse in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, which he led from 2002 until 2009. The Milwaukee archdiocese has sought bankruptcy protection from nearly 500 abuse claims. The attorney for the Milwaukee archdiocese said Dolan was mainly questioned about his decision to publicly name clergy known to have molested children.
Cardinal Velasio De Paolis, one of the Vatican's top canon lawyers, told The Associated Press that barring any canonical impediments, Mahony has a right and duty to vote in the conclave. At best, he said, someone could persuade him not to come, but De Paolis insisted he wasn't suggesting that someone should.
Bishop Charles Scicluna, the Vatican's former sex crimes prosecutor, said it was up to Mahony's conscience to decide whether or not to participate.
"It's not an easy situation for him," Scicluna was quoted as saying by Rome daily La Repubblica.
Historian Ambrogio Piazzoni, the vice prefect of the Vatican library, said
there was no precedent for a cardinal staying away from a conclave because of personal scandal, though in the past some have been impeded either by illness or interference by governments.
Regardless, he said, any decision to stay away would have to be approved by the full College of Cardinals given that the main duty of a cardinal is to vote in a conclave.
"The thing that characterizes a cardinal is to be an elector of the Pope," he told reporters.
Last month, a court in Los Angeles ordered the release of thousands of pages of confidential personnel files of more than 120 priests accused of sex abuse. The files show that Mahony and other top archdiocese officials maneuvered behind the scenes to shield accused priests and protect the church from a growing scandal while keeping parishioners in the dark.
Mahony was stripped of his public and administrative duties last month by his successor at the largest Catholic diocese in the United States. But the dressing-down by Archbishop Jose Gomez only affected Mahony's work in the archdiocese, not his role as a cardinal. Gomez has since urged prayers for Mahony as he enters the conclave.
Mahony has responded directly and indirectly to the outcry on his blog, writing about the many "humiliations" Jesus endured.
"Given all of the storms that have surrounded me and the archdiocese of Los Angeles recently, God's grace finally helped me to understand: I am not being called to serve Jesus in humility. Rather, I am being called to something deeper — to be humiliated, disgraced, and rebuffed by many," Mahony wrote.
He said in recent days he had been confronted by many angry people. "I could understand the depth of their anger and outrage — at me, at the Church, at about injustices that swirl around us," he wrote. "Thanks to God's special grace, I simply stood there, asking God to bless and forgive them." [He asks God to bless and forgive his accusers - what about himself?]
Mahony declined further comment Wednesday, according to the archdiocese spokesman Tod Tamburg.
Mahony is scheduled to be questioned under oath on Saturday as part of a clergy abuse lawsuit about how he handled a visiting Mexican priest who police believe molested 26 children in the Los Angeles archdiocese during a nine-month stay in 1987.
The Rev. Nicolas Aguilar Rivera fled to Mexico in 1988 after parents complained. He has since been defrocked but remains a fugitive, with warrants for his arrest in both the U.S. and Mexico.
Italian newspapers have been filled with profiles of the cardinals whose presence at the conclave would be an "embarrassment" to the Vatican. They include Irish Cardinal Sean Brady,
accused of covering up sex abuse; Belgian Cardinal Godfried Danneels, whose offices were searched in 2010 amid a crackdown on pedophile priests by Belgian police; and Cardinal Justin Rigali who retired as archbishop of Philadelphia in disgrace after a grand jury accused him of keeping credibly accused abusers on the job.
Dirty laundry was also aired in the run-up to the 2005 conclave that elected Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger as pope.
Argentine Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, for example, was cited in a criminal complaint just days before the conclave alleging involvement in the 1976 kidnappings of two fellow Jesuits during Argentina's dark years of military dictatorship. The cardinal's spokesman at the time called the allegation by a human rights lawyer "old slander."
According to the only published account of the 2005 secret balloting, Bergoglio came in second to Cardinal Ratzinger.
I hope I am simply being hyper-sensitive but I find the following interview almost condemnable because it which has enormous potential for being used against Benedict XVI, and has given me second thoughts about Mons. Scicluna and his wisdom. He seems to have fallen into his interviewer's verbal traps and said things overall that could easily be used by the enemies of Benedict XVI to hound him with as soon as he is no longer Pope.
No one else who has reported this interview seems to have had the same reaction, and some have focused only on Scicluna's statement that the only member of the Roman Curia who stayed away from Marcial Maciel's last great celebration in Rome was Cardinal Ratzinger. Great anecdote, but after all, we know he did go on to punish him, which is what counts...
And yet, this interview with Scicluna was really about Cardinal Mahony - and Repubblica, for which apparently Rodari now works, used the most eye-catching headline it could, which is, after all, a fair interpretation of what Scicluna said, in effect, and which is another cause for concern. Good for Scicluna that he tries to be fair, but he seems to be vouching for Mahony without any apparent awareness of the appalling revelations found in the LA files!... And I apologize to Cardinal Mahony for being so relentless against his conduct in this connection because, after all, how can he not have repented it all?
'
The anti-pedophilia monsignor:
'Do not crucify Mahony'
by Paolo Rodari
Translated from
February 20, 2013
No one better than Mons. Charles Scicluna knows the the Vatican confidential files on the so-called 'delicta graviora' - serious crimes - committed by priests against the Eucharist, the sanctity of the sacrament of Penance, and against the sixth commandment (sex crimes, including abuse of children and minors).
Until several weeks ago, when Benedict XVI named him auxiliary Bishop of Malta, Mons. Scicluna had been the chief Promoter of Justice at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
No one better than he can say whether those who are calling on Cardinal Roger Mahony not to take part in the coming Conclave are right for failing to denounce (and worse, to cover up for) sex offender priests in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles for almost two decades.
For years, at the CDF, Scicluna lived with files dealing with the most explosive cases brought to the attention of the CDF since 2001, including the double life of Mexican priest Marcial Maciel Degollado, who had long enjoyed the esteem of John Paul II.
Mons. Scicluna, who is Cardinal Mahony?
A very humble cardinal who failed to rein in the cases of pedophilia in his diocese as he ought to have done.
Did you ever meet him?
Many times, confidentially, in my office at the CDF, both in the years under Cardinal Ratzinger, and then under Cardinal Levada. He came to ask help and advice on what he should do.
What things did he bring up?
This was all after 2002, the year when the American bishops, meeting in Dallas, decided for the first time on a 'zero tolerance' policy on priestly pedophilia. Mahony, like the other bishops, sought to figure out what to do after years in which the Church had not acted correctly.
[But none of the cases involving the most egregious cover-ups for priests carried out by Mahony, as revealed in the recently disclosed files from the archdiocese of Los Angeles, reached the CDF - if only because most of these cases took place before 2001. So it would be wrong to take Scicluna's statements about Mahony as excusing what Mahony did in those years. Scicluna could not have had personal knowledge of the information in those files since he never investigated any of the cases. Unless Mahony confided to him the worse of what he had done - which does not seem to be the case, from Scicluna's answers. If Scicluna was told the worst - unless Mahony came to him to confess, as in Penance, which is unlikely - there was no secret of the confessional to protect, and the technicality that none of the LA cases went to CDF and therefore could not be investigated by them remains a pitiful technicality that should not have impeded the CDF from somehow signaling its awareness of a terrible situation involving a cardinal.]
Are you saying that before 2002, US bishops covered up for misbehaving priests?
There were no clear guidelines at all, especially at the diocesan level. Everyone (diocesan bishops) did as they thought best, including Mahony who made many wrong decisions. His error was not just in failing to attack the problem at its roots, but that when he realized that the problem had become explosive for the diocese, he published the names of all the accused priests.
And that was wrong?
Yes. Because it is one thing to publish the names of those who have been found guilty, but not those who are only suspected or alleged to have committed abuse. He even included himself in the list because two monsignors in the Vatican expressed suspicion about him. I thought that was too much.
[But I do not understand why Rodari did not ask Scicluna directly about the cases where Mahony actively sought to keep accused priests out of the reach of the law! Because that is the worst data that has emerged out of the LA files. Scicluna is clearly referring to actions by Mahony after the Dallas bishops' meeting in 2002, and it would seem that his apparent vouching for Mahony - almost like a character witness for him - was based only on Mahony's post-2002 actions.]
Do you think he will take part in the Conclave?
I think he will. But in any case, he has to let his conscience decide what he must do. It is not an easy situation for him. In recent days, he has been in a squabble with Archbishop Jose Gomez who has relived him of public duties in the archdiocese, but Mahony reminded him that he had not protested his actions before. I think this controversy have contributed to his agitation.
[Oh, he's not agitated at all. He's happily blogging about how he is ready for the Conclave even as he claims that his fate is to be abused and humiliated. Maybe I just do not understand his English, but none of it so far has struck me as being genuinely humble. Yet Scicluna says he is a humble man...]
[I don't know what newspapers Mons. Scicluna is reading in Malta, but Mons. Gomez has been in Los Angeles for less than two years. Before Benedict XVI named him coadjustor bishop of Los Angeles in April 2010, he was a bishop in Texas. For almost a year after he was transferred to Los Angeles, he was Mahony's #2, succeeding to him only in February 2011. Given the size of the archdiocese and its multitude of pastoral problems, it is unlikely Gomez would have spent those first months looking into the archdiocesan archives to check out what Mahony did in the past 20 years! It is, in fact, very likely, that Gomez only had to look through the files after the LA court ordered that they be released several weeks ago.
How could Mahony say to Gomez, "You knew all about me, but you never protested", and how can Scicluna appear to side with Mahony on this! Either Rodari has misrepresented Scicluna somehow by selective editing of what he said, or Scicluna appears grossly out of touch with what has been happening in LA recently.
Either way, he fell into a trap - and from his answers, detractors could easily say that "AHA! So Mahony told Scicluna about his problems - why did he never investigate? Did he ever tell Cardinal Ratzinger about these confidential talks with Mahony? Maybe he did, as well as to Cardinal Levada, then why did neither one do anything about it? So, was not Cardinal Ratzinger complicit therefore in covering up for Mahony?" Ignoring, of course, that Mahony may never have told Scicluna about how for more than a decade, he actively kept offending priests out of the reach of the law, and simply assuming that Mahony spilled his guts out in the talks he had with Scicluna.]
Was Cardinal Ratzinger always informed of Mahony and the cases of pedophilia? [That is a very vague question, which could cover anything and everything, and Scicluna's unconditional answer makes it worse! Call me Cassandra, but this is going to be the quotation that will be taken to hound Benedict after he steps down and to seek to impugn anew his record against sex abuses.]
Always, of course. He fought to clean up and do what was best for the victims. But this was not only about violating the sixth commandment, but also of the arrogance and the lack of humility that often characterized the conduct of some ministers of God. [Apparently Scicluna did not think Mahony was among such ministers since the first phrase he used to describe him was 'a humble man'!]
Ratzinger also knew of Fr. Maciel? [Rodari is devious. Of course, Ratzinger knew of Maciel - he punished him eventually. But in posing this question following his questions on Mahony, he seems to be saying, "Well, Ratzinger also knew of Mahony but did nothing about him!"]
In 2004, Maciel celebrated 60 years of his priesthood at the Basilica of San Paolo fuori le Mure. Everyone in the Roman Curia, cardinals and bishops alike, joined him. The only one who stayed home was Cardinal Ratzinger. He knew very well indeed what kind of a man Maciel was, and one month later, he officially began the formal investigation of his case.
It caused him great suffering since he knew very well of how much consideration Maciel enjoyed in the Roman Curia. But he went against the tide for the sake of truth. I would like to add one more thing...
Please..
Cardinal Ratzinger's policy was to clean the Church of filth but also to use mercy. He was always aware, like St. Paul, that men of God are vessels of clay that can hold treasure. The image that the cardinal sought most to bear in mind was a vision of Hildegarde von Bingen in the 12th century. She saw a most beautiful woman whose garments were torn and who was lacerated - and this was the work of priests and their sins. The woman is the Catholic Church, soiled and disfigured by the sins of priests. And yet, she remains beautiful, desirable - a place where anyone who sins can always begin again, a place of mercy.
Many in the Vatican feel that the Church continues to be under attack because of the sex-abuse cases. Do you agree?
['Many in the Vatican'? Is it not obvious to everyone???]
In the Vatican, everyone wants to clean house. But the repeated hammering by the media about scandal saps energy and enthusiasm. I think that the attention to the Church in this regard is exaggerated, but it is also legitimate because it indicates that there are great expectations about priests and the ideal of Christian life that they represent.
The Pope has resigned. Besides his age, was it also because of the scandals? [Dear Lord, this Rodari is pretty slimy!]
I don't think so. The problem of pedophilia has always concerned him and has made him suffer, certainly. But he knows that no one should throw the first stone because none of us are without sin. [Well, that's not exactly a great way to end this interview. Scicluna once again makes a statement that could and will be used by the SNAP types to say, "Cardinal Ratzinger did not want to accuse any bishops because he felt that he himself was not blameless in this respect", with the added implication that he has acted against priests but not against bishops. Even if he had wanted to act against an offending cardinal even (Vienna's Cardinal Groer in 1995) but was foiled by John Paul II's palace guard... I certainly hope my worst fears are dead wrong and totally out of whack.]
Regarding the 'movement' to keep Cardinal Mahony from taking part in the Conclave, Andrea Tornielli has criticized it in an article as undue interference by outside agencies, according to the provisions of the Universi DominIci Gregis,
www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_constitutions/documents/hf_jp-ii_apc_22021996_universi-dominici-gregis...
the 1996 Apostolic Constitution issued by John Paul II, which spells out rules for the Conclave in great detail, and cites the most relevant passage:
"No Cardinal elector can be excluded from active or passive voice in the election of the Supreme Pontiff, for any reason or pretext, with due regard for the provisions of No. 40 of this Constitution". (No. 40 refers to cases when a cardinal elector refuses to come to the Conclave or has to leave for some reason before the Conclave ends, then the other cardinals can proceed without them .)
What is strange is that none of the Vatican canonists cited in the AP report did not simply cite the provision which is very clear. Nor, obviously, did AP's Nicole Winfield bother to look itup.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 21/02/2013 13:43]