BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

Wednesday, July 18, 15th Week in Ordinary Time

Center photo: The saint's statue in the Founders Gallery of St. Peter's Basilica; poster at right looks towards the 400th centenary of his death in 2014.
ST. CAMILLO DE LELLIS (Italy, 1550-1614), Priest, Founder of the Camellian order, Patron of Nurses
The saint was born in Bocchianico, Italy. He fought for the Venetians against the Turks, was addicted to gambling, and by 1574 was penniless in Naples. He became a Capuchin novice, but was unable to be professed because of a diseased leg he contracted while fighting the Turks. He devoted himself to caring for the sick, and became director of the San Giacomo Hospital in Rome. He received permission from his confessor (St. Philip Neri) to be ordained and decided, with two companions, to found his own congregation, the Ministers of the Sick (the Camellians), dedicated to the care of the sick. They ministered to the sick of Holy Ghost Hospital in Rome, enlarged their facilities in 1585, founded a new house in Naples in 1588, and attended the plague-stricken aboard ships in Rome's harbor and in Rome. In 1591, the Congregation was made into an order to serve the sick by Pope Gregory XIV, and in 1591 and 1605, Camillus sent members of his order to minister to wounded troops in Hungary and Croatia, the first field medical unit. Gravely ill for many years, he resigned as superior of the Order in 1607 and died in Rome on July 14, the year after he attended a General Chapter there. He was canonized in 1746, was declared patron of the sick, with St. John of God, by Pope Leo XIII, and patron of nurses and nursing groups by Pope Pius XI. A church in Rome is dedicated to him.
Readings for today's Mass:http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/071812.cfm


AT THE VATICAN TODAY

No bulletins regarding the Holy Father.

A briefing was held as scheduled on Moneyval's status report on financial transparency measures
taken by the Holy See.




A report from Australia today
mobile.news.com.au/national/priests-could-be-ordered-to-report-confessions-of-sex-abuse-to-police/story-fncynjr2-12264...
says the state of Victoria is considering a law that would 1) require priests to reveal crimes told to them in confession and 2) make bishops face criminal charges for misconduct by their priests.

At the height of the orgy of 'Vatimania' last year, Ireland, of course, threatened legislation that would compel priests to break the saxrosanct seal of the confessional, but the talk has since died down. Australia, however, does not have the deep and long-reaching Catholic tradition of Ireland, and its lawmakers are secular enough to act where the Irish have not done so far.

Quite apart from all the immediate objections Catholics have to breaking the seal of the confessional, there are two practical considerations that make any such legislation ultimately useless. First, unless a priest reveals information voluntarily (which would violate the seal of the confessional), who is to know except he and the confessee what he was told (Besides, the confessor generally does not even know the identity of the confessee). Two, the obvious corollary is that anyone who thinks he has committed a reportable crime, knowing there is such a law in force, will probably not confess his crime at all. [Or go confess some place where there is no such stupid law),

As for the law that would make bishops criminally responsible for what their priests do, I am sure legal minds will challenge that easily. But the very existence of such a law will probably make bishops more vigilant and conscientious and less inclined to be tolerant, and if only for that, it might be salutary!