The New York Times and Pope Benedict — Again!
Stop the presses! So Crimen Sollicitationis isn’t — as we’ve been told for so long — the smoking gun, the primary instrument by which the Vatican covered up sexual abuse by the clergy, the nefarious work of the former Inquisition, which imposed a secrecy so strict that it prevented bishops from reporting crimes to civil authorities?
No! In reality, it was the key to reform, the document that would have put all power for completely re-writing the Church’s policy on sexual abuse right into Cardinal Ratzinger’s hands as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), if only he would have been willing to use it!
Ah, but that’s not the only shocking revelation: it now seems that we were mistaken all along in asserting that U.S. bishops in the 80’s and 90’s were a sorry lot of aiders and abettors of child abuse, in fact, criminals themselves, who shuffled child-raping priests around from parish to parish. I know this is what we’ve always been told, but we now know that this is completely wrong. No, they were really noble-minded crusaders for emotionally-wounded victims of abuse, who spent the whole of the 1990’s prodding the Vatican and the recalcitrant Ratzinger into action!
This, apparently, is what the New York Times thinks, in its latest hatchet job on Pope Benedict (OK, I’m exaggerating, but not by much).
I do wish the all-knowing members of the press would make up their minds. It’s so hard to keep the conspiracy theories straight. It’s like reporters don’t even remember what was previously said. As soon as they come up with some new “truth” they just expect us to play along. (Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia).
Note how, little by little, the burden of blame is shifting. Nothing was the fault of the bishops, the police, governments, or the abusing priests themselves. No, it’s solely and completely Ratzinger’s fault!
All that aside, what does the new story actually say? Parts of it do contain some valid reporting, but there is much obscuring of vital details (some already known and available from previous Times reporting), along with much editorializing and wild speculation.
The article is based on this premise. Crimen Solicitationis, an Instructio first issued (secretly) by the Holy See to bishops in 1922, and again in 1962, gave the responsibility to the Holy Office (the future CDF) for overseeing and serving as a court of appeal for the trials of priests accused of sexual solicitation in the confessional. The bishops of individual dioceses were responsible for hearing complaints, charging priests and holding trials. Almost as an afterthought, in a couple of paragraphs the Holy Office was also given similar powers for trials of priests accused of sexually abusing minors.
The major contention of the new Times piece, by Laurie Goodstein and David Halbfinger, is that based on this document (let’s call it CS henceforth), Ratzinger had the power in his hands to crack down on clergy abuse throughout his tenure at the CDF in the 80’s and 90’s but didn’t act on it. One of the canon law experts the authors of the piece depended on, Nicholas Cafardi, explains in a separate article “The fact that the Holy Office had jurisdiction over those crimes was very important, because crimes in the Holy Office’s jurisdiction are unprescribable, that is, they have no statute of limitations.” This would have meant that the CDF would not be bound by the five-year statute of limitations for abuse laid down in the 1983 Code of Canon law. In fact, the norms of CS were in effect, by Ratzinger’s own admission, up until 2001, when a complete overhaul was made in the Church’s approach to clergy abuse. So while the future Pope may have urged action in a few cases (like that of the notorious Fr. Maciel), he really deserves no credit for the reform in 2001.
Now Goodstein and Halbfinger do admit that the canonical situation was confusing after the promulgation of the 1983 code (recall that Ratzinger only came to Rome to head the CDF in February 1982). Many canonists were of the opinion that the new code nullified the earlier document.
But that didn’t stop the authors from engaging in speculation and innuendo in arguing that Cardinal Ratzinger ignored the problem of abuse throughout most of his tenure at the CDF. Other than that, the story is very light on evidence. They claimed to have interviewed some ten bishops who had inside knowledge, but only quoted a couple of them - in itself very strange. And the ones they do quote had only good things to say about Ratzinger’s efforts against abuse.
The authors say that Ratzinger blocked the laicization of one pedophile priest in the 80’s because of a fear of too many men leaving the priesthood. The priest is not named, but it is largely admitted to be a reference to the Fr. Steven Kiesle case in Oakland, CA on which the Times has based other reporting, with documentation. If this is the case, why didn’t they authors name the priest and provide the link to the sources which their own paper had published?
Perhaps the reason is that it is anything but clear in this case that Ratzinger did anything to block the priest’s request for voluntary laicization – or that he would have even been able to do much to expedite it, given Vatican policy at the time. (See my story here) It seems that the authors now realize they didn’t have much of a case there and conveniently hurried over this part.
Also, the Times said nothing about another much-publicized case that showed Ratzinger’s office being pro-active in urging action in a canonical trial for abuse in Tucson from 1992-97 (although the AP and a Tucson reporter tried to make it look like the opposite). I also wrote about this case here:
This particular span of time, the mid-to-late 90’s, is key, since canonists had begun asking the CDF about CS around 1994, and urged its use to expedite cases. Yet the Times doesn’t give any clear timeline as to when Ratzinger might have taken action (See this superb piece by Mollie at GetReligion for an explanation).
Yet the Times, it seems, already has information on this very question that it didn’t use: it comes right from the notorious article on the Father Murphy case - also written by Goodstein the Times back in March with extensive documentation. Among the documents was an April 6, 1998 letter from Cardinal Bertone of the CDF to Bishop Raphael Fliss of Superior, WI, in which he reminded the bishop that Crimen Sollicitationis had ruled that penitents in cases of solicitation in the confessional must make their accusations within 30 days. Wait! So CS does mention a statute of limitations after all?
In fact, it does. Archbishop Weakland of Milwaukee, who had originally been handling this case, had written to the CDF to ask if this provision could be waived. Evidently it could. On the other hand, Bertone then went on to say that there was no statute of limitations as to how long after the event a trial could be held, which meant that the bishop would be able to prosecute a 35-year old case. This document shows clearly that by 1998, the CDF (or at least Bertone) making use of CS to expedite a case. And the statute of limitations questions turns out to be more complicated than expected. Why didn’t Ms. Goodstein include this information from her own files?
And yet while they had space for none of the above, the authors did find time to castigate Cardinal Ratzinger for — gasp! — actually doing what his Congregation was set up to do: oversee Catholic doctrine.
As [accused molester] Father Gauthe was being prosecuted in Louisiana, Cardinal Ratzinger was publicly disciplining priests in Brazil and Peru for preaching that the church should work to empower the poor and oppressed, which the cardinal saw as a Marxist-inspired distortion of church doctrine.
Here, I believe, is the real reason for the Times‘ fury - Cardinal Ratzinger just kept right on and on, upholding true Catholic teaching, refusing to substitute Marxism for salvation in Christ refusing to accept everything else that modern wisdom tell us is good, like divorce, sexual promiscuity, abortion, etc. etc. etc.
What of the authors’ main contention the CS was the key to reform? It may have been helpful with the statute of limitations, but it clearly wouldn’t have given Ratzinger the power to make new regulations, rewrite parts of canon law, or go deeper into the causes and solutions to the problem of clergy sexual abuse. That’s clearly why the whole 2001 re-organization was needed. So trying to base an argument on this one document doesn’t hold water.
Stop the presses is right! Can no one stop the press from distorting the truth?
Update: Sunday, July 11
I just learned that late in June, many Catholics in Germany began making plans for rallies in support of the Holy Father today, on the feast of his papal patron, St. Benedict. Very heartening news! Note to the Times: if your plan was to detach Catholics from the Pope — it’s not working!
Update, July 16
Yesterday, the Vatican put out some new norms, including those on sex abuse cases. The document has a lengthy section giving the historical background of the Church’s legislation on the subject, with some much-need clarifications:
Cases concerning the dignity of the Sacrament of Penance remained with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (formerly the Holy Office; its name changed in 1965) after the Council, and the Instruction “Crimen Sollicitationis” was still used for such cases until the new norms established by the motu proprio “Sacramentorum sanctitatis tutela” in 2001.
A small number of cases concerning sexual misconduct of clergy with minors was referred to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith after the Second Vatican Council. Some of these cases were linked with the abuse of the sacrament of Penance, while a number may have been referred as requests for dispensations from the obligations of priesthood, including celibacy (sometimes referred to as “laicization”) which were dealt with by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith until 1989 (From 1989 to 2005 the competence in these dispensation cases was transferred to the Congregation for Sacraments and Divine Worship; from 2005 to the present the same cases have been treated by the Congregation for the Clergy).
The Code of Canon Law promulgated by Pope John Paul II in 1983 updated the whole discipline n can, 1395, § 2: “A cleric who in another way has committed an offense against the sixth commandment of the Decalogue, if the delict was committed by force or threats or publicly or with a minor below the age of sixteen years, is to be punished with just penalties, not excluding dismissal from the clerical state if the case so warrants”. According to the 1983 Code of Canon Law canonical trials are held in the dioceses. Appeals from judicial sentences may be presented to the Roman Rota, whereas administrative recourses against penal decrees are presented to the Congregation for the Clergy.\
In 1994 the Holy See granted an indult to the Bishops of the United States: the age for the canonical crime of sexual abuse of a minor was raised to 18. At the same time, prescription (canonical term for Statute of Limitations) was extended to a period of 10 years from the 18th birthday of the victim. Bishops were reminded to conduct canonical trials in their dioceses. Appeals were to be heard by the Roman Rota. Administrative Recourses were heard by the Congregation for the Clergy. During this period (1994 - 2001) no reference was made to the previous competence of the Holy Office over such cases.
The 1994 Indult for the US was extended to Ireland in 1996. In the meantime the question of special procedures for sexual abuse cases was under discussion in the Roman Curia. Finally Pope John Paul II decided to include the sexual abuse of a minor under 18 by a cleric, among the new list of canonical delicts reserved to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Prescription for these cases was of ten (10) years from the 18th birthday of the victim. This new law was promulgated in the motu proprio “Sacramentorum sanctitatis tutela” on 30 April 2001. A letter signed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone, respectively Prefect and Secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, was sent to all the Roman Catholic Bishops on 18 May 2001. This letter informed the bishops of the new law and the new procedures which replaced the Instruction “Crimen Sollicitationis”.
The acts that constitute the most grave delicts reserved to the Congregation were specified in this letter, both those against morality and those committed in the celebration of the Sacraments. Also given were special procedural norms to be followed in cases concerning these grave delicts, including those norms regarding the determination and imposition of canonical sanctions….
The important thing to not here is that after the promulgation of the 1983 code of Canon law, the CDF only had jurisdiction of abuse cases that were connected with the Sacrament of Penance. This is indoubtedly what was meant in 20001 in saying that CS had remained “in effect until now.” The effect referred only to the particular cases the Congregation still had the authority to treat after 1983.
Your can read the whole document here.
