BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

Thanks to Lella's blog

for leading me to this.
It's a very direct approach to the real aim of this current media manipulation of the German sex abuse stories. It also makes a clarification that L'Osservatore Romano itself has never bothered to do.

Where are Mr. Vian's priorities? If he could give valuable front-page space today to a rather peripheral idea of hiring more women in managerial positions to work with priests as a way to minimize sexual abuses by priests, he could have given as much space, even in the inside pages, to a simple at-a-glance presentation of the church documents that are always cited so erroneously to accuse the Church, in general, and Cardinal Ratzinger, in particular, as the basis for the 'cover-ups' and an alleged 'wall of silence' about these abuses. And because it appears in OR itself, the article would necessarily be picked up by the worldwide media - an opportunity to put the facts out in some 'official' way and get some traction, at least!

It is even more necessary because after decades of carrying it in Latin only, the Vatican has pulled Crimen sollicitationis offline, and the 2001 documents - John Paul's Motu Proprio and Cardinal Ratzinger's implementing letter - are only posted in Latin!

Why does it take a regional newspaper to lead in doing the obvious? BTW, the author of this editorial which appears on Page 1 of ALTO ADIGE today, is Ferdinando Camon, the writer who gave a couple of accounts of attending the Pope's encounter with artists last November.

What they really want
is to strike at the Pope
by FERDINANDO CAMON
Translated from

March 11, 2010


They want to strike at the Pope. This Pope was Archbishop of Munich, and there, they are seeking out any trace of scandal similar to that which has emerged from other German, Austrian and Dutch dioceses in recent weeks.

The German justice minister accused the Vatican of not cooperating - and blames it on Cardinal Ratzinger even if she does not mention his name.

She does refer to a 2001 directive from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (prepared and signed by Cardinal Ratzinger as CDF Prefect) which, she claims, calls on every Catholic, lay or faithful, to report any cases of sexual abuse to the Church, but to keep such reports within the Church, on pain of excommunication!

Which is simply wrong. These sex abuses are a terrible stain on the Church but let us not tar everyone with the same brush, even the blameless.

This accusation that the Church itself has sabotaged justice was promoted even in Italy. and on Italian TV by the program Annozero. [It was responsible for buying and airing in 2007 the 2006 BBC documentary that perpetrated the black myth about Church directives.]

All those who accuse the Vatican itself of directing a cover-up of sex offenses by priests cite two documents, Crimen sollicitationis (1962) and De delictis gravioribus (2001). The first contains and the second reiterates the obligation to denounce known sexual incidents.

Denounce to whom? To the Church or to the police? The texts say that internal processes regarding "the most serious offenses" (sexual abuse by priests) "are reserved for the exclusive competence of the Congregation of the Doctrine for the Faith".

But what does 'exclusive' mean? The critics have interpreted it to mean that it excludes civilian courts. But the Vatican text, which refers to Church processes, means exclusive to the CDF and therefore, not within the competence of lower ecclesiastical tribunals, such as a diocesan one.

The clear message was that the Vatican considers these sexual offenses so grave that it intends to handle them directly, not leave it to diocesan discretion. [It must be remembered that *John Paul II's motu proprio of 2001 - of which Cardinal Ratzinger's De delictis gravioribus* constituted the implementing instructions - were drawn up and issued after the US sex scandals first erupted, of which a distinguishing mark was the systematic cover-up employed by some diocesan bishops.]

Massimo Introvigne wrote an article about this in Avvenire on May 30, 2007 [I have to check that out, but I do know I translated one by Introvigne for the PRF, from Il Giornale dated 5/27/07 - which was a simple and crystal-clear presentation of what the two documents really set out to do.]

In the Avvenire article, Introvigne points out that the Catechism of the Catholic Church itself (Art. 1916 and 2238) - published under the overall guidance of Cardinal Ratzinger - provides that with regard to all offenses that are punishable according to the penal and civil codes, every citizen, lay and religious, is obliged to 'collaborate' faithfully with the State.

Both Crimen.. and De delictus... provide that anyone, including lay faithful, who fails to denounce a case of sexual abuse known to him, risks excommunication. But the critics have flagrantly claimed that the excommunication threat is directed at those who denounce sexual abuses to the courts. [And this has been perpetrated terribly by many American lawyers who sue in behalf of abuse victims.]

Therefore, what the documents say is clearly the contrary of what the German justice minister claims. [As justice minister, and presumably, a laywer, all she had to do was to ask her staff first to check the actual documents, not make misinformed and uninformed statements without verifying her 'data'.]

It is also proposed repeatedly that sexual scandals in Catholic institutions would be solved by simply abolishing the requirement for priestly celibacy. This was reiterated recently by the Swiss theologian Hans Kueng, leading critic of both John Paul's 'showy' Pontificate which he called a 'a disaster', and of Benedict XVI's 'restoration' rule ('a step back in time').

But if we look at the pedophile scandals involving priests around the world, it is always priests violating boys or adolescent males. The problem among priests and seminarians is not sexuality, but homosexuality. Abolishing priestly celibacy will not eliminate that.

And the problem begins with the unwise or careless selection of seminarians. [Which is sought to be remedied by the November 2006 Instruction from the Conggregation for Catholic Education entitled 'Criteria for vocational discernment in persons with homosexual tendencies requesting admission to seminaries and religious orders'.]

As for the failure to denounce or partial reticent denunciations of priestly sexual abuses known to the Catholic faithful, a letter to the editor from a Catholic lady said: "Before saying anything, I ask myself. Who will this benefit? Christ or Satan?" She is among those who think that denouncing a priest benefits Satan. Who knows how many there are who think like her?

Therefore, the Church also needs to carry out an anthropological re-education: to make every Catholic understand that truth represents what is good, and that anything else is evil.


*NB: For those who are interested, the English translation of the two documents are posted in the REFERENCES thread that I created in the PRF precisely to accommodate - in two pages - all the clarificatory articles about these documents dating from 2005 shortly after the Pope'es election, and controversing the defenses of Cardinal Ratzinger written by people like Sandro Magister, John Allen and Massimo Introvigne.
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