Here we go again. Once again, a major story about the Catholic Church is being derailed by controversy, once again the secular press betrays its inability to understand anything related to the Church’s moral teaching, once again translation issues are at the core — and what in God’s name is wrong with L’Osservatore Romano?
At issue is a statement by Pope Benedict — the book-length interview with Pope Benedict XVI by Peter Seewald called The Light of the World, due to be published November 24 in English by Ignatius Press, and of course, translated into other languages as well. Of course there was much speculation as to what the Pope would say about the sex abuse scandal and other controversial issues. Yesterday there was an unexpected leak of some of the text ahead of time — in L’Osservatore Romano, of all places — for its Sunday edition, and it has caused a firestorm.
In an article titles “Il Papa, La Chiesa, e i segni dei tempi,” [The Pope, the Church and the signs of the times], the Vatican paper gives excerpts, stated to be from the Italian edition of the book, published by the Vatican’s own publishing house. According to this version, the Pope is speaking about the reaction to his words about condoms making the problem of AIDS in Africa worse, and reiterates what he said there about the need to humanize sexuality, and added:
Vi possono essere singoli casi giustificati, ad esempio quando una prostituta utilizza un profilattico, e questo può essere il primo passo verso una moralizzazione, un primo atto di responsabilità per sviluppare di nuovo la consapevolezza del fatto che non tutto è permesso e che non si può far tutto ciò che si vuole. Tuttavia, questo non è il modo vero e proprio per vincere l’infezione dell’Hiv. È veramente necessaria una umanizzazione della sessualità.
In English this would read:
There can be individual justified cases, for example, when a prostitute uses a prophylactic and this can be the first step towards a moralization, a first act of responsibility in developing again the awareness of the fact that not everything is permitted and that we cannot do everything that we want. Nevertheless, this is not the true and proper way of conquering the HIV infection. A humanization of sexuality is truly necessary.
The press is now trumpeting the idea that “the Pope condones condoms in certain cases.” It is even being hailed on the left as a “softening” of the Church’s stance on contraception. On the other hand, some combox warriors on the traditionalist side are starting to lose their faith. It’s a mess.
The English translation, however, is completely different, and makes no mention of “justified” wearing of a condom. The brief except in Italian not only did not supply the whole context, it also omitted the clarifying question of the interviewer and the Pope’s answer. Here is the full English text of that portion of the book, supplied to Catholic World Report online (evidently) by Ignatius Press:
On the occasion of your trip to Africa in March 2009, the Vatican’s policy on AIDs once again became the target of media criticism. Twenty-five percent of all AIDs victims around the world today are treated in Catholic facilities. In some countries, such as Lesotho, for example, the statistic is 40 percent. In Africa youstated that the Church’s traditional teaching has proven to be the only sure way to stop the spread of HIV. Critics, including critics from the Church’s own ranks, object that it is madness to forbid a high-risk population to use condoms.
The media coverage completely ignored the rest of the trip to Africa on account of a single statement. Someone had asked me why the Catholic Church adopts an unrealistic and ineffective position on AIDs. At that point, I really felt that I was being provoked, because the Church does more than anyone else. And I stand by that claim. Because she is the only institution that assists people up close and concretely, with prevention, education, help, counsel, and accompaniment. And because she is second to none in treating so many AIDs victims, especially children with AIDs.
I had the chance to visit one of these wards and to speak with the patients. That was the real answer: The Church does more than anyone else, because she does not speak from the tribunal of the newspapers, but helps her brothers and sisters where they are actually suffering. In my remarks I was not making a general statement about the condom issue, but merely said, and this is what caused such great offense, that we cannot solve the problem by distributing condoms. Much more needs to be done. We must stand close to the people, we must guide and help them; and we must do this both before and after they contract the disease.
As a matter of fact, you know, people can get condoms when they want them anyway. But this just goes to show that condoms alone do not resolve the question itself. More needs to happen. Meanwhile, the secular realm itself has developed the so-called ABC Theory: Abstinence-Be Faithful-Condom, where the condom is understood only as a last resort, when the other two points fail to work. This means that the sheer fixation on the condom implies a banalization of sexuality, which, after all, is precisely the dangerous source of the attitude of no longer seeing sexuality as the expression of love, but only a sort of drug that people administer to themselves. This is why the fight against the banalization of sexuality is also a part of the struggle to ensure that sexuality is treated as a positive value and to enable it to have a positive effect on the whole of man’s being.
There may be a basis [i.e. for this growth in the positive understanding of sexuality - my note] in the case of some individuals, as perhaps when a male prostitute uses a condom, where this can be a first step in the direction of a moralization, a first assumption of responsibility, on the way toward recovering an awareness that not everything is allowed and that one cannot do whatever one wants. But it is not really the way to deal with the evil of HIV infection. That can really lie only in a humanization of sexuality.
Are you saying, then, that the Catholic Church is actually not opposed in principle to the use of condoms?
She of course does not regard it as a real or moral solution, but, in this or that case, there can be nonetheless, in the intention of reducing the risk of infection, a first step in a movement toward a different way, a more human way, of living sexuality.
So in the English version, there is no talk at all of “justified” condom use. What happened here? Was the Italian text wrong or the English? True, this book was somewhat rushed into production, so maybe the Italian translation wasn’t done as carefully as could be. Fr. Z has seen the German, and obviously understands the language. He notes that the Italian translation is incorrect in at least one place. The German definitely speaks of a male prostitute not female.
If I can get hold of the German, I will be able to clarify this, because I understand the language. No one has put it up yet that I can see. Individual German press reports are saying the Pope used the term rechtfertigen, which does mean “justify” — but then press reports can’t be trusted. This morning, Fr. Lombardi, the Papal press spokesman, put out a clarification — which doesn’t clarify much, since I suspect it was based on the Italian text:
The head of the Holy See Press Office, Father Federico Lombardi, SJ, has issued a statement clarifying passages of the book Light of the World, in which Pope Benedict discusses AIDS and condom use.
The statement says Pope Benedict states that AIDs cannot be solved only by the distribution of condoms, and, in fact, concentrating on condoms just trivializes sexuality, which loses its meaning as an expression of love and becomes like a drug.
At the same time, the Pope considered an exceptional situation in which the exercise of sexuality represents a real risk to the lives of others. In this case, the Pope does not morally justify the exercise of disordered sexuality, but believes that the use of condoms to reduce the risk of infection is a “first step on the road to a more human sexuality”, rather than not to use it and risking the lives of others.
Father Lombardi’s statement clarifies Pope Benedict XVI has not reformed or changed the Church’s teaching, but by putting it in perspective reaffirms the value and dignity of human sexuality as an expression of love and responsibility.
But I will say that I think the English translation makes much better sense in context, and is more in harmony with Benedict’s usual thought. The use of “justify” would actually contradict what the Pope says clearly about condom use not being a moral solution.
Because of the embargo on releasing any of the book before publication — though prominent English-speaking Catholics, including Janet Smith and, I believe, George Weigel have read it, the press has generally quoted only the Italian — although Ignatius Press released the English excerpt above shortly after OR brought out its piece. Therefore even those who have read the book were caught of guard and are having to scramble to reply, so yes, L’Osservatore Romano is pretty much to blame here.
Because the Pope’s statement is lengthy, complex and even paradoxical, it’s going to be misunderstood, A number of things are happening here.
1. The Pope is clearly not speaking ex cathedra here;that is, he is not speaking authoritatively as the successor of Peter, using the gift of infallibility, or even teaching with the ordinary Magisterium; nor would a Pope ever attempt to do so in the middle of an interview. If he really wants to clarify or nuance the Church’s teaching in any area, or address certain moral questions put to him, Benedict would do so in a papal document or at the very least in an official statement by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith — which he used to head. Benedict is no dummy. He’s an old hand at this, so we can be sure nothing he said is to be taken as authoritative.
2. If the Pope is speaking of male prostitutes, and homosexual sex, as it appears, he is not speaking of contraceptive use of condoms, which is always wrong. Homosexuals, of course, can’t conceive, so no contraception is possible in this case. The only remaining purpose and effect of the condom is to prevent disease, which would not be wrong per se. Some bishops and theologians have even said this. However, condom use in this case is still enormously problematic because it is anything but 100 percent safe in preventing disease, thus leading people into more sinful acts, which in turn leads to normalizing such behavior. It thus leads them to endanger their lives recklessly not for any moral good, but in the pursuit of a gravely immoral act. The Church certainly could not regard this as either justified or a moral good, though it is possibly a less grave sin.
At any rate, it is perfectly clear that the Pope is not condoning either homosexual relations or contraception as some are saying. Nor is their any clear permission in regard to condom use.
3. In addition, going by the English text, the Pope is not speaking so much about the act as about the intention, and the psychological state of the person who is achieving a greater moral awareness. A greater moral awareness and good intentions in themselves don’t indicate a person is not sinning. In fact, some kind of moral awareness is necessary for us to sin at all. Catholic theology clearly states that people who don’t know that a proposed action is sinful aren’t held guilty of sin for committing it. On the other hand having a moral awareness of the wrongness of the act, and yet committing it means you are rejecting God’s law, and therefore are sinning. The moral awareness in itself is a good thing, but the action is still sinful. Something to keep in mind here.
What I think is really happening is this: On the plane ride to Africa last year, the Pope pleaded for a “humanization” of sexuality — a plea that was completely ignored in all the hoopla and indignation over his statement that condoms make the AIDS problem worse. He was widely understood to have meant that condoms don’t prevent the spread of AIDS. Prominent experts have actually indicated that he was right. But that was far from the whole of his meaning.
The secular world simply takes a the pragmatic approach to every moral question. The problem underlying poverty, it believes, is overpopulation and contraceptives are the cure. This completely overlooks the issue of a lack of just distribution of wealth and resources, and the way it robs people of their human dignity. What is left when you ignore these elements, and concentrate solely on the mechanics of preventing birth, is the effort to control the human population as if they were cockroaches whose numbers need to be kept down. AIDS? Let’s promote condoms and prevent Africans from dying in front of us as if they were flies — after all, we want to be able to sleep at night — but let’s not question whether their lives are lived morally or with any dignity.
Pope Benedict believes the real cause of the indignation he aroused in his remarks on the way to Africa was his statement that condoms would not solve the real problem of AIDS. That problem is the de-humanization of sexuality. He pleads for it once again in his book, and does so through the specific, previously-raised issue of condom use. What he is doing is taking an individual case of the tearing of our sexuality away from our humanity, and demonstrating how, even in the greatest depths of degradation, it might by tiny increments, be brought back.
Because amazingly enough, while the secular media constantly harps on how inhuman and cruel the Church’s “rules” on human sexuality are, in the end, Benedict is not really about the rules. He is about the love. He is about the sinner learning to care about his human dignity and that of others. That certainly does not involve any compromise with evil. He clearly recognizes the human reality is complex. But the press once again, focuses solely on the search for a justification for sin. It’s all about the mechanics. It is about “how far can I bend the rules without sinning? But what if the rule could be changed? Change the rule!” Benedict is saying “please wake up; please get away from the lifestyle that is degrading you and discover real love and the real purpose of your sexuality. God loves you and will help you to change.”
The press, I fear, is never going to understand this.
I will put up more individual links as I get them. In the meantime, here is an excellent commentary by Dr. Janet Smith.
This story by Catholic News Service is rather good.
Update, Nov 22, p.m.: Of course as always, here is the great Jimmy Akin:
Blogger Simcha Fisher has coined a new term: Blabbatore Romano. I love it!
Important update, Novembere 22: The German text has surfaced on Italian Vaticanist Sandro Magister’s site. In a way, it deepens the mystery. There is certainly no trace of the sentence that appears in such radically different ways in the Italian and the English. Instead, there are the simple words of the Pope “I can say that . . .” What gives? At any rate, no trace whatsoever of the idea that condom use is “justified” in any circumstances. It almost seems as though the person who did the Italian translation (or someone in the Vatican he or she consulted?) has an agenda and wants to have the Pope say something he didn’t say.
All I can say is that the person who did the Italian translation should be shot. (After a trial, of course). The English certainly doesn’t alter things to the same extent. But why add anything at all? The original German makes the whole thing seem like more of an aside rather than a developed statement. Anyway, here it is:
“Die bloße Fixierung auf das Kondom bedeutet eine Banalisierung der Sexualität, und die ist ja gerade die gefährliche Quelle dafür, dass die Menschen in der Sexualität nicht mehr den Ausdruck ihrer Liebe finden, sondern nur noch eine Art von Droge, die sie sich selbst verabreichen. Deshalb ist auch der Kampf gegen die Banalisierung der Sexualität ein Teil des Ringens darum, dass Sexualität positiv gewertet wird und ihre positive Wirkung im Ganzen des Menschseins entfalten kann. Ich würde sagen, wenn ein Prostituierter ein Kondom verwendet, kann das ein erster Akt zu einer Moralisierung sein, ein erstes Stück Verantwortung, um wieder ein Bewusstsein dafür zu entwickeln, dass nicht alles gestattet ist und man nicht alles tun kann, was man will. Aber es ist nicht die eigentliche Art, dem Übel beizukommen. Diese muss wirklich in der Vermenschlichung der Sexualität liegen”.
The mere fixation on the condom means a banalization of sexuality and something that is already precisely the dangerous source for the fact that human beings no longer find an expression of love in sexuality, but only a kind of drug that they administer to themselves. Therefore the struggle against the banalization of sexuality is also a part of the wrestling for sexuality to be positively valued and for making it possible for its positive effect on the whole of a person’s being to develop. I would say when a male prostitute uses a condom, this can be a first act in a moralization, a first piece of responsibility taking, in the process of developing an awareness once again that not everything is permitted and that a person cannot do everything he likes. But it is not the real way to overcome evil. This must really lie in the humanization of sexuality.
Canonist Ed Peters weighs in with a really blistering attack on L’Osservatore Romano.’s incompetence.
Filed under: Church issues, Pope Benedict XVI | |7 Comments
Well, that not exactly what they are playing (”Holy God we Praise Thy Name” perhaps?) but that is what many are feeling. Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York is the new President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, a post he won in a surprise upset victory over its outgoing vice-president, Gerald Kicanas of Tucson. Since the former vice-president has almost invariably been elected president, this is indeed a surprise, perhaps even a change in the way the bishops will be doing things.
Kicanas had been receiving bad press in the last couple of weeks especially, because of his promotion to ordination of a seminarian who turned out to be a molester. Then there was his “liberal” reputation. He broke with many of the other bishops who criticized Notre Dame for giving an award to our pro-abortion president. So there were things to criticize. One good thing about Kicanas: he really showed up a reporter who tried to implicate the future Pope Benedict in the sex abuse scandal (I blogged about that here).
Did the bad publicity contribute to Kicanas’ loss? Is there a more “conservative” wind blowing for the bishops? Some commentators on the left want to make it seem as though this is a change toward de-emphasizing social justice issues like immigration in favor of ones “conservatives” supposedly favor, like abortion. Both Dolan and the new vice-president, Abp. Kurtz of Louisville KY, rejected this idea in their press conference.
Dolan will hold the presidency for the next three years, and I expect it will be a lively three years.
The Anchoress has a huge mass of links. Diane at Te Deum Laudamus does as well. And Rocco is invaluable as always.
Oh and one more good reason to rejoice at a Dolan victory. His intellectual gifts as a Church historian and his spirituality are matched by his speaking ability. Here he speaks of Dorothy Day and while musing on her life, points out where most other “peace and justice Catholics” go wrong.
6 Insights from the Life of Dorothy Day from Province of Saint Joseph on Vimeo.
Filed under: Abortion, Archbishop Dolan, Catholic Social Teaching | |No Comments
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.
Filed under: Church issues, Pope Benedict XVI, sexual abuse by priests | |No Comments
Life Site News has an excellent – but very disturbing – series of articles on the ironically named “Women Deliver” conference held this past week in Washington D.C. The conference, supposedly intended to promote maternal health and reduce maternal mortality throughout the world, turned out to actually be all about pushing the abortion agenda. The fact that women deliver babies and that they have babies in the womb was virtually ignored, in spite of pro-lifers’ attempts to call attention to this fact.
Among the conference attendees were many of the world’s ministers and parliamentarians, including: Thoraya Obaid, Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund; Kathleen Sebelius, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services; Dr. Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organization; Gill Greer, Director-General of the International Planned Parenthood Federation; and Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations, who gave the keynote address.
Conference sponsors included several UN agencies, government departments from the UK, Spain, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, the U.S. (USAID), and Canada, as well as fortune-1000 companies such as Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals, and Merck & Co.
The speakers at the conference put forward strategies for how to get past laws banning abortion in countries where it is illegal, how to legalize abortion where it is illegal, and of course, to expand contraception everywhere. The claimed that the best way to reduce maternal mortality rates throughout the world was to promote abortion. They also constantly trashed religion and “fetus fundamentalism.”
Pro-life leaders who attended the conference, however, point to a Lancet study published in April that showed, contrary to what the UN and the international pro-abortion lobby have long claimed, that maternal mortality around the world has dropped drastically in recent years. In addition, the study nowhere mentioned legal abortion as a significant causal factor in the reduced death rate.
“This is a classic case of their ideologies trumping the science,” said conference attendee Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women of America. Even when the science contradicts their goal, they don’t change their ideology.”
The science of fetal development was also completely unwelcome at the conference.
Volunteers from the National Right to Life Committee were handing out pink “Celebrate Motherhood bags outside the conference. They contained a small plastic fetal model of a 12-week-old unborn child, a small replication of an unborn child’s feet at 10 weeks gestation, a brochure on prenatal development, and a brochure containing information on proven means of reducing maternal mortality rates worldwide (the supposed focus of the conference).
Many attendees took them – only to have them confiscated by conference staff once they got to the door of the convention center, by staffers who told them they were “anti-life” and “anti-woman.”
Life Site News details what happened:
One attendee who received a bag told LifeSiteNews.com that she was interrogated in an intimidating manner by an organizer who said that “you need to throw away” any pink bag handed out by the “anti-woman” demonstrators, because “they’re trying to ruin our conference.”
However, one pro-life volunteer said that the aggressive approach taken by conference staff may have been for the better: when attendees, including UN delegates, asked about the confiscated material in clear plastic bags, they were told by pro-lifers that the materials could not be handed out because “they don’t want you to have this information.”
“It was great for what we’re getting across,” said the volunteer.
The pro-lifers were later able to collect the confiscated bags.
Jeanne Head, NRLC Vice President for International Affairs and UN Representative for National Right to Life, and a registered nurse, said she was frustrated at how the conference hijacked the issue of maternal mortality to push an agenda harmful to women.
“We’ve known how to save lives in the developing world for over 70 years, and women are still dying in the developing world,” Head told LifeSiteNews.com (LSN). “It’s aggravating to me that they’re spending all this money and all this talk about how to save women’s lives and it’s very simple.”
“Good health care, prenatal care, emergency obststetric care, antibiotics, clean blood, clean water, good nutrition. And they’re talking about all this garbage instead of doing the job.”
Concerned Women for America president Wendy Wright, who was present at the conference, said the treatment of the pro-life materials illustrated the conference’s hypocritical message.
“Here they are the whole conference saying: information, give women information and they’ll have power,” Wright told LSN, “and then they take that information away so that they’ll be powerless to argue against the indoctrination they’re getting.”
Wright further noted that the conference revealed how the pro-abortion movement’s “zeitgeist” is “all about power.” “They think that we’re driven by the same things that they’re driven by. They’re driven by rage and power. It’s just the opposite for us - we’re driven by love to serve others,” she said.
Be sure to read the whole five-part series here
Additional information was provided by this story by NRLC itself.
Filed under: Abortion, Feminism, Life Issues, Women's Health | |No Comments
