Vatican tells U.S. bishops
not to vote on proposals
to tackle sexual abuse and
spurns lay and civil investigations
By Julie Zauzmer and Michelle Boorstein
BALTIMORE Nov. 12, 2018 —
The Vatican stymied a plan by America’s Catholic leaders to confront sexual abuse, insisting in a surprise directive on Monday morning that U.S. bishops postpone their efforts to hold bishops more responsible in the abuse cases that have scourged the church.
Bishops attending the annual meeting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops expressed a mixture of disappointment, acceptance and frustration at the news from Rome, while angry victims’ advocates accused church leaders of impeding reforms.
“What we see here is the Vatican again trying to suppress even modest progress by the U.S. bishops,” said Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of BishopAccountability.org, which compiles data on clergy abuse in the church. “We’re seeing where the problem lies, which is with the Vatican."
In an unusual move intended to display strength and empathy with survivors, the bishops representing the country’s 196 archdiocese and dioceses had devoted their agenda almost exclusively to the burgeoning crisis starting with a period of prayer Monday. They had planned to vote Wednesday on a code of conduct, the first such ethical guidelines for bishops on sex abuse issues, and to establish a lay commission capable of investigating bishops’ misconduct.
Instead, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo -- the president of the U.S. bishops' conference -- told the group that the Vatican’s Congregation for Bishops had asked the bishops not to take action until after a worldwide meeting of church leaders in February.
“At the insistence of the Holy See, we will not be voting on the two action items,” DiNardo said, adding that he was “disappointed” by the Vatican’s move. [Obviously, Bergoglio puppet Ouellet would never have done this on his own, but as Prefect for Bishops, he really has no choice but to be the pope's nominal agent for something so WRONG in every aspect. Yet Bergogliac that he is, he probably agrees with it.]
Moments later, in what appeared to be an oblique reference to the bishops’ lay commission proposal and the growing number of U.S. state and federal investigations into the Catholic Church, the Vatican’s ambassador to the United States warned the bishops not to rely on outside investigations.
“There may be a temptation on the part of some to relinquish responsibility for reform to others from ourselves, as if we were no longer capable of reforming or trusting ourselves,” Archbishop Christophe Pierre, a French bishop who was sent by Pope Francis to Washington from France in 2016, said. “Assistance is both welcome and necessary, and surely collaboration with the laity is essential. However, the responsibility as bishops of this Catholic Church is ours.”
Pierre quoted a French author who said that
“whoever pretends to reform the church with the same means to reform temporal society” will “fail.”
It is unclear what, if anything, the three-day meeting will now accomplish on the topic of abuse. Leaders said that the bishops will still spend Tuesday and Wednesday debating and fine-tuning their proposals, as planned.
Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago quickly proposed an alternative to the Vatican’s request that no vote be taken. He suggested a nonbinding vote at this session, followed by an additional meeting of all the bishops in March — after Francis’s worldwide meeting — to formally vote on these policies as soon as possible.
Some bishops said the Vatican’s request alone damages American leaders' efforts to regain parishioners' trust, after a longtime church leader -- ex-cardinal Theodore McCarrick -- was revealed this year to have allegedly sexually harassed and molested multiple victims, and after a Pennsylvania grand jury report documented decades of abuse by hundreds of priests.
“This kind of thing is a blow to what we’re trying to overcome here in the United States – the perception of a hierarchy that is unresponsive to the reality of the tragedy,” said Jefferson City Bishop Shawn McKnight.
He said bishops need to be able to call out and challenge people over them – meaning members of the Roman Curia, which would be a major shift in an extremely hierarchical faith.
“I’m beginning to wonder if we need to look at a resolution where we refuse to participate in any kind of cover-up from those above us,” McKnight, who became a bishop nine months ago, said. “It’s for the good of the church. We have to be respectful of the Roman Curia but also we have an obligation to our people. And our priests.”
Other bishops, including Bishop Christopher Coyne, appeared less perturbed by the Vatican-imposed delay — even suggesting that it might be for the best.
“My first reaction was: ‘Oh boy, this won’t go over well,’ because they’ll see it as a political,” said Coyne, head of the USCCB’s communications committee and Vermont’s only bishop who had expressed skepticism last week that the bishops needed a code of conduct. Now he views Rome’s intervention as a reminder that the Catholic Church “is a universal church.”
“We in the U.S. can have a limited view of the worldwide church,” he said. “...It would be difficult if we came up with [different] policies and procedures.”
Even as he reiterated his disappointment, DiNardo also referenced the need to defer to Rome.
“We are Roman Catholic bishops, in communion with our Holy Father in Rome. And he has people around him who are what we call congregations or offices, and we’re responsible to them, in that communion of faith,” DiNardo said in an afternoon press conference.
[Dear Lord, I am sick to death of the abuse of the word 'communion' in this pontificate - as in communion with everyone else but the Lord - as if merely saying it absolves any action of any wrong or error whatsoever. It has become as meaningless as the word 'synodality' or 'collegiality', a concept which this pontificate violates at every conceivable occasion in direct proportion to how often it pays lip service to the concepts.
Lest you think that the above is just a 'special' illustration of the reigning pope's dictatorial ways, how about this next item, courtesy of Marco Tosatti:
http://www.marcotosatti.com/2018/11/12/come-il-vaticano-distrugge-unordine-religioso-di-suore-in-francia-34-su-39-rinunciano-ai-voti-bravi/
which canon212.com has linked to an intolerable Google-Translate version in 'English', but the title translates to "How the Vatican has destroyed a religious order of nuns in France - 34 out of 39 decide to renounce their vows - good for them!" Haven't time to translate Tosatti properly now, but though the order is fairly small, the Vatican modus operandi recalls what was done to the much larger FFI within 4 months of Bergoglio's election...
Tosatti's other post today was about the thunderbolt papal diktat described by the Washington Post above. He had three comments:
Let us see how the situation develops in the next few days. But a few considerations are inescapable:
First, how does this heavy-handed interference by the Holy See in the internal workings of a bishops' conference fit into that 'synodality' of which the riegning pontiff keeps talking about, echoed by those in his immediare circle and with supposed decentralization [from the Roman curia]? An interference with a major bishops' conference (more than 200 members) which is seeking to confront a major crisis, for which the Vatican itself bears some resposnbility, and thus respond to the rightful demands of the US faithful?
Second, when an episcopal conference decides to entrust - finally - to laymen a delicate and difficult task, is it possible not to define lockage of a lay investigation - and the words spoken by the nuncio against such an investigation, obviously coming from Rome - as an eminent example of clericalism [in its right sense as abuse of ecclesiastical power] which the pontiff and his followers have repeatedly execrated?
Third, the behavior of the Pontiff. Who demonstrates, once more, as even the international media now remark, an attitude that is anything but 'limpid' on the clerical sex abuse crisis.
- His silence in the face of the three tesitmonies so far by Mons. Vigano, which is inexpicable and indefensible, was the first episode.
- His rejection of the US bishops' request for an apostolic investigation of ex-Cardinal McCarrick was the second. (Remember that an apostolic investigation could open all the doors and closets, even in the Vatican, which is something that any investigation originating only in the USA cannot do.)
- And now this third move, which os to block any immediate action by the bishops most concerned, and postponing everything till after the February 2019 conference of episcopal conference presidents. i.e., not in another four months, could very well be called obstructionism by the pope himself, seeking to dilute over time both responses and responsibility.
The impression is that in the power bubble encasing Casa Santa Marta, there is a refusal to consider the loss of confidence by the faithful in the Church and the loss of credibility by the Church hierarchy. Neither of which is not unjustified, alas, if we look at the facts.
Here is Church Militant's account:
Pope Francis has pulled the rug out
from under the feet of the US bishops
November 12, 2018
Welcome to this special report from the bishops' conference in Baltimore where, moments into the meeting, conference President Cdl. Daniel DiNardo dropped the bombshell that Pope Francis has pulled the rug out from under the feet of the U.S. bishops and ordered them to cancel their expected Thursday vote in what to do about the priestly sex abuse crisis, most of which is homosexual predatory abuse.
DiNardo appeared disturbed by the orders from the Vatican having been given to him at essentially the last minute late last night.
Following that, Papal Nuncio Christophe Pierre got up and essentially said great strides had been made in fighting this problem and the bishops don't really need to involve the laity to any great degree.
That's significant because the bishops were going to vote on two proposals — the second one which was going to seek the establishment of a lay board with investigative powers into the actions of bishops.
Pierre slammed the idea and said it is bishops who run the Church and, in essence, the laity need to pipe down. This action from Rome — again, at the last minute — raises serious questions.
It is no secret that there in Rome and very close to Pope Francis various high-ranking churchmen who are rushing headlong into advancing the homosexual agenda in the Church.
Father James Martin has even publicly stated that the Pope is actively surrounding himself with various bishop appointments who are gay-friendly.
The men closest to the Pope — especially Cdl. Maradiaga — have been embroiled in various homosexual or homosexualist controversies themselves. Maradiaga has defended one of his longtime associates and auxiliary bishops in Tegucigalpa, Honduras — a man accused by dozens of seminarians of sexually assaulting or harassing them.
Maradiaga's response to the reports in Catholic social media has been to tell faithful Catholics to shut up and stop gossiping.
Given his recent condemnations of laity decrying the filth in his own archdiocese, speculation is that he may be involved in this latest kiss of death to American bishops who are trying to get to the bottom of this filth — again, the vast majority of which is homosexual in nature.
The bishops were supposed to be here discussing various draft proposals and so forth and then vote on a final document as we said on Thursday.
But now, with that vote forbidden from taking place by Francis — and undoubtedly some of what Abp. Viganò identified as the homosexual current running Rome — whatever the bishops here do with the rest of their time will essentially be meaningless.
There was even some chatter that they should just pack up and go home.
That is unlikely to happen, at least in meaningful numbers, but
this does show the complete disconnect between Rome and the U.S. bishops, the few who want to resolve this crisis and provide some seed of hope for the faithful.
When DiNardo was finally given an audience with the Pope in Rome after waiting almost a month, the Pope completely shut him down, saying there would be no investigation of former Cdl. McCarrick and no investigation headed by laity.
DiNardo came back from Rome and tried to put the best possible spin on it, but no one fell for it.
And when you add it to today's total shoot down by the Pope of the whole reason for this meeting, many are taking this as
the final sign that either Rome doesn't get it or the homosexual current in the Vatican is exercising its muscle and deliberately preventing the truth from coming out because too many of them would be implicated in it.
Whichever the case, the patience of the laity is at an end. Catholics from all over the country have begun arriving here in Baltimore for tomorrow's Silence Stops Now rally which Church Militant will be live-streaming beginning at 1:30 p.m. ET tomorrow.
Stay tuned to Church Militant for all the latest from here on the ground in Baltimore as confusion rules the day here at the bishops meeting.
Where do we go from here — that's the question none of them have an answer for.
THE BRAZENNESS OF BERGOGLIO'S DICTATORSHIP GROWS MORE APPALLING BY THE DAY! KYRIE ELEISON, CHRISTE ELEISON, KYRIE ELEISON!!!
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 13/11/2018 18:14]