ABOUT THE CHURCH AND THE VATICAN

I overlooked posting this Saturday when I first saw it... But here's a typical media smear tactic - think up the worst headline possible, and omit the other side, even if you are also reporting it... Well, at least they asked the archbishop for his comment before they came out with the story, and that's a vestige of what used to be standard journalism practice!... Anyway, it's clear everyone in MSM now wants to the Woodward and Bernstein of Vaticangate and won't stop at anything simply to be in the running....


Britain’s top Catholic
‘protected’ a paedophile
by David Brown, Sean O’Neill, Julia Bradshaw

April 10, 2010


The head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales presided over a child protection system that allowed a paedophile priest to continue abusing schoolboys despite repeated complaints from victims, an investigation by The Times has discovered.



The Archbishop of Westminster, the Most Rev Vincent Nichols, chaired the church’s child safety watchdog in 2001-08 while Father David Pearce was repeatedly investigated by church officials and police.

Despite a High Court ruling in 2006 awarding damages to one of his victims, Pearce remained a priest at Ealing Abbey, West London, where he groomed and assaulted one final victim before his arrest in 2008.

Pearce, 68, a Benedictine monk and former headteacher at the prestigious St Benedict’s School, was jailed for eight years in October after admitting a catalogue of sex offences against teenage pupils during 35 years at the abbey.

Archbishop Nichols last night denied any knowledge of the Pearce case while he was chairman of the Catholic Office for the Protection of Children and Vulnerable Adults (Copca).

Church officials said that Archbishop Nichols was not told the full details of Pearce’s child abuse offences until he replaced Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor at Westminster last year.

However, his predecessor knew of the allegations, a spokesman for Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor confirmed. The Cardinal has recently been appointed by Pope Benedict XVI to sit on the Vatican body that appoints bishops.

The Pope was further embroiled in the worldwide clerical abuse scandal yesterday by the discovery of a letter which purports to show that he resisted the defrocking of an American priest because of the effect it might have “on the good of the universal church".



And it turns out that on the same day, another British newspaper accused another British bishop in a sort of copycat story to embellish its hook-line-and-sinker rehash of the AP story regarding the Oakland priest... The story takes elements from the Milwaukee case (deaf victims) and the 'Pope resists defrocking pedophiles' - almost like a 'copy and paste' operation now, using a template that the MSM have developed to make the Pope and every Catholic bishop and priest look like the sleaziest of criminals


Catholic Church decided
not to unfrock priest
who abused deaf boys
By Jonathan Wynne-Jones, Religious Affairs Correspondent

Published: 9:00PM BST 10 Apr 2010

A priest who admitted indecently assaulting deaf boys at a school in Yorkshire has been allowed to remain as a cleric, it can be revealed, as the scandal over abuse cover-ups in the Catholic Church moves to Britain.

The Rt Rev Arthur Roche, the Bishop of Leeds, sent letters to the Vatican asking for advice on what action should be taken against Fr Neil Gallanagh, after details of his offences emerged, but decided not to unfrock him.

[It turns out further down that Roche did not recommend laicization, to begin with, and his spokesman explains why. The priest was retired and over 70 at the time his offenses were brought to light, he was no logner exercising priestly functions, and the diocese kept him under supervision. But most readers will never get that far because in the meantime, before telling the main story, this writer serves up the latest 'scandal' fabricated against the Pope!]

Victims' support groups said that the Catholic Church's failure to pursue the toughest possible course of action against Gallanagh seriously undermined its attempts to send a clear statement that priests guilty of abuse have been properly punished.

The disclosure comes as Pope Benedict XVI finds himself embroiled in new revelations over child sex abuse, following the emergence of a letter signed by him in 1985, before he became Pope, resisting the unfrocking of Stephen Kiesle, a US priest who had been convicted of offences against young boys.

The letter, signed by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, was typed in Latin and is part of years of correspondence between the diocese of Oakland, in the US, and the Vatican about the proposed unfrocking of Kiesle, sentenced to three years of probation in 1978 for lewd conduct with two young boys in San Francisco.

In the letter, Cardinal Ratzinger – who was at the time the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which has responsibility for tackling abuse by clerics – said the "good of the universal Church" needed to be considered in any unfrocking. He also urged "as much paternal care as possible" for Kiesle.

Kiesle was ultimately unfrocked in 1987. In 2004, he was sentenced to six years in prison after admitting molesting a young girl in 1995.

Now aged 63, he is on the registered sex offenders list in California. The Vatican says he was exercising due caution before sacking the priest.

Last month it was claimed that while he was a Cardinal in the 1990s, the current Pope also took a lenient approach towards another American priest who was suspected of having molested as many as 200 boys at a school for the deaf.

The Vatican has insisted that the Pope was never involved in blocking the removal of paedophile priests during his two decades as head of the Catholic Church's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

He held the position prior to becoming Pope in 2005.

The decision not to unfrock Gallanagh, who also abused children at deaf school, is likely to prove embarrassing for the Catholic Church in England and Wales, which has up until now escaped from being dragged into the crisis that has engulfed the Catholic church in several countries over the past year.

Catholic priests have been accused of abusing children in Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Brazil, Mexico, Italy and Germany.

Gallanagh abused boys while working as the chaplain of St John's School for the Deaf in Boston Spa, West Yorkshire, in the 1970s. The abuse first came to light in 2002, by which time he was working as a parish priest in Horsforth, Leeds.

In 2005, by then 75 and retired, Gallanagh pleaded guilty to indecently assaulting two teenage pupils at the school. He was given a six-month suspended sentence and a further 11 charges involving boys as young as 11 were left on file.

However, he escaped being unfrocked – or laicised – following Bishop Roche's decision that it would be sufficient to stop him from exercising his ministry. [Which is entirely the bishops

"He is not in good standing with the Church as a priest," said John Grady, the bishop's spokesman.

"He is not allowed to exercise ministry of any kind. He has observed these restrictions to the letter."

The diocese did not refer the case to the Vatican until 2007, according to Mr Grady, by which time Benedict XVI was Pope.

"When the Neil Gallanagh case was sent to Rome, the diocese did not ask for laicisation," Mr Grady said.

"Bishop Roche took the view that Neil had had his faculties removed at the time of the disclosure – he had not acted as a priest or worn priest's dress – and still does not."

Gallanagh, who currently lives in a flat "under the observance of the church" and has been financially supported by the Church with a retirement grant, was moved to the school in 1973 despite having been fined for assaulting a nine-year-old boy 13 years earlier on the Isle of Man, while he was a priest in Northern Ireland.

At the time of the 1973 offence he told police "it was a horrible thing to do", adding: "I have been worried with this sexual trouble for some time and recently it has become an obsession with me."

Margaret Kennedy, founder of Minister and Clergy Sexual Abuse Survivors (MACSAS), a support group, said that the Church had not gone far enough in punishing Gallanagh.

"Defrocking him would send out a statement that he's not fit to be a priest," she said.

"He should not be left with this honour. By not defrocking him it says that he is still a man of God and that is clearly not the case.

"It's insulting to the victims who have suffered that he has been allowed to remain as a priest."

The disclosure that Gallanagh has been allowed to remain as a priest comes after Archbishop Nichols recently cited the ability to defrock priests as one of the key changes Pope Benedict had introduced to protect children.

"He pushed forward, for example, a fast-track to defrock priests who have committed abuse," the Archbishop said. "He changed the statute of limitations in Church law."

Kevin Walton, who was abused as a boy at the school, said he was shocked to hear that Fr Gallanagh has been allowed to remain a priest.

“He was known to have abused before in Ireland, then to Boston Spa with vulnerable Deaf boys,” he said.

“The church has not acted strongly enough at all, too many silences, brushing under carpet, not saying any more about it, as if they hope things will quieten down.”

What can Europe learn from
the U.S. sexual abuse crisis?
BY Thomas J. Reese, SJ

APRIL 12, 2010

When the clergy sexual abuse crisis exploded in the United States, most Vatican officials and European churchmen considered it an American problem. Then when Canada and Ireland experienced a similar crisis, it became an “English speaking” problem. Rather than seeing the crisis in the United States as a warning to put their own houses in order, too many European bishops continued with business as usual, believing that the crisis would not touch them.

Now that the crisis has arrived in Europe, what can the European bishops and the Vatican learn from the U.S. experience?

The Vatican needs to make zero tolerance the law for the universal church. Begin with the context.

The sexual abuse crisis did not start in Boston; it first came to public attention in the mid-1980s with a court case in Lafayette, La. The crisis was covered by the National Catholic Reporter long before the Boston Globe noticed it.

It was in the mid-80s that insurance companies told bishops such cases would no longer be covered in their liability insurance. This should have gotten the attention of any prudent C.E.O. [So why didn't anybody in the media push it then? They had their nine-day-wonder and that was it? And wouldn't return to the problem until almost 20 years later? Perhaps because there were no 'big fish' in the net, as Cardinal Law was, bigger than life, in Boston? Or as Benedict XVI is now - the Fisher of Men turned by his detractors into a Moby Dick they think they can bleed to death with a thousand harpoon cuts?]

Before 1985, few bishops handled these cases well. The tendency was to believe the priest when he said he would never do it again and to believe psychologists who said the priest could safely return to ministry.

The bishops were compassionate and pastoral toward their priests, while forgetting their responsibility to be pastoral and protective of their flock. They tried to keep everything secret so as not to scandalize the faithful.

Between 1985 and 1992, the bishops began to learn more about the problem. They held closed-door sessions with experts at their semi-annual meetings. At one closed meeting, at least one bishop told his brother bishops of the mistakes he had made and urged them not to do the same. The number of abuses declined during this period.

In 1992, under the leadership of Archbishop Daniel Pilarcyzk, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops adopted a series of guidelines on dealing with sexual abuse. Data collected by researchers at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice show that the number of abuse cases plummeted in the 1990s, indicating that by that time most bishops “got it.”

The guidelines were opposed by Cardinal Bernard Law, however, and ignored by other bishops who still did not get it. The guidelines were not binding on the bishops, and they continued to leave open the possibility that an abusive priest could return to the ministry.

And at a meeting in St. Louis that same year, a group of psychologists who were treating priests urged the bishops to keep open the possibility of returning the priests to ministry.

The scandal in Boston showed that voluntary guidelines were insufficient. It also showed that no one trusted the bishops (or their advisors) to decide who could safely be returned to ministry.

As a result, in 2002 the bishops, with the consent of Rome, imposed binding rules requiring zero tolerance of abuse, reporting of accusations to the police, and mandatory child protection programs in every diocese.

Under the zero tolerance rule adopted at their meeting in Dallas, any priest involved in abuse will never be able to return to ministry. In most cases, he would be expelled from the priesthood with possible exceptions if he is elderly and retired or infirm.

The Dallas rules also required a lay committee in each diocese to review accusations against priests who are suspended from ministry while an investigation takes place.

The rules were controversial in that many priests saw the zero tolerance law as draconian. They also feared false accusations and that the rules made them guilty until proven innocent. They objected that Dallas dealt only with priests, not with the bishops who are guilty of negligence.

In any case, it took the American bishops 17 years to figure out how to proceed, from the 1985 lawsuit against the diocese of Lafayette, La., to the establishment of the Dallas Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People in 2002. The European bishops need to travel the same ground very quickly, and the Vatican needs to make zero tolerance the law for the universal Church. [Which does not at al guarantees that all bishops will comply. They have been too defiant for too long on too many issues! It has become 'Rome proposes, the bishop disposes' - instead of the traditonal, Roma dixit, causa finita est'.]

While the Europeans can learn from what the American bishops got right at Dallas, they can also learn from the mistakes the Americans made during the crisis.

From the beginning, the American bishops under-estimated the size and gravity of the problem. Prior to 1993, only one-third of the victims had come forward to report the abuse to their dioceses, so not even the Church knew how bad the crisis was. [If they only learned about one-third of cases, how can they have under-estimated it? They were acting according to what came to their knowledge!]

Most victims do not want others to know they were abused, especially their parents, spouses, children and friends. Media coverage of clergy abuse encouraged and empowered victims to come forward as they recognized they were not alone.

Today, Europeans are shocked by the hundreds of cases that are being reported. They should get ready for thousands more. In the United States over 5,000 priests, or 4 percent of the clergy, were responsible for 13,000 accusations over a 50-year period.
[Yes, but Reese should also mention the rest of the pertinent stats!

---

The John Jay CC report on priest abuses between 1950-2002 said:
- A total of 4,392 priests, deacons and religious were identified to have been accused of such offenses.
- The overall percentage of accused in terms of all priests and religious in the US was 4%.
- A report to the police resulted in an investigation in almost all cases. 384 of the 4,392 were criminally charged - 9.1% of the accused.
- Of the 384 charged, 252 were convicted.

---

Only 9% of those almost 5,000 accused priests ended up being criminally charged, of whom one third were acquitted. Allowing for attrition because the cases were too old or there was not enough evidence to back the accusations, could conceivably increase the number of those who would be criminally charged but probably nowhere near the 4,392 who were accused.

Yes, pervert priests are the shame of the Church, they must not be tolerated and they should leave the priesthood. But it is a great injustice to write about the bad apples as if the 96% of US priests who have not been accused of improper acts do not exist. And I would think priests like Fr. Reese would be more attentive to that disparity and when they write about priest abuse. And remember to say a good word for the 96% who are everyday heroes in their own right.]

There is no reason to think Europe is different. Hope for the best, but do the math and be prepared.

The biggest miscalculation the American bishops made was to think that the crisis would pass in a few months.

Hunkering down and waiting for the storm to pass is a failed strategy. Unless they want this crisis to go on for years as it did in the United States, the European bishops need to be transparent and encourage victims to come forward now. Better to get all the bad news out as soon as possible than to give the appearance of attempting a cover-up.

One school in Berlin, a Jesuit school, did the right thing. It knew of seven cases of abuse, went public, hired a female lawyer to go through their files and deal with victims, and then wrote to the alumni asking victims to come forward.

When at least 120 victims did come forward saying they were abused at Jesuit schools in Germany, the foolish concluded that the school had been crazy to issue the invitation. But not only was it the Christian thing to do, it was also smart public relations. No one is accusing the current school administration of covering up.

In addition, rather than have three to five years of bad publicity as one victim after another comes forward, they will have a few months of bad publicity before the media moves on to something else.

American bishops also made the mistake of blaming the media, blaming the permissive culture and trying to down play clerical abuse by pointing out that there are 90,000 to 150,000 reported cases of child sexual abuse each year in the United States.

While there is truth in all this, it is counterproductive for the bishops to make these arguments, which come across as excuses. Rather the bishops should condemn the abuse, apologize and put in place policies to make sure that children are safe. Nor is one apology enough. Like a husband who has been unfaithful to his wife, they must apologize, apologize, apologize.

Finally, the American bishops excused themselves by saying they made mistakes but were not culpable because of their ignorance. Sorry, this won’t wash. American Catholics wanted some bishops to stand up and say: “I made a mistake, I moved this priest to another parish, I did not think he would abuse again, I got bad advice, but I take full responsibility. I am sorry and I resign.”

If 30 bishops in the United States had done this, the crisis would not have gone on as long as it did. People would have said, “Good, that is what leaders are supposed to do. They get it. With a new bishop we can have healing and move on.”

[That all sounds good in theory, But in practice, was there any significant uprising at all by the diocesan faithful who rejected their bishop for covering up or some other failure in the sex abuse crisis? Even Cardinal Mahoney in Los Angeles has not seemed to lose any influence or support even if some of his decisions probably played into the $660 million vulnerability that his diocese had to shoulder to pay damages to victims.]

Bishops have to be willing to sacrifice for the sake of the whole church. It is a scandal that Cardinal Law was the only U.S. bishop to resign because of this crisis. It is encouraging that four Irish bishops have submitted their resignations. Unless the Church wants this crisis to go on for years in Europe as it did in the United States, some bishops will have to resign for the good of the Church.

[I don't buy this resign-for-the-sake-of-appearances bit. It's grandstanding and hypocritical. Resignations should be on a case to case basis. For instance, in the overheated, pressure-cooker conditions created by the media today, why hasn't anyone come out against just one of those 30 bishops Reese considers who ought to have resigned if their offense(s) had really been insupportable to their flock?]

Will the European bishops learn from the U.S. experience? I hope so.

Thomas J. Reese, S.J., is senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center, Georgetown University, and author of Inside the Vatican: The Politics and Organization of the Catholic Church.


AMERICA revived a 2000 editorial on anti-Catholicism that is worth remembering:



The Last Acceptable Prejudice?

by James Martin, SJ
March 25, 2000

T he advertisement for a student-loan company features a picture of a nun in a veil with the legend "If you’re a nun, then you’re probably not a student."

The movie "Jeffrey" includes a trash-talking priest sexually propositioning a man in a church sacristy. One can readily venture into novelty stores and buy a "Boxing Nun" handpuppet or, if that’s out of stock, perhaps a "Nunzilla" windup doll.

"Late-Nite Catechism," a play that features a sadistic sister in the classroom, has become a favorite of local theaters across the country.

Since last fall nine Catholic churches in Brooklyn, N.Y., have been vandalized; statues have been decapitated and defaced. In some instances hate mail was sent as well. The playwright Tony Kushner, writing in The Nation, calls the Pope a "a homicidal liar" who "endorses murder." [What on earth was that about in 2000????]

During one Holy Week The New Yorker displays a picture of the crucifixion on its cover; but in place of the corpus, a traditional Catholic icon, appears the Easter Bunny.

On PBS’s "Newshour With Jim Lehrer" a commentator discussing mandatory DNA testing for criminals identifies the following groups as "at risk" for criminal behavior: "teenagers, homeless people, Catholic priests."

A Catholic priest highly recommended by a bi-partisan committee that spent "literally hundreds of hours" in their search for a chaplain for the U. S. House of Representatives is rejected with no adequate explanation.

And the leaders of Bob Jones University, where Gov. George W. Bush appeared during his presidential campaign, call Pope John Paul II the "Anti-Christ," and the Catholic Church "satanic" and the "Mother of Harlots." [DIM]98t[=DIM][What does Bush have to do with what the university leadres say?]

Examples of anti-Catholicism in the United States are surprisingly easy to find. Moreover, Catholics themselves seem to be increasingly aware of the specter of anti-Catholic bias. In the past, a largely immigrant church would have quietly borne the sting of prejudice, but today American Catholics seem less willing to tolerate slander and malicious behavior.

In addition, the question of anti-Catholic bias has recently been brought to the fore by the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. Emboldened by its public-relations successes, with attacks on television shows like "Nothing Sacred," Broadway offerings like "Corpus Christi" and last year’s exhibit "Sensation" at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, this organization has made anti-Catholicism a hot political issue.

But this raises a critical question: How prevalent is anti-Catholicism in American culture?
Is it, as some have termed it, "the last acceptable prejudice?"
Is it as serious an issue as racism or anti-Semitism or homophobia?
Or are rising complaints about anti-Catholic bias simply an unfortunate overstatement, another manifestation of the current "victim culture," in which every interest group is quick to claim victimhood?

In short, is anti-Catholicism a real problem in the United States?

It is, of course, impossible to summarize 400 years of history in a few paragraphs. But even a brief overview serves to expose the thread of anti-Catholic bias that runs through American history and to explain why the eminent historian Arthur Schlesinger Sr. called anti-Catholicism "the deepest-held bias in the history of the American people."

Archbishop of Toronto says
sex-abuse scandals in
the Church are ‘exceptions’



TORONTO, April 18 — Sexual-abuse scandals rocking the Roman Catholic church are “dramatic exceptions” to the good work done by most priests, the archbishop of Canada’s largest archdiocese said Sunday.

In a pastoral message delivered to churchgoers across the archdiocese, Thomas Collins said the clergy and lay people should not be discouraged by the seemingly endless stream of victims.

“These scandals are dramatic exceptions to the fundamental reality of priestly goodness, for almost all priests serve faithfully,” Collins said.

“But just one priest gone wrong causes great suffering, and as we hear of evil done by some clergy in our own communities and around the world, we are all filled with dismay.”

The pastoral message was given to priests to deliver as the homily at Sunday mass in all 225 parishes of the Toronto archdiocese, which is home to 1.9 million Catholics.

Mary Lozowsky, of Brampton, Ont., said she was encouraged by what she heard, particularly Collins’ admission the church had “failed.”

He didn’t try to blame the victims, she said.

“There was no counter-attack in this — it was not a defensive response,” Lozowsky said.

“I thought it was honest.”

Also Sunday, Pope Benedict met a group of clerical sex-abuse victims in Malta.

The pontiff promised them the church would do everything in its power to bring justice to victims and protect young people in the future.

Benedict also expressed shame and sorrow at the pain the men suffered, the Vatican said.

Among allegations that have emerged in recent weeks was that the diocese of Pembroke in eastern Ontario conspired with the Vatican to cover up sex-abuse accusations.

In that case, a letter from the bishop of the diocese written in 1993 indicated a church official — later jailed in Ontario — was promoted to a top Vatican post despite knowing about several complaints about his conduct.

Collins called the situation “painful” as he acknowledged the impact of the scandals on the church.

“It seems that not a day has gone by in recent weeks without hearing of Catholic priests who have sexually abused those entrusted to their care, or of the failure of their superiors to deal rightly with that,” he said.

“In the face of this constant criticism, Catholic clergy and lay people alike can feel discouraged, angry, confused, and ashamed.”

However, he noted that much of the abuse happened many years ago, and said measures have been put in place to make the church safer.

At the same time, he said, his archdiocese is looking to update its protocols — first introduced in 1989 — to deal with accusations of misconduct.

He said he would be asking a group of lay people experienced in youth, psychology, legal issues and ethics to recommend changes to make the protocol more effective.

In addition, he said, priests and others involved in pastoral service in the archdiocese will gather this fall to discuss more fully about how to best respond to sexual abuse in the Church and in society.

Lozowsky said she was pleased the church is talking about ways to prevent future abuse and cover-ups of complaints.

The Toronto archdiocese put a video of Collins’ message on its website along with text copies translated in five languages so it would be as accessible as possible, a spokesman said.


Abp. Collins is a great example of the young, pro-active, orthodox-thinking bishops that Benedict XVI has been naming, particularly to the big dioceses of North America. I hope more bishops follow his initiative.

They should not be all doom and gloom about the sex abuse issue, and should 'accentuate the positive' as Mons. Collins does. Yes, priests sinned grievously, and bishops erred in covering up for them, and the Church attitude to the problem before 2001 was simply wrong. The faithful must pray for the victims and the people who abused them and let them down, and for the Church and the offenders to do the neecessary penance.

But also look at what has been done since 2001. And so far, the Church is the only institution that has been cleaning house even if the abuses are much more frequent and common in all other sectors of society!

Variation on a theme....


Catholic priest removed, returned to Germany
to face allegations of sexual abuse -
of women, and back in the past!
By William Wan

Wednesday, April 21, 2010


A German Catholic priest who has served in Washington for the past six years has been removed from ministry and ordered home to face surfacing allegations that he sexually abused teenage girls in Germany two decades ago, Church officials said late Tuesday night.

The priest, Michael Schapfel, was removed from ministry after the German Bishops' Conference and the Diocese of Mainz in that country learned of the allegations March 30, reported them to authorities and called Schapfel at home during the Easter holiday.

An archdiocese spokeswoman said local church officials were not told about it until Tuesday.

The Archdiocese of Washington said it has not received any reports of abuse by Schapfel during his time in the District. Since 2004, he has served as chaplain of the 75-family German Pastoral Mission of Washington, which is attended mainly by German parishioners.

Before coming to Washington, Schapfel was ordained as a priest of the Diocese of Mainz in 1984 and held a number of positions in Germany, including an assignment with the Secular Institute of Schoenstatt Diocesan Priests.

It was a report from the Schoenstatts to the Diocese of Mainz that led to his removal from ministry. According to a news release from the German Bishops' Conference, the Schoenstatts had information as early as 2004 that suggested a past inappropriate relationship, but the information was not shared, according to Church officials.

According to the Associated Press in Germany, the Mainz diocese and the German Bishops' Conference said in a joint statement that the suspended priest is suspected of "having had sexual relations in the late 80s and early 90s with female youths and young women who had confided to him in his capacity as a pastor."

One person reported abuse to the Schoenstatt Institute of Diocesan Priests, to which the priest belongs, as early as 2004, the statement said. But the leaders of that group did not inform the diocese at that time, the statement said.

Schapfel arrived in Washington with a letter of suitability from his home diocese, affirming that he had no known criminal background nor anything that would "render him unsuitable to work with children," according to the Washington Archdiocese. He attended mandatory child protection training, signed an affidavit that he read and agreed to follow the child protection policy.

The Archdiocese of Washington said the German Bishops' Conference has written to the people of the pastoral mission and will send a representative to meet with them.



Now the AP is speaking up for the devil???? On the principle of 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend'? It also reminds me of the hell that media gave Mons. Wagner in Linz, Austria, for his Hurricane Katrina remarks!


New bishop once blamed devil
for abuse lawsuits
By CHRISTOPHER WILLS


SPRINGFIELD, Illinois, April 21 (AP) — A Chicago bishop who once blamed the devil for sexual abuse lawsuits against the Roman Catholic Church and proposed shielding the church from legal damages has been named to lead an Illinois diocese.

Thomas Paprocki, an auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of Chicago, was announced Tuesday as the church's ninth bishop of Springfield.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests said it was disappointed with Paprocki's promotion.

"It says to us that the Vatican is more interested in doctrinal purity than child safety — or at least that child safety isn't the No. 1 priority," said David Clohessy, SNAP's executive director. [Clohessy is the Hans Kueng of victims; advocates, the king of kneejerk reactions! I never saw a more predictable Pavlov-dog responder!]

Paprocki, 57, said three years ago that the principal force behind the waves of abuse lawsuits was "none other than the devil."

He said the cost of litigation was making it more difficult for the church to perform charitable works. An attorney himself, Paprocki proposed that the courts revive an old policy of shielding nonprofit organizations from lawsuits over negligence and abuse.

"The settlement or award of civil damages is punishing the wrong people, namely the average parishioner or donor whose financial contributions support the church but who have no role in the supervision of clergy," Paprocki said in October 2007 during a special Mass for judges and attorneys.

Paprocki didn't immediately return a call seeking comment Tuesday afternoon. A message seeking comment also was left Tuesday afternoon with the papal nuncio's office in Washington.

In a news conference earlier in the day, Paprocki said the church must address sexual abuse to help restore trust. "I know what a painful and what a troubling issue that this sin and this crime is that confronts us in the Church," he said, according to The (Springfield) State Journal-Register.

Paprocki was ordained in 1978. He co-founded the South Chicago Legal Clinic to offer legal services to the poor and later became a top aide in the Chicago archdiocese.

He succeeds Archbishop George Lucas, who was named to lead the Omaha archdiocese last June.

The Catholic Church and Sexual Abuse: Part I
Why 64% of Americans believe Catholic priests are perverts
by AL KRESTA

April 20, 2010


Kresta is a popular radio commentator for Ave Maria Radio in Florida. He also blogs actively.

A new round of reporting on Catholic clergy sexual abuse in Europe has generated a new climate of revulsion toward the Catholic Church. In spite of, I suppose some would say, because of, all the media attention, however, the public has a grossly distorted picture of clergy sexual misconduct.

No one denies that great evil has been done by the likes of John Geoghan, Paul Shanley, John Birmingham, and Marciel Maciel Dellgado and a thousand others. Not to mention the shocking neglect of authorities like now Bishop John B. McCormack and Cardinal Law.

The Dallas Morning News claimed that two thirds of sitting U.S. bishops were alleged in 2002 to have kept accused priests in ministry or moved accused priests to new assignments. [The article is presently under critical review by bishopsaccountability.org.]

However, of the 109 bishops identified in the Dallas Morning News survey, only 39 are still managing the same diocese. Of the others, eleven have retired or resigned. That means nearly two-thirds have been moved. Seven U.S. dioceses have declared bankruptcy and others are in financial crisis.

Nevertheless, the evil is not as widespread, as current, or as threatening as imagined in a 2002 Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll which found that 64 percent of those queried thought Catholic priests "frequently'' abused children.

First of all, hardly anyone seems to have noticed that clerical sexual abuse is not growing in the Catholic Church. The sheer volume of press reports mislead us into thinking that the scandal is widening while the reality is that it has been shrinking for a quarter of a century.

I just went to my homepage. There I read a headline: "Catholic priest arrested in molestation case". I'm ready to run to the parish, protect my child, and reduce the bodily integrity of the perpetrator. But I'd win no thanks for vigilante justice because I'm thirty years too late.

Yes, the crime and the headline are all too terrible and typical. Here's the lead: "A retired Roman Catholic priest has been charged with first-degree sex offense and crime against nature after allegations were made that he sexually assaulted a boy from his Kingsport parish more than 30 years ago."

Old cases still make sensational headlines. E.g., "Norway's Catholic Church Reveals New Abuse Cases" But Norway doesn't have new cases. The church disclosed 4 old cases that had previously been overlooked. Two from the 1950s; one from the 1980s and another which remains based on rumors. What was new was that the press finally learned of these cases at all.

Delayed reporting by the victims has compounded this lag time between the criminal acts and the public awareness. Indeed, some bishops ignored accusations and failed to report them in a timely manner, no doubt fearing lawsuits and scandal. They neglected the pastoral care of victims and the public's right to know the danger represented by certain priests.

But delayed media reporting wasn't generally due to episcopal foot-dragging. The victims, themselves, postponed reporting their abuse! Less than thirteen percent of victims abused between 1960 and 1980, for example, lodged a complaint in the same year as the assault. Two thirds filed their complaints after 1992, and half of those were made between 2002 and 2003 alone!

This means that the media has been covering old news and, understandably but unfortunately, creating a climate of suspicion years after the abuse had been perpetrated. Thanks to reforms instituted by the USCCB, the Catholic Church in America today is the safest private or public institution for children.

This is beyond dispute. The John Jay College of Criminal Justice has shown repeatedly that the vast majority of the abuse cases took place from the mid-60s to the mid-80s. And the reports over the last five years show a rapid decline. The latest report, covering 2008-2009, shows exactly six credible allegations.

How many Catholic clergy serve in the United States? Forty thousand priests, twenty one thousand permanent deacons and religious brothers and tens of thousands of other Catholic Church workers. Amidst all these eighty or ninety thousand American clergy and lay workers only six credible allegations were lodged in 2008-2009. Once again, note the historical flow.

The known number of cases increased in the 1960s, peaked in the 1970s, declined in the 1980s and by the 1990s had returned to the levels of the 1950s. One case of abuse is one too many and worth a millstone or worse but it is time to say that the American clerical sex abuse crisis is over.

So why don't people know this? Last month the USCCB posted the new figures on its website but the press had caught the scent of sin and crime in Europe. Old wounds got re-opened and, it is a general rule of journalism that bad news always displaces good news. Further, how many people bother to plod through the tedium of a sociologist's analysis?

By the way, how many priests have engaged in sexual misconduct with minors? The John Jay College of Criminal Justice estimated that about 4% of priests were involved-- about the same as in other institutions although no other institution has been so rigorously studied or has such kept such thorough records over generations.

An article in the Journal of Pastoral Psychology by Thomas Plante and Courtney Daniels doesn't see any greater problem among Catholic clergy.

Newsweek quotes Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children: "We don't see the Catholic Church as a hotbed of this or a place that has a bigger problem than anyone else," Archbishop Silvano Maria Tomasi in September 2009 stated on behalf of the Holy See: "We know now that in the last 50 years somewhere between 1.5% and 5% of the Catholic clergy has been involved in sexual abuse cases." There are other surveys and studies with similar conclusions: See here and here.

According to a recent Newsweek article, "Since the mid-1980s, insurance companies have offered sexual misconduct coverage as a rider on liability insurance, and their own studies indicate that Catholic churches are not higher risk than other congregations."

Catholic activist scholar Leon Podles, author of Sacrilege: Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church places the figure at 7-10% on the grounds that most abuse goes unreported and thus many priest-perpetrators go undiscovered. Perhaps, but this reporting flaw would apply to all institutions. Abuse would be under-reported everywhere.

We also know that some priests were more profligate than others. Overall, the John Jay study found that 149 priests were responsible for more than 2,900 cases of abuse over the 52-year period studied. Roughly, three percent of the accused were responsible for about 36% of the accusations.

Another misconception: Strictly speaking there are almost no pedophile priests. Only 1% of the cases involve pre-pubescent children. The majority of cases involve adults engaging in criminal sexual contact with adolescent boys. This is more accurately described as either hebephilia (younger adolescents) or ephebophilia (older adolescents). Criminal and immoral behavior yes but pederasty doesn't carry quite the disgust associated with pedophilia.

Second, priest sex abuse is treated not as an individual but as an institutional problem. For instance, CBS News.com reported: "The FBI says it expects to arrest at least fifty more people by week's end as it busts up an Internet child-pornography ring that allegedly included two Catholic priests, six other members of the clergy, a school bus driver, and at least one police officer." I am not interested in bringing discredit on Presbyterians or Baptists or Lutherans but why among the eight clergy only Catholic priests are identified by their ecclesiastical affiliation?

The same day that the Associated Press reported that the archbishop of Santiago, Chile had launched an investigation of a few cases of priestly sexual abuse, the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights tipped the AP off about other cases of sexual abuse. For instance,
• A Milford, Connecticut teacher's aide pleaded no contest to sexually assaulting a high school student
• A Brookville High School teacher in Pennsylvania was charged with aggravated indecent assault, indecent exposure, corruption of minor, possession of obscene material, sexual abuse of children, and unlawful conduct with minors.
• A middle school gym teacher in Athens , New Your was arrested on charges of sex abuse and forcible touching
• A Morrisville-Easton Central School District teacher outside Utica, New York Was arrested for forcibly touching a girl over a three year period, beginning at the age of 11, and for endangering her welfare.....
• A former Teacher of the Year in Bullitt County, Kentucky was indicted by a grand jury on sexual abuse charges.
• A teacher at Olin High School in Iowa was charged with sexually exploiting a freshman. This same teacher faced similar charges two years ago when he taught in another school, and was simply moved from one school district to another.

The AP chose only to cover the archdiocese of Santiago because it fit the hot storyline of a corrupt institution getting its comeuppance while all the teacher examples are simply individual teachers bound together by their jobs and perversions but not embedded in a large, universal, mysterious institution that by refusing to ordain women, relax celibacy and applaud homosexuality defies the flow of modern life. The Catholic church is "other" to most Americans; public school teachers, on the other hand, are familiar and friendly to all of us.

Still, we can't take much pride that the Church's personnel appear no worse than boy scout leaders or public school teachers. Shouldn't we expect more? Shouldn't the Catholic Church be held to a higher standard? Yes, certainly, by the faithful who believe, but not by the press which doesn't.

I don't expect the New York Times and the Associated Press to do apologetics for the Catholic Church. I do expect them to compare institutions and to evenhandedly handle the data.

A reporter may not like the Church's teaching on artificial contraception but that doesn't give him a license to spawn misconceptions and distort the truth. Heaping inaccuracy upon the flames of moral indignation only sears the conscience of all involved.

Coming later this week :
The Catholic Church and Sex Abuse:
Part II - The Vatican, Public Relations, and Sheer Incompetence

What's wrong with the headline? To begin with - the right chronology is 'First the US, then Europe...'; and 'sweeps' is a deliberate hyperbole meant to reinforce the media narrative of the Catholic Church as nothing more than a pedophile brothel run by unscrupulous conniving enablers, and an institution that has done not the least bit of good on earth....


First Europe, then the US –
now abuse claims sweep Latin America
By Jerome Taylor, Religious Affairs Correspondent

Thursday, 22 April 2010


Are we surprised at this new tack? It was bound to come. Failing any new 'dirt' dug up about Joseph Ratzinger, just claim 'the scandal is sweeping the world', as if, surprise!, there are sex-offending priests in other places, too! It's all about keeping the momentum of the campaign going... Such as all the new to-do in the US about someone filing a new suit against the Pope and the Vatican... As annoying as it is, DUH!


The paedophile priest scandal currently enveloping the Vatican has spread to one of the most Catholic areas of the world following a string of new abuse revelations throughout Latin America.

Reports of priests raping or abusing minors have now emerged in Brazil, Bolivia, Uruguay, Mexico and Chile causing growing anger [The Independent perhaps ran a poll in all the countreis of Latin America?] in a continent that is home to nearly half the world’s Catholics.

In Brazil, an 83-year-old priest has been arrested after he was secretly filmed in bed with a 19-year-old altar boy. The footage was broadcast on national television networks prompting a police investigation which led to the arrest of Monsignor Luiz Marques Barbosa and two other priests in the north eastern state of Alagoas. They have since been accused of abusing boys as young as 12 and have been suspended by their diocesan bishop.

The Catholic Church in Chile confirmed this week that there have been 20 alleged or confirmed cases of child abuse by priests. At a press conference yesterday, Monsignor Alejandro Goic, the head of Chile’s bishops’ conference, apologised and vowed to crack down on any priests who had abused children.

"There is no place in the priesthood for those who abuse minors, and there is nothing that can justify this crime," he said.

Reporters in Uruguay have also discovered that a priest who had been charged with raping three children in Bolivia had returned to his homeland and was living openly with full knowledge of local church officials.

Juan Jose Santana has been on the run from Bolivian authorities since May 2008. An Interpol warrant has been issued for his arrest but reporters from the La Republica newspaper tracked him down to his home town.

Asked if allegations that he had abused children were true, the newspaper reported that Santana said, "It's true. That's all I can say... You know something? I'm dead."

The Mexican church is already reeling from revelations surrounding the Legionnaires of Christ, a shadowy but powerful Catholic sect which was founded by the charismatic Maciel Degollado. Following his death in 2008 it emerged that the staunchly conservative theologian had a series of sexual affairs with men, women and boys in many different parts of the world.

This week the Mexican church has also been drawn into a potentially costly legal battle in the United States. An anonymous Mexican citizen has filed papers suing Catholic cardinals in Mexico City and Los Angeles, accusing them of purposely hiding the background of a Mexican priest accused of sexually abusing dozens of children.

Speaking at his weekly public audience in St Peter’s Square today, Pope Benedict XVI spoke about meeting abuse victims during his weekend trip to Malta, in what was a rare public statement on the paedophile scandal.

"I wanted to meet some people who were victims of abuse by members of the clergy,” he said. “I shared with them their suffering and with emotion I prayed with them, promising them action on the part of the Church."

So far the kind of widespread anti-Church outrage seen in European countries currently experiencing abuse scandals has yet to materialise in Latin America. But the drip of allegations are potentially damaging to an institution that is already trying to counter the growing influence of evangelical missionaries.

[The reporter has much to learn about the culture of the Hispanic countries. First, there's the machismo that is deeply rooted in them. Priests having mistresses and children out of wedlock have always been part of historical lore in the countries colonized by Spain and Portugal. Not that the natives want it to happen - it simply does not surprise them that it happens, when it happens. Father Maciel's Legionaries may have preferred to hear no evil, etc., about their founder, but that does not mean his libertinism was unknown to those Mexicans who thrive on celebrity gossip.

Equally deep-rooted and widespread is the culture of gossip - very little that happens with their priests and bishops, as with their local officials, is not known and whispered about by the locals. And all these 'revelations' now about man-boy relationships that involve priests would have been whispered about. What's new is that they are now in the headlines.

I don't know the extent of open homosexuality in Latin America today, but the macho culture also militates against the male victims of priests coming out into the open. The last I heard, 'maricon' - the Spanish term for a male homosexual - still was pretty pejorative and an affront to the malehood of anyone called that, not a badge of gay pride... Of course, a victim may have second thoughts if he sincerely wants to punish his abusers, and/or if he succumbs to victim advocates dangling visions of potential booty from the Church!... But I'd be interested to know what local people have done to priests who have been exposed as child-molesters]

Approximately 71 percent of South Americans consider themselves Catholic, down from 80 percent in 1995. The proportion of people who consider themselves evangelical or Protestant, meanwhile, rose from 3 percent to 13 percent in the same period.

Professor Manuel Vasquez, an expert in Latin American religion at the University of Florida, says the Catholic Church still has a “strong moral standing” in South America because of its history in confronting despotic regimes throughout the late twentieth century.

“That may insulate the Catholic Church from some of the dramatic anger that we’ve seen in Europe but it’s also a two-edged sword,” he explained. “The Church’s moral power comes through confronting governments on the issue of impunity. But if people believe the Church is now itself acting with impunity, it leaves them open to allegations of double standards.” [Ahem! In the Third World, double standards are hardly uncommon in any sector of society; in fact, it's probably the rule! And the people know it, and the more 'clever' ones simply seek to use it to their own advantage. .]

Catholic Orthodoxy vindicated:
The real reason Archbishop Favalora
of Miami was made to resign
By Eric Giunta

April 21, 2010


Today is a glorious day, one for which Catholics should rightly be proud. The Bishop of Rome has responded to years of documented moral and financial mismanagement of the Miami Archdiocese by Archbishop John Favalora. On April 20, the Holy See compelled Favalora to tender his resignation "in accordance with canon 401 para. 2 of the Code of Canon Law," in the words of the official Vatican press release.

The canon in question reads as follows: "A diocesan bishop who has become less able to fulfill his office because of ill health or some other grave cause is earnestly requested to present his resignation from office."

Archbishop Favalora is a mere eight months away from his 75th birthday, upon which Catholic canon law would have required him to submit his resignation, that he might step down from office with the customary grace and dignity.

Rome, it seems, didn't care to afford him that courtesy. And for good reason: Favalora did not resign "because of ill health"; he himself has admitted so. So, what "grave cause" could have possibly required an Archbishop to tender his resignation well before the customary date?

There is certainly far more to this decision than the archbishop himself has let on: ''I think it's time to move on . . . At age 74, I should know when I can do more and when I can't do more,'' Favalora said, later adding that he's ready for a quieter life and no longer wants ''to be a public figure.''

Whatever else might be said of Favalora's putative justifications, none of them comprise what a reasonable observer would call "grave cause." Rome is not spilling the beans on the reasons for Favalora's removal, and neither will the Miami Archdiocese.

But I think I have a good idea why. For the benefit of my newer readers, I will recapitulate what I wrote in these pages several months ago:

---

In 2004, a group of concerned lay Catholics of the Miami Archdiocese constituted themselves a lay "watchdog" organization, under the name Christifidelis. They were moved to do so by what they have alleged is a gay superculture running the archdiocese.

Attorney Sharon Bourassa, a member of Christifidelis, was counsel for The Rev. Andrew Dowgiert in a lawsuit filed against the Archdiocese in May of 2005. Fr. Dowgiert, on loan from a Polish archdiocese and soon to be incardinated in Miami, alleged that he was "fired" from active ministry in the Miami Archdiocese after whistle-blowing on homosexual activity by several pastors of the Archdiocese (particularly that of Fr. Anibal Morales of All Saints Parish [in Sunrise]).

In 2005 and 2006, RenewAmerica.com columnist Matt Abbott published several articles tracing developments in what became known as the "Miami Vice" scandal. Bourassa claimed that several "straight" priests were feeding her information on a culture of sodomy and theological heterodoxy on the part of priests of the Miami Archdiocese. Among the allegations: 70 to 90 percent of the Archdiocese's priests are sexually active gays; Archbishop Favalora and Catholic Charities of Miami owned several thousand shares in stock for a liquid aphrodisiac popularly sold in gay clubs and strip joints; at least 70 percent of the United States bishops are sexually active gays; many priests were misappropriating parish funds to live exorbitant lifestyles, and Archbishop Favalora and vicar-general Msgr. William J. Hennessey are in some way implicated in this superculture.

The lawsuit was eventually dismissed, on the grounds that it involved "separation of church and state" issues. The court refused to determine whether a religious employer wrongfully terminated the ministerial employment of an ordained cleric. In dismissing the case, the court made no determination on the veracity of the above allegations.

This writer [i.e., Eric Giunta] can personally testify to the truth of at least one of the above allegations, namely, that the vast majority of the Archdiocese's pastors are homosexuals. Yours truly applied to the seminary formation program of the Miami Archdiocese in the Spring of 2005. I was immediately blacklisted as an ultraconservative "traditionalist" for my regular assistance at the Latin Mass Community at Miami's St Robert Bellarmine parish.

During my course of interviews with priests from the Archdiocese's vocations admissions board, one priest volunteered to me (with absolutely no prompting on my part) the fact that "if the new Holy Father [i.e., Pope Benedict XVI] were to get rid of every gay priest, this Archdiocese could run maybe . . . ten parishes." The Archdiocese, at the time, operated at least 121 parishes and/or missions.

At the end of the day, I was refused admission to the Miami seminary, and advised to seek out a more "conservative" diocese or religious order. I applied, and was accepted, to the formation program of another Diocese, a "conservative" (read: orthodox) one in the Midwest.

This Midwestern Diocese used to send its Hispanic men to the seminaries in Florida, but stopped doing so owing to the rampant homosexuality tolerated and inculcated, particularly at St John Vianney in Miami. [What would the Cure of Ars think????]

[In the summer of 2006,] I and several other Catholics sent to Rome an exhaustive report (hundreds of pages of text, documentation, and eye witness accounts) detailing and documenting all these allegations and more. Rome responded to the report.

---

At the time I penned these words, I did not feel free to divulge just how Rome responded to the report, which we titled "Miami Vice." I now feel at complete liberty to do so.

The aforementioned attorney, Ms. Sharon Bourassa, was contacted by a Vatican monsignor, who met with her in person and assured her that the Holy See would be investigating each and every one of the allegations presented in the report. Ms. Bourassa shared with this monsignor the names and contact information of several confidential eye witnesses, including several priests.

Months later, this monsignor contacted her again, informing her that our allegations had all been vindicated, and that Rome was going to act on the report. This was in the late Fall of 2006.

Four years later, Rome has finally acted, and in doing so has vindicated RenewAmerica columnist Matt Abbott, myself, Ms. Bourassa, and all the lay faithful of the Archdiocese who have suffered tremendous persecution and ostracization for defending the integrity of the Catholic Church's doctrine, liturgy, and moral witness.

And we owe a debt of gratitude to our supreme pastor, Pope Benedict XVI.

Already the tide was turning in our Archdiocese after the Pope conducted the visitation of America's seminaries beginning in late 2005, effectively beginning to clean up the mess his disastrous predecessor left behind.

Four years later I am proud to report that the climate has, even now, changed markedly from when I applied just five years ago. I have met several fine, orthodox young men from Miami's St John Vianney College Seminary, in fact at a Gregorian Chant Conference held in Ave Maria, FL. Participation at such a conference just five years ago would have blacklisted any seminarian from the Archdiocese, causing him to be labeled a reactionary rad-trad. Not any longer.

The young men, readers of this column, were anxious to share with me the change of climate on campus, and asked me to share this felicitous news with my readers. And so I am.

Now, the real reform can begin. Replacing Archbishop "Ayatollah Favalora" (aka "The Don") will be Bishop Thomas Wenski of Orlando. Bishop Wenski is one of only two Florida bishops (the other being Frank Joseph Dewane of Venice) who have distinguished themselves as staunch, vigorous defenders of Catholic orthodoxy and liturgical reform, and Wenski's promotion to the Sunshine State's primatial see bodes well for both the state and the country. His accomplishments in Orlando have been many, among them:

a) Liturgical reform: Before Wenski's episcopate, the Orlando Diocese did not have a single parish that celebrated the Catholic liturgy in a reverent, traditional manner. Now, at least five parishes offer the Tridentine Latin Mass regularly, and the Priestly Fraternity of St Peter has just been invited to establish a full-time apostolate in the Diocese. The quality and beauty of Catholic worship is improving exponentially, and this is a healthy sign for any local church.

b) Wenski was the first Florida bishop to ever teach his flock how to vote in accord with Catholic principles. In every election since 2004 he has made clear that abortion and traditional marriage (and similar issues) trump prudential considerations on things like health care, the environment, and the economy. Newly-appointed Dewane followed his lead in the '08 elections.

c) Wenski is a staunch defender of the rights of God, and of His Church. He engages the culture by frequently contributing his editorialship to the local print media, is a tireless protector of the poor and the marginalized, and brings the Scriptures alive in his preaching and teaching.

Most famously, he celebrated a Solemn Mass of Reparation to atone for the scandal of Notre Dame University's award of an honorary doctorate to Barack Obama, the most radically pro-abortion, pro-homosexual president in United States history.

In his governance of the Catholic Church in Miami-Dade, Broward, and Monroe Counties, which he will assume on June 1, Bishop Wenski will be assisted by Felipe de Jesús Estévez and John Gerard Noonan, the Miami Archdiocese's auxiliary bishops. All three are holy, capable, and learned men who will be vigorous promoters of reform, discipline, and purification in a local church that needs it so badly.

The stage has been set for a real renaissance of Catholic Christianity in South Florida. The region is a haven of culture-of-death leftism, and these three bishops have their work cut out for them. Our thoughts and prayers at RenewAmerica are with them.

Bishop of Augsburg resigns
over 'whipping' charges

April 22, 2010


Bishop Walter Mixa of Augsburg has resigned amid charges that he physically abused teenagers at an orphanage. Mixa wrote to the Pope after the head of German bishops' conference called on him to take a leave of absence.

Reports of Augsburg Bishop Mixa's resignation, in the form of a letter to the Pope, initially came from the Augsburger Allgemeine newspaper, and have now been confirmed by church officials in Mixa's Augsburg diocese.

Church officials in the southern-German city said on Thursday that Mixa wrote in his letter of a desire "to prevent further damage to the Church and make a new start possible" by resigning.

The scandal surrounding Mixa dates back to his time as a parish priest in the town of Schrobenhausen between 1975 and 1996, when he also oversaw the board of the town's orphanage. It is apparently unrelated to recent sex abuse scandals in German Catholic institutions.

Several people who lived at the orphanage as children have come forward with allegations that Mixa beat them with his fists, a stick and a carpet beater when they were reported for misbehavior.

"I ask forgiveness from all those I may have treated unjustly, and all those I have caused to grieve," wrote Mixa in his letter to Pope Benedict XVI, according to the Augsburg diocese.

The orphanage has apologized to the victims and hired an attorney to investigate the abuse allegations, although most of the cases stem from so long ago that they can no longer be pursued in court. The attorney is also investigating allegations of the misappropriation of the orphanage's funds to pay for fine wine, a tanning bed and highly-priced art.

Mixa originally denied the physical abuse charges "with a pure heart." He later admitted that he had slapped some children, and said that any financial irregularities were inadvertent.

Germany's top Catholic bishop, Freiburg's Robert Zollitsch, publicly stated on Wednesday that he and Munich Archbishop Reinhard Marx had asked Mixa to take an extended leave of absence to wait out investigations into his actions.

Zollitsch said they had discussed with Mixa whether "a period of spiritual retreat and geographical separation" would ensure "a more factual atmosphere during the investigation."

Mixa is regarded as one of Germany's most conservative bishops and fiercely supports parent child-rearing over sending them to kindergartens. Zollitsch, who heads the Conference of German Bishops, is seen as progressive by comparison, but the public parting of ways between two German bishops is unprecedented.

The Augsburger Allgemeine quoted Mixa's resignation letter as saying that the "continuing public discussion" about his character have "put a strain on priests and believers."

Belgium's longest serving bishop quits
over child abuse committed as a priest
by Robert Wielaard



BRUSSELS, Belgium, April 23 (AP) - Belgium's longest serving bishop resigned Friday, saying he was "enormously sorry" for having sexually abused a young boy about 25 years ago.

The resignation of Roger Vangheluwe, 73, the Bishop of Bruges since 1984, was the first from Belgium since a child abuse scandal began testing the Catholic Church several months ago in Europe and the United States.

Archbishop Andre-Joseph Leonard, Primate of Belgium and recently named Archbishop of Brussels-Malines, read a statement in which Vangheluwe announced his resignation and admitted to sexual abuse.

"When I was not yet a bishop, and some time later, I abused a boy," Vangheluwe said in the statement. He did not attend the news conference, but said Pope Benedict XVI had accepted his resignation.

"This has marked the victim forever. The wound does not heal. Neither in me nor the victim," Vangheluwe's statement said, adding that he repeatedly has asked the victim and his family for forgiveness.

"I am enormously sorry," he said. Vangheluwe had been due to retire next year.

Leonard called Vangheluwe a "great brother and dynamic bishop," but said that his transgression would shock many.

"We are aware of the crisis of confidence his resignation will set in motion," Leonard said. But he stressed the Catholic Church in Belgium was determined to "turn over a leaf from a not very distant past."

Leonard became Belgium's archbishop this year.

In his Easter homily, he addressed the pedophilia scandals that have surfaced in the Catholic Church, saying that in the past "the reputation of church leaders was given a higher priority than that of abused children."

As elsewhere, the Catholic Church in Belgium has a weak record of cracking down on sexual abusers in its ranks.

In 2000 it created a panel to look into abuse complaints that quickly clashed with the Church leadership. The panel has accused the Church of tardiness in compensating victims. [Hey, might it not be pertinent to mention that for years, the Primate of Belgium was Cardinal Danneels, one of the heroes of the MS for being such an outspoken progressive???? I bet if Abp. Leonard's predecessor had been another conservative, his name would have been brought up and maligned!]

Hundreds of people have come forward in recent months, including in Pope Benedict's native Germany, accusing priests of raping and abusing them while bishops and other church higher-ups turned a blind eye.

This week, the Vatican has said it would do everything in its power to bring justice to abusive priests and implement "effective measures" to protect children.

It recently published guidelines instructing bishops to report abuse to police when civil laws require it. The Vatican insists that has long been church policy, though it was never before explicitly written. [If you check the AP story from Bogota in the BENEDICT thread about Cardinal Castrillon today, you will note the identical paragraph, word for word, in the story. Apparently, the AP editorial desk has a number of these pre-fabricated slugs to be inserted by the desk editor into any report about this issue!]


The Vatican has provided a translation of the full statements from Brussels:

DECLARATIONS ABOUT THE RESIGNATION
OF THE BISHOP OF BRUGES


VATICAN CITY, 23 APR 2010 (VIS) - Given below are the texts of two declarations, one by Bishop Roger Joseph Vangheluwe of Bruges, Belgium, concerning his resignation from office, and the other by Archbishop Andre-Mutien Leonard of Mechelen-Brussels, Belgium. Both declarations were delivered during a press conference held at midday today in Brussels.

From Mons. Vangheluwe:

---

When I was still just a priest, and for a certain period at the beginning of my episcopate, I sexually abused a minor from my immediate environment. The victim is still marked by what happened.

Over the course of these decades I have repeatedly recognised my guilt towards him and his family, and I have asked forgiveness; but this did not pacify him, as it did not pacify me.

The media storm of recent weeks has increased the trauma, and the situation is no longer tenable. I profoundly regret what I did and offer my most sincere apologies to the victim, to his family, to all the Catholic community and to society in general.

I have presented my resignation as bishop of Bruges to Pope Benedict XVI. It was accepted on Friday and so I retire.

---

From Archbishop Andre-Mutien Leonard of Mechelen-Brussels:

---

We are facing a particularly serious situation. Our thoughts go first and foremost to the victim and his family, some of whom have learned the shocking news only today. For the victim this has been a long Calvary, which has clearly not yet ended.

As for Bishop Roger Vangheluwe, as a person he has the right to conversion, trusting in the mercy of God. However, as regards his function, it is vital that, out of respect for the victim and his family, and out of respect for the truth, he should resign from office. This is what he has done. The Pope immediately accepted the resignation of the bishop of Bruges, which is at this moment is being published in Rome.

The Church thus underlines the importance of not procrastinating in such cases. We hope to contribute to the rehabilitation of the victim.

The decision of the bishop of Bruges, and the calling of this press conference, express the transparency that the Catholic Church in Belgium rigorously wishes to apply in these matters, turning a new page with respect to the not-so-distant period in which the Church, and others, preferred the solution of silence or concealment.

It goes without saying that this event will cause great suffering in the whole Catholic community of Belgium, especially because Bishop Vangheluwe was considered a generous and dynamic person, much appreciated in his diocese and in the Belgian Church.

We, his confreres, are aware of the crisis of trust this will provoke in many people. Nonetheless, we dare to hope that wisdom will prevail and that the bishops, and especially the priests, of this country will not be unduly discredited as a group, because the vast majority live a lifestyle coherent with their vocation, with a faithfulness for which I here publicly express my thanks.

---

Vatican will finance
adult stem cell research


ROME, April 23 (AP) -- The Vatican will finance new research into the potential use of adult stem cells in the treatment of intestinal and possibly other diseases, officials announced Friday.

The project is at a very preliminary phase and it will be years before any clinical treatment might be available, the officials said.

Cardinal Renato Martino said the Vatican fully supports the project because it does not involve embryonic stem cells.

He said he expected the Vatican to help finance the project through its Rome hospital, Bambin Gesu, but the exact amount must still be worked out in future meetings with the University of Maryland's School of Medicine, the project's leaders.

An initial announcement by the university said the Vatican had already agreed to donate euro 2 million ($2.7 million) to the research.

The church is opposed to embryonic stem cell research because it involves the destruction of embryos, but it supports the use of adult stem cells.

In 2007, Pope Benedict XVI said adult stem cell research respects human life, which according to church teachings begins at conception.

The Vatican has drawn criticism for its opposition to embryonic stem cell research. But the Vatican insists there are scientifically viable alternatives and the efforts of the scientific community should go in that direction. Financing this project is part of those efforts.

But while embryonic stem cells are especially prized for their pluripotency -- meaning they can morph into any type of cell in the body -- adult stem cells are not as pluripotent. For that reason, embryonic stem cells are considered to have more potential for the treatment of diseases such as Alzheimer's, diabetes and Parkinson's. [The reporter is working in an ideological bias that is scientifically wrong or mere conjecture. See article excerpt below.]



Researchers involved in the Vatican-financed project say they want to assess the potential of intestinal stem cells -- a relatively new field -- for therapeutic use.

"We want to harvest them, we want to isolate them, we want to make them grow outside our body and see if they are pluripotent," said Alessio Fasano, the scientist leading the project and the director of the University of Maryland's Center for Celiac Research.

"If we reach that phase, if we are able to achieve that goal, then our next step is to eventually move to clinical application," Fasano told the AP before Friday's announcement.

Intestinal stem cells have certain features that makes them appealing for this kind of research, Fasano said.

They are very active cells -- the intestine replenishes all its cells every few days -- and they are intrinsically flexible -- already programmed to generate all the various kinds of cells such as mucus cells or epithelial cells present in the highly complex organ. Furthermore, harvesting them can be done through a routine procedure like endoscopy, Fasano noted.

Fasano said his team hopes to have a first answer on the feasibility of the project within the next two to three years.

Talks on child abuse
in Germany criticised


BERLIN, April 23 (AFP) - Round table talks on the child abuse scandal engulfing the Roman Catholic church in Pope Benedict XVI's native Germany began on Friday amid criticism that victims are being excluded.

In common with other European countries, Germany has been rocked in recent months by revelations that children were physically or sexually abused in institutions, the vast majority ones run by the Roman Catholic Church.

The hundreds of cases of abuse mostly date back decades and can no longer be the subject of criminal investigations, but one of the issues the round table will look at is changing the statute of limitations.

The talks, including some 60 representatives from the Catholic and Protestant churches, children's charities, psychologists and other experts, will also look at possible compensation and how to prevent future abuse.

But some highly renowned independent organisations that provide advice to victims feel they are under-represented, the Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported.

"I have the impression that the victims are being shut out," Ursula Enders, co-founder of one of these organisations, the highly regarded Zartbitter, told the newspaper.

Thomas Schlingmann from Tauwetter, another such organisation, said he was sceptical that the talks would produce concrete results that would boost child protection, fearing instead only well-meaning but ineffective appeals.


Do they really have to re-invent the wheel? To begin with, why don't they look at what has worked in the US for the past eight years and adapt it to German conditions?

*rant alert*

This round table was created to prevent sexual abuse of children ‘throughout society'. A very noble, but also a very impossible task.
Surely, the main institutions will be there and they will be in the spot-light. Mostly, of course, the Catholic Church. The protestants are simply too boring and too conform to be concerned about.
The main part is the failure inside families. This problem will not be solved. I assume it will get bigger. Considering the huge and growing amount of single parents and patchwork families we have in his country.
Also, the huge amount of children given up for day-care when they're under one, or two years old won’t make it better. The systematic devaluation of families.... and… and… and...
It would certainly bust this format to go and on about what's wrong with this country...
I do think, in this particular case, it was a good move by Zollitsch to refuse the plans for a 'separate' round table - exclusively reserved for the Catholic Church (!!!).



As for the resignation of Bishop Mixa: words fail me on that one.
He was successfully brought down by the media. Surely, he could have taken the Georg Ratzinger approach and admitted to have occasionally disciplined a child by slapping it in the face and he could have apologized for it in a sincere, heartfelt way (as we all know – slapping was a very common and standard measure back then –> irony: tens-of-thousands of teachers should now step up an apologize). His initial denial to have done so, mixed with the bias, relentless, intentionally incorrect reporting by our own version of 'Hells Bible' -> SZ, gave it a good push.

Considering, that the original accusation was brutally mistreating orphans when he was Priest of Schrobenhausen, by beating them with objects such as carpet beaters, or by punching them with his fist, he is now taken down for first denying to have used physical violence, and then admitting to have occasionally slapped a child.

I do assume his media adviser (who has now been sacked) should have done a better job handling this matter and/or advising the Bishop to simply lay out the facts.
None of those severe punishment accusations have been proved. None of the ‘victims’ have agreed to a meeting with Mixa to explain their point of view. Acc. to SZ, there are affidavits, but they were not given to a court, or to a laywer, but to a newspaper!!!?

And then!!! The worst of all!!! Zollitsch and Marx (!!!) publically asked Mixa to ‘take some time off’. Not during quiet consultations in a private meeting, but in public!! And in the press!! They handed him over to the frenzied mob on a silver platter!



You have NO idea how disappointed I am in Archbsp. Marx. He's due to get his red hat this year. What kind of an example is he giving to young Bishops? Caving in to the pressure and handing his brother in faith and in office over to a bunch of atheists? What’s his goal? Trying to soothe the media? That's just inexcusable!

Bishop Mixa was also the official Catholic Military Bishop of the German Army, which is engaged in heavy fighting in Afghanistan, and which is sending home dead soldiers on almost weekly basis.
The secretary of defense - K.T.- zu Guttenberg - has finally managed to make people accept that our soldiers are not merely keeping peace, but they’re at war with the Taliban.
Many soldiers have spoken up and are furious about having lost ‘their’ pastor, whom they had the highest regards for. I seriously hope that there will be a quick solution for them! You can’t leave them in the field with the knowledge that they’re without a shepherd!

Now, we have members of the ultra leftist German media with the taste of first blood on their tongues. Who’s going to be next? Mons. Müller??

And! Now we have politicians (!!) advising the Pope on whom/or what he should appoint.
One statement was: “I hope it will be liberal Bishop like Mons. Marx of Munich!” O M G !!!!!!!

I really hope that B16 will go for the worst case scenario and appoint the most conservative, outspoken, media savvy, educated, fearless, in-your-face candidate to the chair of St. Ulrich. Preferably a member of a rather conservative order - Opus Dei would be the best!!
Nothing to lose at the moment, anyway!!

Here is an interesting article about a piece in ‘Stern’ – showing the real fear of the press, and disclosing their real agenda!

www.kath.net/detail.php?id=26471

One good thing is: many people are being awakened out of their comfortable slumber to finally get a taste of reality!
When even members of the Supreme Court are warning against anti-Christian tendencies in our society, when Altars are torched and when forums are spilling over with pure hate and ignorance, it’s time to wake up and it’s time to stand up and fight!
Many are prepared to do so. And many of them are very young, educated and orthodox and they love their Pope and the true, non-diluted catholic faith with a passion!!

Germans do have a tendency for mass hysteria. That's the scary part!




Sorry I didn't get to see this earlier. I have been inhabiting the BENEDICT thread to the exclusion of others,,, Thanks for your observations on how things stand in Germany about all this sound and fury.

I, too, was rather surprised at how Mons. Mixa was apparently sidelined without the usual 'fraternal courtey' that bishops owe each other, particularly when one of them is in trouble. Zollitsch and company showed the same surprising lack of courtesy as did Fr. Lombardi with Cardinal Castrillon, as I observe in the next post.

The Norwegians and the Belgians were more considerate of their disgraced bishops, giving them a chance to make their statements along with or slightly ahead of their respective bishops' conference announcements.

It's not very Christian to treat sinners or unpopular persons like instant pariahs, and I don't understand why some men of God are setting such a bad example.... It's sad when their first criteria seems to be 'What will the media think?' of 'Let's not give the media more ammunition to use' not 'What would Jesus do?"....


TERESA

I am glad someone has written this. I still find it shocking that obviously, no one in the Vatican sought to reach Cardinal Castrillon (after the French magazine made public a letter he wrote back in 2001), out of simple courtesy, to begin with, and to coordinate a media response. Castrillon still lives in Rome since his retirement, and even if he was in Murcia on the day the news broke, there was no reason he could not have been reached by cellphone or text message or e-mail.


Has Cardinal Castrillon
been treated fairly?
by Michael Cook

April 26, 2010


If anyone is reflecting on McCarthyism and moral panics at the moment, it must be Cardinal Darío Castrillón Hoyos, of Colombia. From 1996 to 2006 he was the prefect of the Vatican's Congregation for Clergy, a most distinguished gentleman.

Back in 2005, when Time magazine was surveying potential Popes, it wrote:

---

He has gone deep into Colombian jungles to mediate between leftist guerrillas and right-wing death squads, and once showed up at the house of cocaine king Pablo Escobar disguised as a milkman. Revealing himself, Castrillón Hoyos implored Escobar to confess his sins, which, presumably at some considerable length, the vicious gangster did.

---

Yet now, even Catholic groups shun him as if he had been Escobar himself. The cardinal was supposed to have presided over a Latin Mass at the National Basilica in Washington DC marking the fifth anniversary of the Pope's inauguration. At the last minute the organisers revoked the invitation to preserve "tranquillity and good order".

Why? Because a French newspaper revealed that he had written a letter in 2001 praising the decision of a French bishop to go to jail rather than turn an abusive priest over to the police.

"I rejoice to have a colleague in the episcopate that, in the eyes of history and all the other bishops of the world, preferred prison rather than denouncing one of his sons and priests," Castrillón wrote.

That one sentence made him a pariah. Even Vatican officials have distanced themselves. The official Vatican spokesman, Fr Federico Lombardi, told the media almost immediately that Castrillon’s letter offersed "another confirmation of how timely was the unification of the treatment of cases of sexual abuse of minors on the part of members of the clergy under the competence of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith."

Priestly sex abuse is such a scourge for victims and the Church that the inflexible protocols pioneered by Benedict XVI seems clearly the best one. But Cardinal Castrillon’s angle left room for strictness. It is a measure of the stifling McCarthyist atmosphere that has developed in the past two months that none, none, of the journalists who damned Castrillon quoted his one sentence in context. [Neither did Fr. Lombardi, which is a pity!]

Here is the paragraph which followed the offending words. The complete letter is available in French at the magazine Golias and in English on Wikipedia:

---

For the relationship between priests and their bishop is not professional but a sacramental relationship which forges very special bonds of spiritual paternity. The matter was amply taken up again by the last Council, by the 1971 Synod of Bishops and that of 1991.

The bishop has other means of acting, as the Conference of French Bishops recently restated; but a bishop cannot be required to make the denunciation himself. In all civilised legal systems it is acknowledged that close relations have the possibility of not testifying against a direct relative.

---

“The bishop has other ways of acting”: in other words, Castrillon was not saying that bishops should conceal the crimes of priests, but that they themselves should not hand the offender over to the authorities. He would probably encourage the victim or the victim’s families to report the crime.

Is this a realistic policy? Perhaps experience has showed that it is not, especially with recidivist paedophiles. Perhaps, too, victims are psychologically incapable of denouncing their tormenter. Perhaps some bishops would not be courageous enough to engineer a denunciation by a third party.

But that single sentence should not be used to smear a man courageous and zealous enough to seek the conversion of Colombia’s vilest drug lord.


Quite apart from the personal merits and achievements of Cardinal Castrillon, the least he was owed was a telephone call from someone in the Vatican. The organizers of the DC Mass were more proper, as they obviously discussed with the cardinal - who was back in Rome - that they had no choice but to ask someone else to offer the Mass for the Pope. It was sensible to do so - not as a judgment on the Cardinal's 2001 letter, nor even out of security concerns because of threatened protests against his presence, but simply because the unilateral condemnation his letter received would have distracted completely from the purpose of the Mass, which was to celebrate five years of Benedict XVI.

On the other hand, the cardinal should also have had the good sense to place a call to the Vatican, to Mons. Gaenswein or Mons. Xuereb, just to convey to the Holy Father his side about the letter - before talking to media as he did to say John Paul II approved his letter and that Cardinal Ratzinger was present at a meeting when the letter was discussed and presumably given the green light.

Castrillon showed himself to be gracious last year when he took the blame assigned to him for the Williamson fiasco, while giving his side dispassionately in an interview with Sueddeutsche Zeitung. He may be a traditionalist but he is able to explain the positions he takes, so he should be given that chance. For instance, he should explain his 2001 letter more fully in an interview with someone like Sandro Magister. One may not agree with his position, which appears not to be arbitrary on his part, but in accordance with how he understands the bishop-priest relationship.

Rome priest on trial for abuse



ROME, April 27 (AP) - The bishop responsible for a politically connected priest accused of molesting seven boys has admitted in court papers obtained by The Associated Press that he knew of the allegations for two years but didn't remove the priest from working with children.

The case of Rev. Ruggero Conti, who once advised Rome's mayor on family policy issues, resumes in court on Tuesday after a several-week break as attention increasingly turns to clerical sex abuse in the Vatican's backyard.

A week after Pope Benedict XVI wept with victims of clerical sex abuse in Malta and promised everything in the church's power to protect children and bring abusers to justice, Italian victims are now seeking a papal audience.

And Benedict on Sunday indirectly acknowledged that Italy has had its fair share of cases by praising the work of an Italian anti-pedophilia group headed by a Sicilian priest, Don Fortunato di Noto. The Pope said he wanted to "encourage all those who are dedicated to prevention and education."

But casting a harsher spotlight on abusive priests in Italy is the court date Tuesday for Conti, who is on trial in Rome for allegedly molesting seven young boys at the Nativita' di Santa Maria Santissima parish in a working class neighborhood of the capital.

Conti has denied in court that he abused any of the boys. But he has admitted that he was fond of them, saying that he would cuddle or pat them - using the Italian word "coccole," which implies paternal affection ['Fond affection' is more appropriate, because 'coccole' is not limited to paternal affection.]

"I can only think that these boys had a distorted interpretation, that their stories have crossed," Conti said during a 2008 hearing.

In police interrogations, the boys - some as young as 13 at the time of the alleged abuse - said that Conti would masturbate them and force them to perform oral sex on him in his home where he frequently invited them to eat dinner and watch movies.

Conti's bishop, Monsignor Gino Reali, admitted in a prosecutors' interrogation obtained by the AP that he knew of vague accusations two years before Conti was arrested by police, yet didn't remove him from pastoral work or otherwise report him to authorities.

Conti was arrested June 30, 2008 - as he prepared to travel with youths from his parish to World Youth Day in Sydney, Australia - and is on trial on charges of sexual violence and prostitution.

The Conti trial is being closely watched as the clerical abuse scandal swirls around the Vatican since it involves a priest who was so well regarded that he served as a family policy adviser to Rome Mayor Gianni Alemanno during his 2008 mayoral election campaign.

The Vatican's sex crimes prosecutor, Monsignor Charles Scicluna, has acknowledged he learned about the case in July 2007, a year before the arrest, when an anti-pedophilia group met with him seeking advice on how to proceed against him. Scicluna has said he advised the group, Caramella Buona ("the good candy"), to go to police, which they did.

In the December, 2008 interrogation Reali admitted that he first heard about the accusations from Conti himself in September 2006. He said he continued to hear reports, including from a youth who told him that he had been molested by Conti during a summer retreat. At a certain point Conti asked to leave the parish, but returned.

Reali said he asked Conti if there was any foundation to the reports, and said the priest denied there was any basis to them. Reali said he told Conti not to let boys visit his home but acknowledged he wasn't in a position to enforce such a measure.

Pressed by Prosecutor Francesco Scavo why he didn't pursue the case even after one of Conti's colleagues complained, Reali responded: "Yes, they're serious facts, but it's not like I can do an investigation of this type unless there's a precise complaint."

"You know that there are so many 'rumors,'" Reali continued. "And I can't run after each one of them."

Attorney Nino Marazzita, who is representing two of the youths in the trial, has said he plans to put Reali on the stand. If Reali testifies he knew of the abuse yet didn't take measures to report it to police or his superiors, that could constitute aiding and abetting a crime, the lawyer said.

"Silence is always a form of moral complicity," he told reporters last week.

Reali's office has declined repeated requests for comment.

Reali also admitted in the interrogation that in 2005 he sent back to Spain a priest who had been accused by some parents of sending explicit text messages to young boys. The Spanish diocese of Getafe, outside Madrid, has said it wasn't informed in advance of the Rev. Jose Poveda Sanchez's problems in Italy.

The Getafe diocese said it learned of the probe in 2008 from the priest himself, and transferred him to work at a nursing home in Aranjuez.

As the Conti case continues, an Italian anti-pedophilia group, Prometeo, has asked for an audience with Benedict so he can meet with Italian victims of abuse. Benedict has met with U.S., Australian, Canadian and Maltese victims.

"The time has come for them (the Vatican) to take seriously the enormity of the phenomenon, healing the wounds of the past and preventing new ones from opening," the group's head Massimiliano Frassi said in a statement.



Unless there are two Italian bishops with the name Gino Reali, I don't know exactly how Mons. Reali is involved in the case of a priest serving in the Diocese of Rome - I checked Italian Wikipedia, and it seems he has been Vicar General of Spoleto-Norcia since 1986 but also since March this year, Apostolic Administrator of Civitavecchia-Tarquinia, a diocese near Rome.

P.S. The Wikipedia item has not been updated apparently. I just saw an Italian transcript of Mons. Reali's deposition about Conti, in which he says he was made an auxiliary bishop in Rome in May 2002.

The 'sinner Church'?
Getting it straight
The formula is increasingly popular, but is misunderstood and foreign to the Christian tradition.
Saint Ambrose referred to the Church as a "chaste whore" in the sense that her sanctity overrides
the sins of her children.




ROME, April 26, 2010 – In reporting on Benedict XVI's meeting with the cardinals at the fifth anniversary of his election, L'Osservatore Romano wrote that "the Pontiff referred to the sins of the Church, recalling that she, wounded and sinful, experiences the consolations of God even more."

But it is doubtful that Benedict XVI expressed himself in exactly this way. He has never used the expression "sinner Church" - which he has always held to be mistaken.

[Unfortunately, the Vatican Press Office never did publish a transcript of what the Pope said, exactly. However, anyone who has followed what Benedict XVI has said all these past five years cannot doubt that for him, the Church is always holy - it's part of what we profess in the Apostle's Creed, 'the one, holy, Catholic and apostolic Church' - but the people who compose it are sinners, as are all human beings, and so they are in the Church to be continually purified and sanctified.]

To cite just one example from among many, in the homily for Epiphany in 2008 he defined the Church in a completely different way: "holy and made up of sinners."

And he has always defined it in this other way with careful consideration. At the end of the spiritual exercises for Lent in 2007, Benedict XVI thanked the preacher – who was Cardinal Giacomo Biffi that year – "for having taught us to have more love for the Church, the 'immaculata ex maculatis', as you have taught us with Saint Ambrose."

The expression "immaculata ex maculatis" comes from a passage of Saint Ambrose's commentary on the Gospel of Luke. The expression means that the Church is holy and without stain, although it is made up of men who are sinners.

In 1996, Cardinal Biffi, a scholar of Saint Ambrose – the great fourth century bishop of Milan who baptized Saint Augustine – published a book dedicated to precisely this issue, using St. Ambrose's expression in the title: "Casta meretrix," chaste whore.

This last formula has for decades been a commonplace for progressive Catholicism. To say that the Church is holy, "but also sinful," and must always ask forgiveness for its "own" sins.

To confirm the formula, it is usually attributed to the Fathers of the Church as a group. For example, Hans Küng, in his 1969 book The Church – perhaps his last book of real theology – wrote that the Church "is a 'casta meretrix' as it has often been called since the patristic era."

Often? As far as can be determined, in all the works of the Fathers the formula appears only once: in Saint Ambrose's commentary on the Gospel of Luke. No other Latin or Greek Father ever used it, before or after.

The recent fortune of the formula may have been fostered by a 1948 book on ecclesiology by the theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar, entitled precisely Casta meretrix. In which, however, there is absolutely no direct application to the Church of the nature of "sinner."

But in what sense did Saint Ambrose speak of the Church as a "casta meretrix"?


Left, Cardinal Biffi's book in English translation; right, engraving of Rahab.

Saint Ambrose simply wanted to apply to the Church the symbolism of Rahab, the prostitute of Jericho who, in the book of Joshua, sheltered and saved fugitive Israelites in her home (above, in an engraving by Maarten de Vos from the end of the sixteenth century).

Even before Ambrose, Rahab was seen as a "prototype" of the Church. In the New Testament, and then in Clement of Rome, Justin, Irenaeus, Origen, Cyprian. The formula "outside of the Church there is no salvation" emerged precisely from the symbol of Rahab's house of safety.

Here is the passage in which Saint Ambrose applies the expression "casta meretrix" to the Church:

"Rahab – who was a whore figure but who expresses the mystery of the Church - had in her blood the future sign of universal salvation amidst slaughter in the world. She does not reject union with the numerous fugitives - and is more chaste the closer she unites with the greater number - she who is immaculate virgin, without wrinkle, uncontaminated in her modesty. public lover, chaste whore, sterile widow, fecund virgin... Chaste meretrix because many lovers come to her for the attractions of love but without the contamination of sin" (In Lucam III, 23).

The passage is very dense, and is worthy of closer analysis. But to limit ourselves to the expression "chaste whore," here is how Cardinal Biffi explains it:

"The expression 'chaste whore', far from alluding to something sinful and reprehensible, is intended to indicate – not only in the adjective, but also in the substantive – the sanctity of the Church. Sanctity that consists just as much in adhering without wavering and without inconsistency to Christ her spouse ('casta'), as in the desire of the Church to reach all in order to bring all to salvation ('meretrix')."

The fact that in the eyes of the world the Church itself might appear to be stained with sins and struck by public disdain is a fate that echoes that of its founder, Jesus, also considered a sinner by the earthly powers of his time.

And this is what Saint Ambrose says again in another passage of his commentary on the Gospel of Luke: "The Church rightly takes on the appearance of a sinner, because Christ also assumed the aspect of a sinner" (In Lucam VI, 21).

But precisely because it is holy – with the indefectible sanctity that comes to it from Christ – the Church can welcome sinners into it, and suffer with them for their evils, and care for them.

In disastrous times like the present, full of accusations meant to invalidate the very sanctity of the Church, this is a truth that must not be forgotten.

NB: The statistical yearbooks are always a year behind because obviously, statistics for the full calendar year being reported are generrally only received and processed after that year is done. So the latest issue of the Church's statistical yearbook is current up to December 2008.


Some Church statistics
as of December 31, 2008



VATICAN CITY, 27 APR 2010 (VIS) - The Vatican Publishing House has recently released a new edition of the Statistical Yearbook of the Church, comprising information on the main aspects of Catholic Church activity in various countries for the period 2000-2008.

Over these nine years, the Catholic presence in the world has grown from 1,045 million in 2000 to 1,166 million in 2008, an increase of 11.54 percent.

Considering the statistics in detail, numbers in Africa grew by 33 percent, in Europe they remained generally stable (an increase of 1.17 percent), while in Asia they increased by 15.61 percent, in Oceania by 11.39 percent and in America by 10.93 percent.

As a percentage of the total population, European Catholics represented 26.8 percent in 2000 and 24.31 percent in 2008. In America and Oceania they have remained stable, and increased slightly in Asia.

The number of bishops in the world went up from 4541 in 2000 to 5002 in 2008, an increase of 10.15 percent.

The number of priests also increased slightly over this nine-year period, passing from 405,178 in 2000 to 409,166 in 2008, an overall rise of 0.98 percent.

In Africa and Asia their numbers increased (respectively, by 33.1 percent and 23.8 percent), in the Americas they remained stable, while they fell by 7 percent in Europe and 4 percent in Oceania.

The number of diocesan priests increased by 3.1 percent, going from 265,781 in 2000 to 274,007 in 2008. By contrast, the number of regular priests showed a constant decline, down by 3.04 percent to 135,159 in 2008.

Of the continents, only Europe showed a clear reduction in priests: in 2000 they represented 51 percent of the world total, in 2008 just 47 percent. On the other hand, Asia and Africa together represented 17.5 percent of the world total in 2000 and 21.9 percent in 2008. The Americas slightly increased its percentage to around 30 percent of the total.

Non-ordained religious numbered 55.057 in the year 2000 and 54,641 in 2008. Comparing this data by continent, Europe showed a strong decline (down by 16.57 percent), as did Oceania (22.06 percent), the Americas remained stable, while Asia and Africa grew (respectively, by 32 percent and 10.47 percent).

Female religious are almost double the number of priests, and 14 times that of non-ordained male religious, but their numbers are falling, from 800,000 in 2000 to 740,000 in 2008.

As for their geographical distribution, 41 percent reside in Europe, 27.47 percent in America, 21.77 percent in Asia and 1.28 percent in Oceania. The number of female religious has increased in the most dynamic continents: Africa (up by 21 percent) and Asia (up by 16 percent).

The Statistical Yearbook of the Church also includes information on the number of students of philosophy and theology in diocesan and religious seminaries. In global terms, their numbers increased from 110.583 in 2000 to more than 117.024 in 2008. In Africa and Asia their numbers went up, whereas Europe saw a reduction.


So, the numbers confirm a continuing decline in almost all categories in Europe.

Pontiff names a conservative
bishop for Clogher, Ireland

Friday, 7 May 2010



Pope Benedict moved yesterday to impose his conservative stamp on the Catholic hierarchy in Ireland in the wake of the clerical abuse scandals with the appointment of a new Bishop of Clogher.

At noon yesterday the Vatican named Monsignor Liam MacDaid to succeed Joseph Duffy, whose resignation on the grounds of his age was simultaneously accepted by Pope Benedict.

Monsignor McDaid (64) has been second in command in Clogher since 1994 when he was promoted to chancellor from diocesan secretary and communications officer.

It covers Co Monaghan, most of Co Fermanagh and portions of counties Tyrone, Donegal, Louth and Cavan.

Speaking in Bishop's House in Monaghan, Mgr McDaid said he would like “to be free” to return to the more basic aspects of the ministry in the wake of the child abuse scandals, which have devastated the Church in recent times.

“We have been quite rightly forced to deal with the whole question of child abuse over the last number of years and I feel that now, if all of the things that are in place are implemented, it will change drastically and I hope that it will free us as priests of the diocese to go back to serving the people in the way in which we would wish to,” he said.

Although Bishop Duffy (76) submitted his resignation 15 months ago on reaching the retirement age of 75, the appointment of his successor was expected to form part of a post-Murphy reorganisation and reform of the Bishops' Conference.

Last month Pope Benedict accepted the resignation of the Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin James Moriarty, but the pontiff did not name a replacement.

Although not directly criticised by the Murphy Report, Bishop Moriarty resigned because he had failed to speak out against a culture of secrecy which put the good name of the Church above the protection of innocent children from paedophile clerics.

Nor has Pope Benedict appointed a successor to the diocese of Limerick which has been vacant since before Christmas when Bishop Donal Murray resigned after the Murphy Report severely criticised his handling of abuse complaints when an auxiliary bishop in Dublin.

No decision has yet been made by Pope Benedict to accept or reject the resignations on Christmas Eve of two Dublin auxiliary bishops, Eamonn Walsh and Raymond Field.

But Pope Benedict yesterday accepted the resignation of Bishop Francis Lagan, an auxiliary in the diocese of Derry, who had tendered his resignation on age grounds.

Meanwhile, Cardinal Sean Brady, who was on sick leave after weeks of intense pressure to resign over silencing to secrecy 35 years ago two children abused by paedophile monk Brendan Smyth, will today address a conference on Catholic education in Loughboy, County Kilkenny.

In Church scandal,
dioceses take the lead
By VANESSA FUHRMANS And JOHN W. MILLER

May 7, 2010

Roman Catholic bishops in several countries across Europe are attempting to get ahead of a widening sexual-abuse scandal by employing a potentially risky strategy—pre-emptively digging through church archives to see what skeletons remain to be unearthed.

In Germany, Austria and elsewhere, dioceses say they have begun poring through decades of archives to see how old abuse allegations were handled, or mishandled.

In many cases, in an effort to convey their seriousness and openness in addressing a wave of allegations against priests and other church officials, these dioceses have banded together and named investigatory teams run by nonpriests.

In Belgium last month, Catholic leaders said a special commission headed up by a prominent child psychologist was examining old records, and called for silent victims to speak out.

A commission in the Netherlands run by Wim Deetman — a former mayor of The Hague, an elder statesman and a Protestant — is set to present recommendations to bishops Friday on how to investigate new cases.

The varied response from country to country, and even diocese to diocese, contrasts with that of the Vatican, which has played little role in coordinating the response to the broadening scandal. The Vatican has argued that while it guides spiritual teachings, it is up to local dioceses and their bishops to form their own responses to the scandal.

"There are a number of initiatives and concrete measures that are rightly being announced and carried by local authorities. We appreciate and support this, but we don't want to take their place," said Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi. "The Church is not as monolithic-centralistic as people think."

Some key events in Europe's unfolding sexual-abuse scandal:
1993: Bishop Philippe Bar of Rotterdam resigns after sexual-abuse allegations.
1995: In Netherlands, world's first commission to investigate sexual abuse by clergy.
1998: Austrian Cardinal Hans Hermann Groer resigns amid sexual abuse allegations
2000: Belgium sets up investigative commission after high-profile cases of child sex abuse, in and outside the church
2002: German bishops establish guidelines for dealing with abuse cases.
2009: Belgium sets up second investigative commission, nine years after its first, headed by child psychiatrist Peter Adriaenssens.
Feb. 25, 2010: German church appoints bishop of Trier, Stephan Ackermann, to coordinate its response to sexual-abuse scandal.
March 8, 2010. Netherlands' Church launches new investigative commission headed by elder statesman Wim Deetman, pledge new era of transparency.
March 23: Danish church starts inquiry into old abuse cases.
March 28: Austrian church establishes independent commission to investigate claims.
March 30: German bishops set up telephone hotline for abuse allegations; thousands call within first few days.
April: Belgian Bishop Roger Vangheluwe admits to past sexual abuse, resigns. Archbishop André-Joseph Léonard asks new victims to come forward.

The approach of dioceses has drawn praise from some corners, for going beyond reacting to former victims' allegations. But the strategy is also a mine field.

As church-appointed teams pore through records, they risk dredging up more embarrassing revelations damaging to Church leaders — including possibly Pope Benedict XVI, whose former Munich archdiocese is among those digging into its past.

Many dioceses have concluded they have little choice. If the sexual-abuse scandals that unfolded over the past decade in the U.S. and Ireland offer any indication, the hundreds of similar allegations emanating in recent months from Europe could be just the beginning. Many church officials there fear the scandal could drag on for years.

"They see how many people are leaving the Church and the trust that's been lost," said Barbara Schäfer-Wiegand, former social minister of the German state Baden-Württemberg, who belongs to a commission overseeing the German archdiocese of Freiburg's efforts to examine old cases. "They know they have to go about this thoroughly to assure their credibility."

In Austria, the diocese of Graz-Seckau suspended three priests in recent months after a review of cases dating back 15 to 25 years. One of the priests admitted at the time to sexual abuse and the others were prosecuted at the time for "exhibitionism" and a sexual act with a minor, a 17-year-old.

Although no one has come forward with new allegations since, church officials have said they wanted to re-examine the priests' cases and have them undergo psychiatric evaluations for the sake of "maximum security."

In Belgium, Catholic leaders used April's sexual-abuse confession by Bishop Roger Vangheluwe to convey that it is serious about addressing allegations.

At a late April press conference shortly after Bishop Vangheluwe offered to resign, Archbishop André-Joseph Léonard said that a special commission on sexual-abuse complaints, set up in 2000 and reconvened in 2009, was examining old records.

Child psychologist Peter Adriaenssens, 53 years old, took over the commission's helm two months ago and played a pivotal role in Bishop Vangheluwe's case.

This spring, Bishop Vangheluwe approached retired Cardinal Godfried Danneels to say he had sexually abused his nephew, the cardinal has said. The cardinal brokered a meeting between the bishop and the bishop's nephew, but the session failed to achieve a reconciliation between the two parties. On April 20, the nephew went public, filing a complaint to Mr. Adriaenssens's commission.

Mr. Adriaenssens questioned Cardinal Danneels, one of Europe's most respected clerics, about why the commission hadn't learned about the allegation earlier. A spokesman for Cardinal Danneels said the cardinal had been waiting for a second meeting between the sides but that the meeting never happened. The cardinal's spokesman says the cardinal would never have kept the allegations secret.

But two priests came forward and alleged that Cardinal Danneels had known about the alleged relation between the bishop and nephew 15 years earlier. The cardinal called a press conference to explain that he hadn't known about the allegations years before but had only recently learned of them.

"It's out of the question to hide anything," Mr. Adriaenssens told La Libre Belgique newspaper. "The church here really is trying to fix things, which is not the case everywhere."

Belgian bishops are meeting the Pope in Rome on Thursday and Friday to discuss the state of the Church in Belgium and the abuse scandal.

Still, some critics have questioned how intent the church is on unearthing its skeletons. On Monday, a Belgian nonprofit group, Human Rights in the Church, published a report saying that in 1998 it had alerted the church to 87 cases of abuse, none of which were subsequently investigated.

Not true, says the Church. "They never sent us any names for us to investigate," says Church spokesman Eric de Beukelaer. "We replied with a letter, but there was never any follow-up." Without indications in the archives of specific allegations and suspects, there will be no further inquiry, he says.

Nor is it entirely clear what the various archive searches will yield. The task has been made more difficult in that many decades-old diocese personnel records contain only vague notes on abuse allegations or investigations.

"Things were kept secret," said Hermann Haarmann, spokesman for the northern German diocese of Osnabrück.

Church researchers in Osnabrück are now interviewing past personnel directors about cases they can recall, some 30 or more years old, then following up in the archives. So far, there have been only obscure notes to pursue. "But we're not finished," Mr. Haarmann said.

One of the most sensitive audits is happening in the German archdiocese of Munich. There, a team of four researchers, including an outside lawyer, has been sifting since February through more than 5,000 personnel records spanning 60 years. That includes five years from 1977 to 1982 when Pope Benedict, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, presided over the archdiocese.

One matter that has already come to light, though not through the Church's efforts, has raised questions about how the future Pope handled abuse cases earlier in his career. A German newspaper reported in March that a priest who had abused boys in another diocese was transferred in 1980 to Munich during then-Cardinal Ratzinger's tenure.

The priest, the Rev. Peter Hullermann, was soon after returned to ministry and, several years later, convicted of fresh abuse. The archdiocese has said Cardinal Ratzinger was never aware of the priest's reassignment. Officials there declined to comment on the progress of their audit but said they aim to make some findings public this summer.




Belgian bishops dismiss US sex abuse norms
hailed by Vatican but vow firm response



ROME, May 7 (AP) — Tough U.S. norms about dealing with clerical sex abuse that have been hailed as a model by the Vatican aren't appropriate for Belgium, even as it deals with dozens of new reports of priests molesting children, a leading archbishop said Friday.



Brussels Archbishop Andre-Mutien Leonard said the context in which the U.S. norms were created — amid a major scandal in 2002 — required a much tougher response than what Belgium or Europe requires. But he said the Belgian church nevertheless was taking a firm stance against pedophile priests, albeit a more measured one than in the U.S.

"In Belgium, we are truly determined to be firm, transparent and rigorous on this question, but perhaps the European context, the Belgian context is not the same as the American context," he said. "In Belgium, we always like to speak in a language that can be very firm but one might say 'velvety' — a bit soft. But firm."

Leonard spoke to reporters Friday after a week of previously scheduled meetings with Vatican officials that followed the April announcement that the country's longest-serving bishop, Roger Vangheluwe, had resigned after admitting he sexually abused a boy.

The revelation has shaken the Belgian Church, sparking what Leonard has said was a "crisis in confidence" in an institution that has already seen a sharp decline in the number of priests in recent years.

The Pope addresses the Belgian clergymen Saturday.

Cardinal Joseph Levada, the American who heads the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which is in charge of clerical abuse cases, has said the U.S. norms could be a model for bishops around the world — as well as for Boy Scouts, public schools and other institutions catering to children.

"I do think that the United States can rightly offer a model and I will look forward to helping my brother bishops around the world see what can be done if you take good concrete steps," to screen and educate priests and establish safe environment programs for children, Levada told U.S. public broadcaster PBS last month.

The U.S. norms, which the Vatican accepted as Church law in the U.S., bar credibly accused priests from any public church work while claims against them are under investigation. Diocesan review boards, comprised mostly of lay people, help bishops oversee cases. Clergy found guilty are permanently barred from public ministry and, in some cases, ousted from the priesthood.

The U.S. policy does not specifically order all bishops to notify civil authorities when claims are made. Instead it instructs bishops to comply with state laws for reporting abuse, and to cooperate with authorities. All dioceses were also instructed to advise victims of their right to contact authorities themselves.

The Belgian church in 2000 created an independent panel of experts to look into abuse complaints, but it quickly clashed with the Church leadership. The panel has accused the Church of tardiness in compensating victims.

Leonard recently posted an appeal on the website of the Belgian church's news agency urging victims and the abusive priests themselves to report abuse to civil authorities, or to the panel of experts at the very least if the statute of limitations has expired.

He didn't mention the duty of bishops to report abuse. Recently the Vatican posted a policy on its website saying bishops should report abuse to law enforcement where civil laws require it.

Hasselt Bishop Patrick Hoogmortens said Friday that clergymen aren't required by law to report such abuse in Belgium. But he said they do so when there is an "urgent" need to remove an abusive priest.

He said that since the sex scandal erupted in Europe nearly two months ago, Belgium's panel had received reports from more than 150 alleged victims.

Metropolitan Filaret:
Time to take a step toward unity
By Jesús Colina



VATICAN CITY, MAY 6, 2010 (Zenit.org).- The time is now for the Orthodox and Catholic Churches to take a step toward unity, and for Benedict XVI and the Orthodox patriarch of Moscow to meet, says the Patriarchal Exarch of All Belarus.



Metropolitan Filaret of Minsk and Sluck said this Tuesday at the international conference held in Rome on "The Poor Are the Precious Treasure of the Church: Orthodox and Catholics Together on the Path of Charity."

During the conference, which was promoted by the Sant'Egidio Community, participants reflected on the reception of the most frail in our societies, the testimony of the Fathers of the Church, and the challenges dictated by new social problems.

According to Metropolitan Filaret, the time has come to take decisive steps toward unity, reported the country's Catholic news service.

The Orthodox leader added that both Churches seek to establish full unity, and stressed that he has come to this conclusion based on the fraternal dialogue and the meetings that they have held with representatives of the Catholic Church.

If Benedict XVI and Orthodox Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia were to meet, it would be a first for the two pastors of Rome and Moscow.

Metropolitan Filaret's statements coincide with the announcement of the "Days of Russian Culture and Spirituality in the Vatican," which will be held May 19-20, and which will culminate with a concert offered to Benedict XVI by Kirill I.

The musical event will include compositions of Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, president of the Department for Foreign Relations of the Patriarchy of Moscow.

On Wednesday, Metropolitan Filaret visited the Holy Shroud of Turin and Cardinal Severino Poletto, archbishop of Turin.

"The impression is so profound that one cannot express the joy one feels," commented the Orthodox representative after seeing the Shroud.

Metropolitan Filaret, in this post since 1978, received the recognition of "Hero of Belarus" in 2006, by decision of President Alexander Lukashenko, in recognition of the service to the spirituality of his country.

A thoughtful look at the agenda for the coming Middle East Synod.

The Daily Star is the expatriate English newspaper of Lebanon. John Donohue is a Professor at Saint Joseph’s University and has taught at Georgetown, the American University of Beirut, and the College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts. He lived in the Middle East over the last 40 years, first as Superior of the Jesuit Mission in Iraq, then in Lebanon. He has written widely, including The Buwayhid Dynasty in Iraq 334H./945 To 403H./1012: Shaping Institutions for the Future, Brill, Leiden 2003.


On the disappearing Christians:
The Vatican Synod for the Churches of the Middle East
By John Donohue, SJ
Special to The Daily Star

Thursday, May 06, 2010


In October 2010 the Catholic Bishops and Patriarchs of the Middle East will convene in Rome for a Synod to discuss the problems of the region as they affect the church.

Here in Lebanon, the notion of a Synod is familiar. John Paul II convened a Synod on Lebanon in 1995. The Catholics had become alienated from the hierarchy as a result of an intra-Christian clash at Nahr al-Mawt in 1990; the Synod, despite various obstacles and objections, turned out to be positive and strengthened the Catholic church in Lebanon.

What are the possibilities of a successful Synod on the Middle East? What is the problem and why a Synod?

The problem is that the steady emigration of Christians from the Middle East has reached frightening proportions. The Iraqi hierarchy asked for a Synod to discuss the problem. Since its institution in 1969 by Paul VI in the wake of the Second Vatican Council, the Synod has become a standard instrument for treating church problems.

There are several types of Synod: ordinary synods, extraordinary synods and special synods. There have been only two extraordinary synods, one in 1969 on “Cooperation between the Holy See and Episcopal Conferences,” and another in 1985 on “The 20th Anniversary of the conclusion of Vatican II.”

Ordinary synods, treating general church problems, are the most frequent. Special synods deal with matters concerning a particular region or nation, like those for Europe (1991), Africa (1994), Lebanon, (1995), America (1997) and Asia (1998).

The special Synod for the Middle East proposes to reflect on “the current situation, which is a difficult one of conflict, instability, and political and social evolution in the majority of our countries.”

The real concern is the exodus of Christians from Iraq and from Israeli occupied territories in Palestine. The Christian population has decreased from 20 percent of the total to less than 2 percent of the 4 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.

Iraqi Christians have been fleeing to Syria, Jordan and Lebanon to escape the kidnapping and violence perpetrated by extremist Sunni groups to destabilize the regime. There are no statistics for Iraq but estimates indicate that the Christian population which was between 800,000 to 1.3 million when the Americans invaded is now less than 300,000. Given all the problems afflicting Iraq at present, the flight of Christians has low priority in international political circles.

Meanwhile, Israeli colonization of the Occupied Territories obscures the Christian exodus which is provoked by small but constant irritations for Arab Christians in the area. One such case received a bit of publicity in 1999 when a Muslim group supported by the Israeli government laid claim to part of the property of the Basilica of the Annunciation at Nazareth on the pretext that it had been a tomb of a nephew of Salah al-Din.

Much has been written of late on the exodus of Christians from the region. It is a political and socio-economic problem at base. Christians are leaving the Middle East because of fear and even more so because their future and that of their children in the region is extremely dim and problematic.

Christians in the Middle East, Lebanon excepted, have rarely had a place in politics. The political realm was a Muslim reserve. Commerce, on the contrary, was an open sector and many Christians did well, buying and selling and investing. When Arab socialism became the mode in the 1950s and 60s, the commercial sector was absorbed into government institutions and Christians were squeezed out. The result was Christian emigration in slow but steady numbers.

Now with the conflict in Iraq and Israeli expansion, the slow seepage has reached alarming proportions. Some observers are predicting that soon there will be no Christians in the Middle East. This is considered a real setback for the general development of societies.

The 21st century was seen as the century of pluralism, giving all societies a new caché. Christian Europe is absorbing sizeable Muslim emigrant populations which provide labor. Emptying the Middle East of Christians goes counter to this tendency and raises the specter of an invasive Islam in search of lost glories.

What does the upcoming Vatican Synod propose?

The convening of the Synod should give hope to the many Catholics and Christians remaining in the region, a sense that they are neither forgotten nor neglected. The Iraqi hierarchy in proposing the Synod was seeking a means to encourage Christians to remain and the “Lineamenta” for the Synod (general guide lines) published by the Vatican at the end of last year states that “the aim of the Synod is twofold:
- to confirm and reinforce the Christians in their identity by the Word of God and the sacraments, and
- to revive ecclesial communion among particular churches, so that they may bear witness to Christian life in an authentic, joyful and winsome manner.”

The document proposes that the Synod will offer an occasion to give Christians a clear vision of the meaning of their presence in their Muslim societies and of their role and mission in each of the countries. In fact, the Synod will be “a reflection on the present situation which is difficult, a situation of conflict, instability and political and social evolution in the majority of our countries.”

Such is the aim stated in the Introduction of the Lineamenta. It concludes with two questions asking: do you read the scriptures personally, in family or in community? And does scripture inspire your choices concerning family, professional or political life?

Reading the introduction, one gets practically no sense of the plight of Christians and the urgency of finding a solution, especially a political solution. On the contrary, the message of the introduction seems to be: you are on your own, bear up, it is your mission to be where you are. Reflect on the current situation and read the scriptures.


The Lineamenta

The document is divided into three parts, following the introduction:

I. The Catholic church in the Middle East: the situation of Christians, the challenges they face, and their reactions.

II. Ecclesial Communion: in the Catholic church and among other Christian churches.

III. Christian Witness: in the church and with other churches; particular relation with Judaism; relations with Muslims; and Christian contribution to society.

Part I presents an overview of the history of Christianity in the region and notes that:

It would be a loss for the Universal Church, were Christianity to disappear or be diminished precisely in the place where it was born. Consequently, we bear a grave responsibility not only to maintain the Christian faith in these holy lands but, still more, to maintain the spirit of the Gospel among Christian peoples and their relations with non-Christians, as well as to keep alive the memory of these Christian beginnings.

Then in describing the challenges confronting Christians and the resulting emigration, we find a more appropriate reflection concerning emigration.

“Although certain measures can be taken to reduce emigration, still the root cause remains in existing political realities. It is here that action must be taken, and the church is called to engage itself.” (No. 26)

Here, the English translation lacks the force of the French. The latter reads: “On peut prendre certaines mesures pour réduire l’émigration, mais les racines sont les réalités politiques existantes. C’est là qu’il faudrait agir, et l’Eglise est invitée à s’y engager.” [My translation: "One can take certain measures to reduce emigration, but the roots are in existing political realities. It is there where one should act, and where the Church is called on to engage herself".]

The English reads: “Where certain measures can be taken to reduce emigration, its roots lie in prevailing political realities, which should be the focus of action and the area of engagement for the church.”

What exactly is intended by the Cchurch” in this paragraph is not clear at first reading. It would appear to mean the Church at large, namely Rome, but the document is not consistent in its terminology since it speaks both of the Church in the Middle East and the churches in the region. [I think Church in meant in all its senses, or levels - the universal Church, as well as the regional Church adn the local Churches.]

For this reader the guidelines appear to be a bit skewed. They note a lack of evangelical ardor (13) and the loss of values in civil society and among Christians (16), the need to educate our Christians in the Social Doctrine of the Church (32), better formation of the clergy (34), introduction of contemplative life among religious, and the need for personal conversion of Christians (32). The basic premise is enunciated in 31:

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The manner of living the faith is directly related to proper understanding what it means to be a member of the Church.

A deep faith is the basis for a secure, committed sense of belonging, where, on the contrary, a superficial faith leads to a casual sense of belonging.

In the first case, membership is true and authentic; believers participate in the Church’s life and exercise every aspect of their faith.

In the second case, membership is “confessional only.” In this case, believers demand that their Church meet every aspect of their material and social needs, leading to “extreme reliance” and passivity.

---

Exactly how this relates to the “prevailing political realities” of No 26 is not immediately evident. It appears more apt for the formation of missionaries than for uplifting the spirits cast down by the prevailing political realities.

Instead of addressing the trials and tribulations of the Christian population in the Middle East as announced by the Pope last September, the guidelines give more space to enumerating the foibles of the Christian population.

Part II addresses the communion of the Catholic Church with other churches, and the communion among bishops, clergy and faithful. It is brief, 10 paragraphs. Part III, Christian Witness, is much longer, 40 paragraphs.

Here, relations with Judaism are labeled particular because of the relation between the Old and New Testaments, but given the political conflict in the region, relations with Judaism are specific to the churches of Jerusalem. Meetings and dialogue are suggested as the means of witness. And we are told that the most important dialogue is that of the Holy See with the Chief Rabbinate of Israel.

However, on the political level, the guidelines refuse to engage the Church, contrary to what was said in no. 26.

On this level, the political leaders concerned, with help from the international community, have the responsibility to make the necessary decisions in accord with the resolutions of the United Nations. (no. 63)

Nonetheless, we find in no. 86 that the Israeli-Palestine conflict is the center of the other conflicts which exist in the region and that:

---

Our duty is to denounce violence courageously, no matter its source, and to seek a solution, something which can only be achieved through dialogue. Dialogue and encounter are also recommended for relations with Muslims. In addition, no. 73 states that a simple presentation of the New Testament and Christ is urgently needed for mutual understanding.

---

Under the rubric, 'Two Challenges for our Countries', the challenges of peace and violence are mentioned. To meet the challenge a pedagogy of peace is recommended. Then a third element is introduced, modernity.

We are told that for believing Muslims “the phenomenon is atheistic and immoral,” and that “Modernity is also a risk for Christians.” “From this point of view, both Muslims and Christians share a common agenda.”

Here the reader is not sure where these Muslims and Christians are located. They are certainly not very visible.

The conclusion puts all on the spiritual level. The choice to emigrate or to remain should be made in faith, detached from an earthly point of view, abandoning oneself to Divine Providence.

Where, on the one hand, global politics will likely have an impact on a decision to stay in our countries or emigrate, on the other hand, accepting our vocation as Christians within and on behalf of our societies will be the paramount reason to remain and witness in our countries. At one and the same time, it is a question of politics and faith. (87)

Hope means, however, trusting in God and his Divine Providence, which watches over and guides the course of history for all peoples, and acting in union with God, as his “co-workers” (1 Cor 3:9), doing whatever is humanly possible to contribute to the developments now taking place.

Our catechesis needs to give greater expanse to the limitlessness of God’s love for all; catechesis needs to form the faithful into true co-workers, under God’s grace, in every aspect of public life in our societies. (90)

Abandoning ourselves to God’s Providence also means a deeper communion on our part, a greater detachment from an earthly point of view and more freedom from the thorns which stifle the word of God and his grace in us. (91)

It would be rash to judge these guidelines too severely. They put together several themes to provoke reflection and discussion. It is the Working Paper (Instrumentum laboris) which will organize the results of discussions stimulated by the guide lines. That Working Paper will be announced by the Pope in his visit to Cyprus in June.

Nonetheless, it is evident that the basic political and socio-economic problem is obfuscated by the resort to spirituality.