In his independent account of what some are now calling Synodgate, Edward Pentin at the National Catholic Register adds details to the story first broken to the public by kath.net's Vaticanista...
Isn't this just as bad?
Baldisseri says '5 cardinal' books not 'stolen'
but ordered 'intercepted' at Vatican Post Office
by Edward Pentin
NATIONAL CATHOLIC REGISTER
February 25, 2015
...Reliable and high level sources allege the head of secretariat of the synod of bishops, Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, ordered they be intercepted because they would “interfere with the synod.”
A source told me that Baldisseri was “furious” the book had been mailed to the participants and ordered staff at the Vatican post office to ensure they did not reach the Paul VI Hall. Reports of the book’s interception have also appeared on German news sites in recent days.
Those responsible for mailing the books meticulously tried to avoid interception, ensuring the copies were sent through the proper channels within the Italian and Vatican postal systems. The synod secretariat nevertheless claims they were mailed “irregularly,” without going through the Vatican post office, and so had a right to intercept them.
The book’s mailers strongly refute this, saying they were legitimately mailed. Some copies were successfully delivered.
Sources say it’s not clear where the intercepted copies of the book ended up, but believe they may have been destroyed.
Asked in December about the claims, Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said he “knew nothing” about the allegations and said the sources did not seem to him to be “serious and objective." [So Lombardi already dismissed this story before! I believe he used exactly the same words to dismiss Sandro Magister's investigative reporting about papal pet Mons. Ricca back in July 2013. The terrible thing about Lombardi's denials is 1) they do not confront the actual charges made at all, simply fismisses them offhand; and 2) given the apparent evidence that the facts alleged either have documented proof (Ricca) or widespread but heretofore only whispered knowledge in the Vatican (Baldisseri), how can we say that Lombardi himself is 'serious and objective' in his denials? Is this not a form of lying?]
Since then the allegations have become more widely known and have been corroborated at the highest levels of the church.
All the implications
of Baldisseri's 'interception'
by Carl E. Olson
CWR BLOG
February 25, 2015
Both Kath.net and Edward Pentin are reporting that Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, head of secretariat of the synod of bishops, ordered the interception of over a hundred copies of the book
Remaining in the Truth of Christ, which had been mailed to participants in last October’s Extraordinary Synod.
The book, which consists of essays by five Cardinals—including Cardinals Burke and Brandmüller — and four other scholars, was written in response to Cardinal Walter Kasper’s book The Gospel of the Family, and defends the Church’s teaching that Catholics who have been divorced and civilly remarried cannot receive Holy Communion. It was edited by Fr. Robert Dodaro, OSA, who was interviewed about it by CWR last September.
Pentin reports:
Reliable and high level sources allege the head of secretariat of the synod of bishops, Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, ordered they be intercepted because they would “interfere with the synod.”
A source told me that Baldisseri was “furious” the book had been mailed to the participants and ordered staff at the Vatican post office to ensure they did not reach the Paul VI Hall.
Kath.net reports that around 200 copies of the book were mailed, but only a few apparently made it into the hands of the proper recipients, a report that has also been confirmed by Fr. Joseph Fessio, SJ, of Ignatius Press.
Pentin states that the books were mailed through "the proper channels within the Italian and Vatican postal systems", but that Baldisseri claimed they were mailed "irregularly," and so the interception of the books was legitimate.
In other words, Baldisseri has apparently admitted that the books were taken; the dispute is over why they were taken. Pentin further reports that the books were apparently destroyed after being taken.
Three months ago, Fr. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, said he knew nothing about allegations regarding the stolen/intercepted/confiscated books, and dismissed the sources for the allegations as not being “serious and objective."
Pentin, a veteran and respected Vatican reporter who recorded a controversial interview with Kasper during the Synod, concludes his report by stating that since December, "the allegations have become more widely known and have been corroborated at the highest levels of the church."
What to make of this? First, as Fr. Z notes, these allegations involve a serious crime:
When the organizers of the Synod realized what had been sent to the members of the Synod, someone removed all the envelopes from the members’ mail boxes!
That’s called theft. That’s called illegal. They stole people’s mail. Please correct me if I am wrong, but isn’t that a crime in, I think, every country? The Vatican City State… that’s a country… isn’t it.
Secondly, it adds to the already much-debated and controversial nature of the Synod, which was marked by discord, accusations of manipulation, and a mid-Synod report that sparked anger and accusations that there was a concerted effort being made to push through statements that were pro-homosexual and contrary to established Church teaching.
Third, it raises serious questions about the motives and leadership of Cardinal Baldisseri, who has already gone on record with some contentious statements apparently aimed at those defending Church teaching on marriage, divorce, remarriage, and Communion. A month ago, he made the following remarks to Aleteia:
Therefore, there’s no reason to be scandalized that there is a cardinal or a theologian saying something that’s different than the so-called ‘common doctrine.’ This doesn’t imply a going against. It means reflecting. Because dogma has its own evolution; that is a development, not a change.
The cardinal added that it is “right that there is a reaction” and that
this is exactly what we want today. We want to discuss things, but not in order to call things into doubt, but rather to view it in a new context, and with a new awareness. Otherwise, what’s theology doing but repeating what was said in the last century, or 20 centuries ago?
Baldisseri said "discussions are welcome," although one has to wonder how such a welcoming approach can be squared with the decision to intercept and perhaps destroy copies of a book that is a part of those discussions.
Fourth, it raises questions about the transparency and openness that supposedly mark the current pontificate. If these allegations are true, will they be properly addressed? If not, it may well raise further questions about the reforms that Francis is pursuing in the Curia.
Put simply, are these the sort of actions that a pope wishes to be taking place, especially after having renounced "the sickness of rivalry and vainglory" during his Christmas address to the Curia?
Finally, what does this indicate about the motives and judgment of those who are apparently intent on not only shutting down real discussion and open debate — at both last year's Synod and the approaching Synod of Bishops — but who will engage in such heavy-handed tactics in order to get their way?
Remaining in the Truth of Christ is both a work of scholarship and of pastoral engagement; it is not an angry, polemical screed or the result of a bullying strategy. It takes seriously Pope Francis' call for open discussion, a call that some, apparently, at least in this instance, seem uninterested in following.
Does anyone really believe that Baldisseri could say and do the things he says and does if he did not know that JMB has his back? He may not have been ordered to say and do the egregious and outrageously unabashed things he says and does, but surely, not without the Pope's knowledge.
Or, FOFs might seek to insulate the master from his minions' misjudgments and misdeeds by saying he's really giving everyone free rein in the spirit of parrhesia (I am beginning to loath the term as much as I do 'spirit of Vatican II') - though it seems JMB only meant one-sided parrhesia. Kasper, Baldisseri and their ilk can say anything they want, no matter how near-heretical, but opponents of the Pope's true agenda which he has conveniently piggybacked on 'the family' must not be allowed to practise parrhesia at all!
Anyway, what an exemplary (and growing?) rogues gallery we now have among 'the Pope's men'! - Ricca, Volpi, Rosica, Baldisseri...
I frankly don't understand the title of the following commentary by canon lawyer Ed Peters. How can a blunder be worse than a crime? In this case, we have a blunder that is also a crime and, of course, a sin (multiple sins, in fact)!
It was worse than a crime -
it was a blunder
by Edward Peters
IN THE LIGHT OF THE LAW
February 26, 2015
There are credible reports that Lorenzo Cardinal Baldisseri, head of the secretariat for the Synod of Bishops, ordered the confiscation of
pro-marriage materials legally mailed to synod participants last October.
In addition to whatever international and/or Vatican City State laws might have been violated thereby, and besides the possibility of the violation of Canon 1389 (
abuse of ecclesiastical office), this action, if indeed it was taken by ranking prelate, offends at a level that will, I suggest, haunt Church staffers for years to come.
I cannot count the number of times over the decades that I have heard good Catholics, concerned for this problem or that in the Church, despair of having their voice heard as follows: “Why should I bother writing to the bishop? Someone on his staff will not like my letter and will make sure it never gets to him.”
I have many, many times, assured Catholics that such “mail-filtering” was a myth and that, in my experience, bishops see every letter addressed to them. They don’t always answer, I admit, but they do see it. Who knows, perhaps a few Catholics decided to write to their bishops after all, upon my comments.
Now, the myth of ecclesiastics filtering mail that they don’t want others to see has been given a new lease on life. We will be decades living the story down. Put another way, this stunt, assuming it happened as it seems to have happened, was worse than a crime—it was a blunder.
The truth of this matter needs to come out, and, if the story is false, it needs to be contradicted if only for the common good; if it’s true, consequences need to come. Quickly.
Ummm, you think something clarificatory will come of Synodgate? Outright denial and dismissal or conscientiously ignoring anything that might seem to blot the copybook of the pluperfect Pope and his Pontificate seems to be SOP at the Vatican these days. With little or no reaction from media and the liberal chatterati. Who never allowed the slightest incident they could call a 'gaffe' to escape their collective sententiousness during Benedict XVI's Pontificate - of which, fortunately, even by the most avid 'gaffe-watchers' like Marco Politi and John Allen, never exceeded seven incidents in eight years, if I recall right.
But no one in the mainstream of anything says anything about the gaffe-nearly-everyday and chronic eyebrow-raising heterodoxies of the beloved idolized reigning Pope! I really ought to start keeping a blunder-and-error diary of the pluperfect Pontificate. I only have 23 months to review to make it 'comprehensive.
NB: In the past few days, two other developments that deserve attention:
1) Internal discord over Cardinal Pell's Secretariat of the Economy and its powers (one year since the Pope created a Council for the Economy, the Secretariat for the Economy and a new office for Vatican Auditor-General, minus supporting statutes for any of these offices - neither the Council nor the Secretariat has a charter yet, nor has an Auditor-General been named), and some itnernal efforts to discredit Pell personally.
2)A serious if not unprecedented declaration of autonomy from the Roman Catholic Church, at least in modern times, by the bishops of Germany led by Cardinal Reinhard Marx, who sits on the Pope's nine-man advisory Crown Council. As I have pointed out before, Marx has turned out to be the most flagrant subversive in the Church hierarchy today (probably next only to Jorge Bergoglio himself, who however, has taken great jesuitical care to hedge himself from outright declarations on doctrine that critics could use as GOTCHA! exclamation points to underscore his obvious heterodox thinking on some important doctrinal issues, though he has been far more open and explicit about his 'pastoral' intentions, i.e., his idea of how to apply Catholic doctrine to allow pastoral leniency in many 'No-No' situations.
Meanwhile, Pell seems to be under siege by a fellow cardinal, Francesco Coccopalmiero, who heads the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts (and must therefore approve any proposed statutes for new Vatican structures created under the Bergoglian reform of the Curia).
Yet Coccopalmiero is a card-carrying FOF, being one of the charter members and movers behind the formal 'Friends of Francis' association that started meeting after the October 2014 family synod to articulate full support for any and all Bergoglian initiatves. What does it say that he has felt it is OK for him to come out openly against Cardinal Pell, effectively become the #2 man at the Vatican?
Cardinal Pell - who has made no secret of his opposition to the 'Kasper proposal' (which is really the Bergoglio-Kasper proposal) - has now written an unequivocal article for THE CATHOLIC THING restating his adherence to Catholic orthodoxy in this matter. (Perhaps the editors of the Five Cardinals Book ought to have solicited an article from him last summer when preparing to pbulish the book.) I shall post the Pell article in a different box.
I need to pick out articles to best present the Covvopalmiero anti-Pell initiative and Cardinal Marx's defiant mew articulation of a much earlier 'Kasper proposal' dating to the 1990s - that local churches take precedence over the universal Church, and not the other way around. Both St. John Paul II and Cardinal Ratzinger/Benedict XVI have bluntly shot down that argument, but that has not shut the issue.
Which, in some way, Jorge Bergoglio endorses in his concept of giving doctrinal authority to national bishops' conferences, which seems to be an abdication, or power-shraing at the very least, of the Supreme Pontiff's function to define doctrine for the universal Church, but always on the basis of the deposit of faith that was handed down to him, when he was elected Pope, for him to continue to uphold, safeguard and defend. [dim]
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 06/03/2015 14:37]