BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

In retrospect, the hue and cry in MSM over the publication of the codified norms for the Church, through the CDF, to deal with crimes against the faith, against morals and against Sacraments, was literally a seven-day wonder - outside, that is, of advocacy vehicles like the National Catholic Reporter which is almost fanatical in its militant espousal of women priests among other egregiously liberal causes... And so, the following blog entry which I have discovered one week late almost sounds anachronistic today!


To whom shall we go?
by MONS. TIMOTHY DOLAN
Archbishop of New York

July 21, 2010


Because of all the inaccuracies in the recent coverage of the Catholic Church in the New York Times and other publications, appearing in news articles, editorials, and op-eds, I was tempted to try my best to offer corrections to the multitude of errors. However, I soon realized that this would probably be a full time job.

It is a source of consternation as to why, instead of complimenting the Vatican and a reformer like Pope Benedict XVI, for codifying procedures long advocated by critics, such outfits would instead choose to intrude on a matter of internal doctrine, namely the ordination of women.

But, correcting the paper is not what really matters. What is important is the well-being of God’s people, especially of His little ones.

The bottom line is that the Holy Father, the Vatican, and the Church universal regards with the utmost seriousness the heinous and sinful crime of child abuse and is committed to doing everything it can to ensure that justice is served and that such abuse never happens again.

If critics want to say, “It’s about time,” fair enough. But for critics to continue their obsessive criticism of Benedict XVI, claiming that he just “doesn’t get it,” is simply out of bounds.

The norms released last week by the Holy See take what have been standard practice for several years, especially here in the United States, and made them formally part of Church law. You can read the norms, and an explanation by the Vatican’s press officer, Father Frederico Lombardi, on the Vatican resources site.
www.vatican.va/resources/index_en.htm

This is very important. It’s not merely administrative housekeeping as some have said, or procedural updates. The offenses listed — child abuse, use of child pornography, and abuse of a mentally disabled adult — now carry the weight of the most serious of crimes against the very heart of the Church.

These norms speed up the processing of cases, allow qualified individuals who are not priests to serve on tribunals, require that the sexual abuse of a mentally handicapped person be treated as gravely as that of a minor, extends the time in which penalties are applicable, and confirm that child pornography is not only a grievous sin but a Church crime.

These are serious advances and clearly lay out Pope Benedict’s ongoing firm commitment to providing justice and healing for the victims of abuse in an effective, timely, just and compassionate manner.

The Church is, contrary to media reports, ahead of her time. As Dr. Paul McHugh, professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University and internationally recognized expert in child abuse has said, “Nobody is doing more to address the tragedy of sexual abuse of minors than the Catholic Church.”

That the Church is indeed doing this is the real story here.

It is fair to say that decades ago the Catholic Church was an example of what not to do when dealing with sexual abuse of minors. However, now it is fair to say that the Catholic Church is an example of what to do about a crime found in every religion, every profession, every culture, and many families.

Make no mistake, Pope Benedict XVI and the Catholic Church are at the forefront of addressing the problem of clerical abuse but, even more, of addressing abuse wherever it occurs in society.

And that won’t change no matter how much some in the media try to slant the truth.


An even earlier commentary that I missed and that I am posting for the record. Thanks to a follower of Lella's blog who posted the link.

A strange attack from
the New York Times
by Russell Shaw

July 14, 2010


Since at least last March, the New York Times has been obsessed with a question: "What did Joseph Ratzinger know, and when did he know it?" At issue, of course, is the role played by Cardinal Ratzinger -- now Pope Benedict XVI -- in relation to the scandal of clergy sex abuse.

It's a fair question. Probably the Times has spent too much time on it while straining to place a negative interpretation on the facts. But the question undoubtedly is an acceptable one for a newspaper -- and for the rest of us, too -- to ask.

The latest Times story in this line, published July 2, concerns the years from 1981, when Cardinal Ratzinger became prefect of the Vatican's Congregation of the Faith, until 2005, when he was elected pope.

The headline is unspeakably bad because grossly untrue ("Church Office Failed to Act on Abuse Scandal"), but the text that follows is a mixed bag.

Closely read, the picture that emerges is that Cardinal Ratzinger did a good-to-excellent job on the abuse issue as CDF head. The Times's own overall conclusion -- he didn't do everything that, ideally, he might -- comes across as a stretch. So does a follow-up editorial a week later that strains to make the same point.

Here I must admit to a personal interest in this particular journalistic exercise. In a conversation (not an interview) several weeks ago with one of the Times' writers whose bylines appear on the story, I said something like this:

"As far as I can see, Ratzinger was one of the first people at his level in the Curia -- perhaps the first -- to understand how serious this whole problem was and really try to grapple with it. Remember, he didn't have an entirely free hand, he faced obstacles and opposition within the Vatican. But given what was possible, he did very well."

A great deal of the Times story sounds like a reply to that.
It's a bizarre piece of writing, full of helpful information that leads the reader to think well of Cardinal Ratzinger along with obtuse comments by the writers that conflict with the facts they report.

They choose to describe Ratzinger as part of a closed, self-referential culture at the Vatican; but unwittingly what they've written reflects a closed, self-referential culture at The New York Times, with limited understanding combined with a hypercritical view of the Catholic Church.

The story makes much of the disclosure that the CDF (or, more properly, its predecessor, the Holy Office) was "given authority over sexual abuse cases" by a papal mandate in 1922. That is 79 years before Pope John Paul II specifically placed CDF in charge of the issue. This 1922 mandate is said to have been reaffirmed in 1962. [Even more pertinent, and something that few commentators ever pick up, both 1922 and 1962 Instructions had to do mainly with violations of the Sacrament of Confession connected with a priest soliciting or going on to commit sexual offenses with women, which until the 1960s, had been the primary issue of chastity facing priests. Sexual offenses against minors are mentioned in one article only.]

The implication is that Cardinal Ratzinger had jurisdiction over this matter from the time he arrived at CDF in 1981 and didn't have to wait for new papal instructions in order to take charge of the issue.
In no way, however, is this persuasive.

As the story itself makes clear, by the 1980s and 1990s the mandate of 1922/1962 had long been forgotten by just about everyone in Rome. Even to the few who were aware of it, it was far from clear that it was still in force.

Obviously that applies to John Paul II, who in 2001 deemed it necessary specifically to assign the issue to Ratzinger's congregation, and to Cardinal Ratzinger, who was closely and actively involved in causing the Pope to do that.

It's inconceivable that either man would have felt a need to act as he did in 2001 if he believed CDF at that time already had clear authority as the Holy See's lead agent on clerical sex abuse.

To its credit, nonetheless, the Times story makes a number of important points. For instance:
- That bishops in years past had "a variety of disciplinary tools at their disposal" for dealing with abuse, without having to refer to the Vatican;
- That there nevertheless was "a bewildering bureaucratic and canonical legal process" on this issue in Rome throughout the 1980s and 1990s;
- That the staff of the doctrinal congregation, numbering a modest three dozen, had many things besides sex abuse to worry about in those years [A gross understatement, considering that the primary function of the CDF is defense of the faith! If Cardinal Ratzinger had not been John Paul's man at CDF, it is unlikely he would have issued the Motu Proprio as it is and/or he would have assigned the lead role to the Congregation for the Clergy]; and
- That, at a hitherto unreported 2000 meeting between Vatican officials and worried bishops from several English-speaking countries, Cardinal Ratzinger stood out for his understanding and passionate concern.

"I felt, this guy gets it, he's understanding the situation we're facing. At long last, we'll be able to move forward," the Times quotes an Australian bishop.

The comment is similar to a remark by Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory of Atlanta, president of the U.S. bishops' conference at the time the scandal of sex abuse and cover-up erupted in 2002, who says that in his many meetings with Cardinal Ratzinger he found him "extraordinarily supportive" of the American steps to take corrective action.

One can readily agree that confusion at the Vatican and among bishops in the field helped worsen this tragedy. And it is dismaying to read even now in the Times that Vatican officials "declined to answer detailed questions" about the record of Cardinal Ratzinger/Pope Benedict. [What exactly are these detailed questions that have not been answered? If they are referring to the Munich case, they have been properly answered by the Archdiocese of Munich which has the records. The Vatican is not obligated, nor in any position, to account for whatever Benedict XVI did when he was not yet at the Vatican.]

Detailed answers to detailed questions were and are precisely what have long been needed to settle at least one aspect of this whole ugly business once and for all. [What aspect is that? If Shaw has fallen into the MSM trap nonetheless and means the Munich question, obviously the Times and AP, Spiegel and Sueddeutsche Zeitung, and all their likeminded minions have been unable to unearth anything to show that Archbishop Ratzinger knowingly appointed a known sex offender to do pastoral work in his Archdiocese, which is the burden of the MSM's huffing and puffing - i.e., anything to show that Joseph Ratzinger himself was guilty of playing blind or covering up for sex offenders in the clergy.!]

Even as it stands, however, and taking due account of its journalistic failings, the latest venture by the New York Times into this thicket contains ample information to show that Benedict XVI should be praised, not blamed, for his handling of the abuse crisis during his CDF years. Too bad [but good for the objective reader!] the Times doesn't understand what it found out.