Marco Politi writes an overview of the 'pedophile priest scandal' in the Church which is generally commendable - surprisingly so - except for his misrepresentation of a Vatican document from 1962.
Papal offensive
against pedophile priests
by MARCO POLITI
Translated from
February 25, 2010
It is the cancer hidden in the body of the Church. Thousands of cases of pedophilia, a rosary of violations from Brazil to the USA, to Australia, to Ireland. Italy, with 80 known cases, has not been immune.
And the latest revelations have come from Germany, having to do with at least 120 victims who were abused in the 1960s-1980s at a prestigious Jesuit high school in Berlin, and in other institutions in Hamburg, Hannover, Goettingen, Hildesheim and the famous Aloysius College in Bad Godesberg.
The president of the German bishops' conference (DBK), Mons. Robert Zollitsch, said he was completely devastated by the disclosures and expressed the apology of the Church to the victims of what he called 'a repugnant crime'.
More important, he said the Church would denounce the accused directly to the civilian courts.
[In the United States, where most of the criminal cases have progressed so far, the complaints were mostly class actions presented by the victims.]
The horrific scenario has been the same everywhere: first, a slow game of seduction on the past of the priest who ends up subjugating the victim when the latter is unable to escape the unexpected aggression. An abuse of trust - beyond the physical abuse - by those dressed as men of God whose duty it is not just to protect the young placed in their care but to 'raise them spiritually'.
In Bad Godesberg, the same scenario played out. Boys violated by their priest-teachers and become their boy toys, forced to perform sexual acts to provide the older men with sexual stimulation and gratification. With indelible psychological damages to them.
The festering wound was really exposed in the successful class action suits brought against priest offenders in the United States. The diocese of Boston has paid $85 million in damages to some 500 victims and Los Angeles $660 million, to name just two.
The Boston cases, settled out of court in 2003, brought out another dimension of great shame: the tendency of bishops (in Boston, it was Cardinal Law) to transfer offenders from parish to parish in an effort to cover up the scandal.
Typical in this sense was the case of Fr. John Geoghan, named in more than 100 cases, and who was finally sentenced for the first cases brought against him, and who ended up being strangled to death by a fellow inmate.
But even today, there are still bishops who failed to act against their erring priests, remain in place.
Cardinal Law left Boston, but only to become Arch Priest of the papal basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore - a move [by John Paul II] that remains scandalous to many American Catholics.
The change in the attitude of the Vatican hierarchy came after the US cases became a public scandal. Meeting with Papa Wojtyla, the US bishops declared a 'zero tolerance' policy, and John Paul II called the offending priests 'traitors' to the Church.
That was also when there was an end to the policy of absolute secrecy that had been decreed by a document from the former Holy Office in 1962 in matters of ecclesiastical processes regarding such cases.
The document, Crimen Sollicitationis, demanded total secrecy, on pain of excommunication, from ecclesiastical authorities involved in the investigation of cases even after judgment had been passed under canon law. It was a system that penalized the victims further since they were also forced to a humiliating wait just to be heard by Church authorities.
[This is a deliberate misrepresentation of the document - which deals with how the Church internally handles crimes against the Sacraments by priests, but does not rule out criminal complaints in civilian courts. It is unforgivable, for any responsible journalist who should know better - see Notes below - to let his obvious bias prevail over objective fact. Consider just one fact, for instance, from the above paragraph: the excommunication penalty was for Church officials who fail to report offenses by priests, and for those who break canonical secrecy.
This is the same document that the BBC misrepresented even worse as 'the Vatican instruction to cover up priestly offenses' in a 2006 documentary, attributing it to Cardinal Ratzinger, who at the time the document was issued, was a German university professor and who would not come to Rome until 20 years later. The BBC never corrected those blatant errors.
Journalists like these are confident - with basis - that few of their readers/viewers are likely to check their 'facts' and so they get away with all kinds of lies.]
The wind changed in 2001 with a new document drawn up by then Cardinal Ratzinger. The Holy See prolonged the statute of limitations for denouncing offenses, making it effective not from the date of the crime, but from when the victim acquires adult status. Bishops are instructed to immediately report known offenses to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and to immediately prohibit the accused priest from further contact with children.
Ratzinger has been accused in the past of having enforced the 'secrecy' line of
Crimen sollecitationis [which secrecy instructions were no different from those followed in civilian courts to protect witnesses as well as the accused during investigation and trial].
But certainly, as Pope, Benedict XVI has systematically undertaken a new strategy that favors zero tolerance, maximum transparency, better attention to victims, more strictness, and what represents a revolutionary change compared to the past, calling on Church officials to turn over known offenders to the civilian justice system.
Shortly after he became Pope, he set the example by penalizing the founder and head of the Legionaries of Christ, Fr. Marcial Maciel, to 'a life of penance, renouncing every public ministry" for repeated acts of sexual abuses against minors dating back to the 1930s. For years, the Maciel file had been shelved in the Vatican
[many thought because John Paul II considered him a friend whom he held in high esteem, and he had fierce advocates in the Roman Curia led by Cardinal Angelo Sodano and other cardinals].
In his trips to the United States and Australia in 2008, Benedict XVI met with some victims and spelled out the process that must be followed in dealing with sex abuses by priests.
"I am ashamed", he said simply, on the flight taking him to Washington DC. During that trip, he repeated many times that "there is no place in the Church" for pedophile priests.
However, even in the recent past, there are still some bishops who resist this course of action and who hesitate to intervene when they should.
In Ireland, the Murphy Commission report accused at least four bishops of having neglected "the protection of children" in favor of "protecting the reputation of the Church". Even with hair-raising examples like the priest who admitted he had abused at least a hundred children, or another who said he availed of a different boy every two weeks.
That is why the pastoral letter that Benedict XVI will address to the Catholics of Ireland will have the character of a document for the Universal Church. It will be the first papal text of the contemporary era on the subject of priests committing sex offenses.
[Were there ever any such texts in another era????]
Here's a quick overview of the documents that keep being referred to. I translated them in 2006 from a presentation in one of the Italian newspapers, and posted it originally in a REFERENCES thread on the Papa Ratzinger Forum that I created specifically to provide a quick factual reference to set the record straight on all the accusations levelled against Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI on this issue :
'Crimen sollicitationis'
from the Holy Office, 1962
This is a document from the Holy Office, approved by John XXIII in 1962 and confidentially addressed to the bishops of the Church.
It established the procedure to be followed for cases of 'solicitatio ad turpia' ('[provocations for repugnant acts") - as when a priest uses the sacrament of confession to make sexual advances to a penitent.
[In 1962, the context of this document was clearly heterosexual.]
Urging maximum secrecy in investigations, the instruction provides for 4 different outcomes:
1) If no basis whatsoever for an accusation is found, the accusatory documents are to be destroyed.
2) Absolution in case of vague unproven indications, but the files are to be archived in case new elements arise about the case.
3) When some sure indications are found but still insufficient to start a canonical process, an admonition must be given to the accused, and the documents must be kept against future developments. 4) If the charges appear sufficiently established, it proceeds to canonical trial.
As penalty, the document provides, in order of increasing gravity of the offense - declaration of inability to carry out the priestly ministry, stripping of all benefits and titles as a priest, reduction to the lay state, and suspension a divinis.
The penalties, by their nature, become public knowledge the moment they are carried out, even though the canonical processes leading to it were previously conducted in secrecy.
Among the aggravating circumstances listed are: the number and the conditions of the victims, especially if of minor age or if they are consecrated or religious persons; the form of the offense, especially if united with false teaching or pretended mysticism; the turpitude of the acts committed; repeated acts; recidivism after admonition; the malice of the offender.
Considered
crimen pessimum (worst crime] were homosexual acts, sexual acts with children of either sex, or sex with animals.
John Paul II's motu proprio,
'Sacramentorum sanctitatis tutela'
April 2001
"The Safeguarding of the Sanctity of the Sacraments, especially the Most Holy Eucharist and Penance, and the keeping of the faithful, called to communion with the Lord, in their observance of the sixth commandment of the Decalogue, demand that the Church itself, in her pastoral solicitude, intervene to avert dangers of violation, so as to provide for the salvation of souls - which must always be the supreme law in the Church" (Codex Iuris Canonici, can. 1752).
These words start the motu proprio signed by John Paul II on April 30, 2001, and published in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis.
The papal document gives indications to "define in greater detail
1) the more serious crimes (delicta graviora) committed against morals and in the celebration of the sacraments, jurisdiction over which remains exclusively with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, as well as
2) the special procedural norms to declare or inflict canonical sanctions" which were subsequently spelled out in the next document).
Letter from the CDF signed by Cardinal Ratzinger
regarding 'Norms for the more serious offenses
reserved to the jurisdiction of the CDF'
May 2001
Among these 'more serious offenses', alongside provocation to sin "on the occasion of or with the pretext of Confession, was "an offense against the Sixth Commandment committed by a priest against a minor less than 18 years of age."
Beyond reiterating the CDF's canonical jurisdiction for hearing such offenses, it extended the statute of limitations for pedophile acts by allowing charges to be brought up to 10 years after the complainant's 18th birthday.
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RELATED DOCUMENTS:
'Statute for the protection
of children and youth',
US Conference of Catholic Bishops
June 2002 (revised May 2006)
On April 23-24, 2004, John Paul II convoked in Rome the leaders of the Catholic Church in the United States on the issue of sexual abuse of minors.
The Pope used strong words: "People need to know that there is no place in priestly and religious life for those who wish to do harm on children." And he asked for concrete provisions.
On June 14, 2002, the US conference of Catholic Bishops approved a "Statute for the protection of children and youth", revised in May 2006, with more rigid norms against those who are accused of abuses, and of care and assistance to the victims. For this purposes, the appropriate commissions were to be constituted in each diocese.
Among other things, it provides that whoever is found guilty even of just one offense should be permanently removed from the ministry.
Instruction of the Congregation for Catholic Education:
'Criteria for vocational discernment
in persons with homosexual tendencies
requesting admission to seminaries
and religious orders'
Nov 2006
Paradoxically, the same elements loudest in their denunciation of sexual offenders in the clergy were equally as vehement in protesting an instruction meant to minimize the likelihood of pedophilic offenses, which are largely homosexual.
Here's Bruno Mastroianni's broader view of the issue and Benedict XVI's handling of it:
Benedetto XVI and the pedophilia scandals:
Only he who trusts in truth
can look evil in the face
by Bruno Mastroianni
Translated from
February 26, 2010
The determination to fight pedophilia in the clergy is the nth manifestation of that trust in truth that characterizes Benedict XVI's actions.
It is not just a sign of his attention to clarity
[I think in this case, the more appropriate and 'current' term is 'transparency'] but it goes beyond: it speaks to us of the mission that every Christian should be carrying out.
The fact that the Pope is not afraid to look evil in the face and call it by its name - even when it is within the Church - comes from the awareness that good can only be anchored on what is true, on a recognition of the reality of things.
This is the mission Benedict XVI has undertaken: to remind man who is, where he came from, who created him - not as someone simply offering one doctrine among many, but as one who speaks of a reality that he himself has discovered.
His lucid recapitulation of the ABCs of the faith and of simple morality is not intended only for the faithful but is aimed to help everyone to find answers to the questions that really matter. But it also leads to some mediatic misunderstanding and manipulation
[he uses the term 'forzatura' which means forcing, as in trying to fit what the Pope says into the cast of media prejudices]
Such misunderstanding and manipulation are the symptoms of how much the media habit to pigeonhole different perspectives has worked to diminish the human desire to look into 'what is really true'.
It is in this respect that Christians must intervene as Benedict XVI is doing - by recalling that faith in God, more than simple adherence to beliefs or doctrines, is a return to the reality of things. To truth.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 28/02/2010 09:23]