Sex Crimes and the Vatican

"The BBC Panorama programme, 'Sex Crimes and the Vatican', makes clear the suffering of those abused in their childhood. But as a public service broadcaster, the BBC should be ashamed of the standard of the journalism used to create this unwarranted attack on Pope Benedict XVI.
"Viewers will recognise only too well the sensational tactics and misleading editing of the programme, which uses old footage and undated interviews. They will know that aspects of the programme amount to a deeply prejudiced attack on a revered world religious leader. It will further undermine public confidence in 'Panorama'.
"There are two strands to the Panorama programme 'Sex Crimes and the Vatican'. The first is a graphic and explicit account of the evil of child abuse and the personal damage it causes to its victims. This is horrific and deeply distressing.
"Those abused as children have been grievously offended. This is especially so when the abuser is a priest. The film is a reminder to everyone of the need to work ceaselessly in the protection of children and in response to the needs of victims. The Catholic Church in England and Wales is doing so, with transparency and care, and, in every case, cooperating fully and immediately with public authorities.
"The second strand of the programme is an attack on the Vatican and specifically on Pope Benedict XVI. This aspect of the programme is false and entirely misleading. It is false because it misrepresents two Vatican documents and uses them quite misleadingly in order to connect the horrors of child abuse to the person of the Pope.
"The first document, issued in 1962, is not directly concerned with child abuse at all, but with the misuse of the confessional. This has always been a most serious crime in Church law. The programme confuses the misuse of the confessional and the immoral attempts by a priest to silence his victim.
"The second document, issued in 2001, clarified the law of the Church, ensuring that the Vatican is informed of every case of child abuse and that each case is dealt with properly. This document does not hinder the investigation by civil authorities of allegations of child abuse, nor is it a method of cover-up, as the programme persistently claims. In fact it is a measure of the seriousness with which the Vatican views these offences.
"Since 2001, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, then Head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, took many steps to apply the law of the Church tallegations and offences of child abuse with absolute thoroughness and scruple."
Archbishop Nichols added: "This statement is endorsed by the Bishops of England and Wales. Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, as President of the Bishops' Conference, is writing to the Director General of the BBC, Mark Thompson, to protest about this programme. Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor's letter will be made public later this week."

Fr Tim Finigan offers alink to the texts and a commentary of the document the BBC referred to continually but never quoted.

John Allen in 2003 offered a good analysis of Crimen Sollicitationis. Here is the text of Crimen Sollicitationis in Latin. Here is the text of Crimen Sollicitationis in English.

A bit more on this programme

So what was the BBC up to last night in its programme on clerical child abuse? This was another of those programmes that dealt with clergy child abuse, it spoke about a conspiracy of silence and the widespread practice, in the past, of moving priest abusers on from parish to parish, it present several cases from Ireland, from the US and from Brazil. It blamed a secret document, Crimen Sollicitationis issued in 1962, for this conspiracy. It tried to implicate the Pope on rather flimsy grounds.

I find the whole issue of clerical abuse of children, deeply disturbing, not just because it damages children, we should never underestimate, the extra-ordinary damage it does to the child, the pain reverberates down the decades. It is also a sacrilege under so many headings, first of all against the innocence and trust of the child, against the priesthood, against the sacraments, especially of the Eucharist and presumably Penance too, and against the message of Christ.

When I was a seminarian in the 70s and early 80s the assumption was that this never happened in the Catholic Church, if it did it was incredibly rare. It wasn’t until the mid 80s that the Church was rocked by the organised abuse that was revealed in Catholic children's homes in St John’s, Newfoundland, then bit by bit over the next decade more and more stories broke, the most horrific in Ireland and the United States, as well as this country. I am told that the first serious academic study of abuse of children wasn’t made until the late 70s.

The assumption of the programme was that there was deliberate cover-up, I am sure there was, and I am sure too that a document issued in 1962, which I have never seen, would reflect and reinforce the culture of the time. I am sure that it sought to minimise the scandal and limit damage as much as possible. We should compare attitudes to abuse and attitudes to rape at this period, sexual crime was taboo. The prevailing thought was that somehow not only the perpetrator but the victim too was somehow to blame, in the case of rape the victim so often craved secrecy, so it is not difficult to see parents willing colluding with the Church in cover-up and simply wanting the abuser moved on, with no thought ever of punishment, let alone the publicity that would come with criminal trial.

The attitudes in the Church at the time reflected society but were further compounded by the unique relationship of priest and bishop, which was expressed not in terms of manager and managed, but in the biblical terms of father and son, and if the son were prodigal, so much more was a good father called to be merciful, and even try to excuse his crime. Here I make no excuse for bishops, some of whom acted criminally to protect their clergy, but it is important to understand the motivation. I think a Bishop, now, would place the victim first in his heart.

The accusation against the Pope though, I think is unfair, and no evidence was presented for it. The programme accused him of re-issuing Crimen Sollicitationis, in 2002 and amending it to say that all cases of clerical child abuse had to be referred to Rome. This was in fact another document, that meant all such cases had to be reported to Rome, The reason was that so many diocese and religious orders handled such cases badly, and may have been part of the problem, it certainly did not remove the case of from civil authorities but meant that the Church, in it its own courts also tried the perpetrator.

The reason why the document instructs bishops to keep such cases secret is that the Church unlike the BBC believes that guilt has actually to be investigated and proved, rather than merely assumed, even here "secrecy" seems to be more about being discreet, whilst an investigation is in place.

The Pope marked the beginning of his pontificate by banishing the 90 year old founder of the powerful Legionaries of Christ from any public act, because of the charges which had been brought against him. From what I understand the number of depositions from the clerical state (de-frockings) has risen greatly in Benedict’s pontificate.

This was just bad journalism, the BBC at its journalistic worst.

A poster one of our young adults did to go outside the Church

Angelus: say the Rosary, pray for Missionaries

Taking his queue from the feast of the Blessed Virgin of the Most Holy Rosary on 7 October, Benedict XVI said “Our Lady” invites us to “rediscover the beauty of this prayer”. Even the “beloved John Paul II was a great apostle of the Rosary: we remember him on his knees with the rosary beads in his hands, immersed in contemplation of Christ.” The pope added: “The rosary is a contemplative and Christ-centred prayer, inseparable from meditation of the Sacred Scripture. It is the prayer of the Christian who advances in the pilgrimage of faith, following Jesus, preceded by Mary.” This is why Benedict XVI urged one and all to “say the Rosary this month in families, in communities and in parishes for the pope’s intentions, for the mission of the Church and for peace in the world.”

Violent Islam, cowardly Europe: from the cartoons to Regensburg

Dante's tomb, Ravenna

This quite a provocative piece from Asian News
by Samir Khalil Samir, sj

"The tendency to see a “conspiracy” is present among cultured Muslims.
A few days ago, in Berlin, an opera of Mozart, Idomeneo was cancelled: it featured the decapitated head of Muhammad (together with those of Jesus, Buddha and Neptune) and the director of the theatre feared Islamic vendetta.
Islamic pressure on our culture is becoming increasingly pervasive.
In France, a teacher Robert Redeker, who criticized Islam at school, was threatened with death. Two years ago, some people wanted to destroy the tomb of Dante Alighieri because he put Muhammad in hell; a year ago, some wanted to destroy the fresco of St Petronius in Bologna because Muhammad was depicted as condemned in the universal judgment.
Two years ago, in Geneva, the theatrical work of Voltaire, Zadiq, was banned because it talked about Muhammad. But then: Dante, St Petronius, Voltaire, Mozart, the cartoons, the pope... all European culture is censored by Europeans out of a false respect for Islam or for a quiet life!
There is no realization that our culture and uniqueness are at stake.
Let me give another example. Every year, it becomes known that a Muslim delegation refused to participate in a reception given by some European authorities or others, because apart from non alcoholic drinks, wine and spirits were served, and these are banned by rigorous Islam. In Paris, some months back, an Iranian delegation withdrew because France refused to do away with wine. "

Dogs at C of E Weddings

According to the Sunday Times:

Church of England priests have been given the power to include dogs in the wedding service. A spokesman said: “While it would be inappropriate for a dog to replace (the) father of the bride, there would be no sensible grounds for objecting to it taking the role of ring bearer.”

read article

comment: Not in my Church! Thank God I am a Catholic!

UK Catholic problems

Part of an article on Zenit
... A more detailed look at the situation of the Catholic Church came in another report, published this summer by the Pastoral Research Center. Over a three-decade period Mass attendance has declined by 40%, according to a summary of the report published in the Times newspaper on July 4. The report covered the period 1963-1991. Over the same period baptisms were halved, while marriages and confirmations plunged by 60%. As well, first Communions declined by 40% and the number of adult converts fell 55%. According to the Times, more recent figures, from 2004, show little improvement in the situation. Numbers going to Mass on a Sunday in 1991 in England and Wales stood at 1.3 million, declining to 960,000 in 2004. The Web site for the Catholic Church in England and Wales also publishes statistics that reveal similar trends. The number of diocesan clergy fell from 4,755 in 1981 to 3,765 in 2003. Religious-order clergy fell from 2,266 to 1,363 in the same period. The number of marriages in Catholic churches fell precipitously, from 29,337 in 1981 to 11,013 in 2003. The Web site estimated weekly Mass attendance at 915,497. Last April 10 the Telegraph newspaper published a detailed article on the situation of Catholic monasteries and convents. Citing official figures the article said that only a dozen people entered monasteries in 2004, thus continuing a decline that has persisted in recent decades. Vocations to monastic orders were 107 in 1982. By 1990 this had fallen to 52, and in 2000 only 20 entered. The total number of monks in England and Wales now stands at 1,345, many of them elderly. The situation of nuns is similar. In England and Wales their numbers stand at 1,150, and vocations continue to decline. In 1982, 100 women entered convents; by 2000 this fell to 22. In 2004 there were only seven vocations, with a slight increase to 13 in 2005. An increasing number of monasteries and convents are being sold due to the declining numbers, the Telegraph reported. In Scotland the situation is no better. Cardinal Keith O'Brien, archbishop and metropolitan of St. Andrew's and Edinburgh, has published a plan involving closing many parishes. According to a report June 11 in the newspaper Scotland on Sunday, the number of priests could halve in some areas due to parish amalgamations. The average age of priests in Scotland is now above 60 and the number of active priests in the Edinburgh Archdiocese is expected to fall from the current 63, to just 34 in a decade's time. Scotland now has just over 200,000 practicing Catholics, a decline of 20% compared with a decade ago. The Church of Scotland, commonly referred to as the Kirk, now has a bit over a half-million who attend services, down from 1.3 million in the 1960s.

I put an article on this blog about a report by the Spanish Bishops about doubts and errors, they had the courage to look at their own issues, the analysis they came up with was profoundly Christological. They realised that the central problem lay within the Church itself, because they themselves had failed to ensure that a clear image of Christ was taught by the Church in Spain.

The solution to our problems in the UK lies with our Bishops, and those who are appointed in the future. I am certain it isn't about "managing" certainly not managing decline. What would the great bishops of the past have done? St Charles Borromeo for one, would have ordered days of penance and prayer, turning the whole problem over to Christ. By doing this he would have given a sign of hope, above all that we trust in God, that we are a Christ centred community and that our very purpose is Christ.

What is happening at the moment, is managing for decline, that simply gives the sign that we are are anxious about our own future, thinking our structures have value in themselves, this is an act of gross pride. We have no right to survive as a Church unless at our very centre is Jesus Christ. What purpose is there except Him.