Contra the NYTimes

If you're so sure the NY Times doesn't know the first thing, then why spend so much time trying to refute what they say ?

I hope no one will be discouraged from reading the excellent, detailed, and very specific article in the New York Times.

(Is Winters jealous of real reporters?)

Nothing good can come from defending the Vatican or any church leader within the context of sexual abuse and that is what this article does. So, you are saying that technically, Ratzinger could not change policy…but he could have done a lot more than he did. A lot more. Refuting technical inaccuracies in an article about a crime of this magnitude is absurd. Its like saying a color really isn’t “white” is more like “eggshell.” That level of definition may matter when painting your kitchen, but not when you are facing down pervasive evil that grips the church bureaucracy. You call this author’s mistakes “heinous”…heinous? Really? In the context of worldwide rape and destruction of the lives of children, a writer’s bias is how heinous is defined? Dear NYT writer, you got your facts wrong on the rules and regs in Rome, …and we call that heinous? What is heinous or hateful; odious; abominable; totally reprehensible” is the waste of time and effort spent to defend the Vatican against the reporter in this context.

The New York Times should be praised, not vilified, for their thorough and balanced reporting in their recent piece on Pope Benedict's long history in dealing with child-abuse cases. Sometimes truths are painful -- but it is far better to recognize them for what they are rather than ridicule the messengers.

Note the number of bishops, archbishops and canon-law experts extensively quoted in the Times piece. Do these folks also "not understand what they are talking about"? And when it comes to being "unrelentingly tendentious" -- it might be helpful to look in a mirror sometimes, particularly when one starts basing major arguments on trivialities such as the difference between a metaphorical "indelible mark" and something "you can’t just un-do".

NCR should be effusively praised for its 20+ year history of excellent reporting on the child-abuse crisis in the U.S., with the actions of editor Tom Fox certainly beyond reproach in every respect. On the other hand, today's Times piece certainly suggests that NCR's coverage of the Vatican might be improved, with perhaps less stenography of the company line and more actual reporting.

Colluding with sex offenders, clothed in church frock, calling themselves priests, is another form of silent victimization. Your article goes to great pains, indeed defensive and "tendentious" pains, to blame Times reporters for revealing a litany of abuses in historical order. It is impossible NOT to read your rebuttal as a clear, direct defense,indeed a position reflecting conscious, negligent "SIEGE". Times reporting is not opinion, although at moments it appears as such...AND SHOULD APPEAR AS SUCH. It is a moral issue in need of moral commentary. Opinion and moral commentary are not one in the same.

Yes, there are some victories within the american catholic movement, but catholicism is and should be a global religion under global scruitiny and dictated by universal morality. If there are american gains, it is the duty of all priests to insist on global justice. A large task indeed, but a mandatory one.

I would urge each and every catholic to STOP contributing to the catholic church in Sunday collection offerings and otherwise. Financial bankruptcy might force the church to examine its own moral bankruptcy.

We should expect more from a catholic newspaper...who "gussied up", sanctified and sanctionedits collusion with the Pope and church hierarchy.

The underlying premise of the NYT article is innacurate and so misleading as to render the entire boring opus a misleading piece of tripe. Typical of nearly all articles on this topic, it fails completely to mention, much less explain, the meaning of priestly "faculties," which most Catholics understand are granted exclusively at the discretion of local bishops, not by the Vatican at all. The article speaks of the laicization process, which is under Vatican direction, as if it were one and the same as removing faculties. From my reading, laicization of priests for whatever reason has usually occurred years or decades after they lose or relinquishes faculties, so whether or not the Vatican is speedy on laicization has no bearing on whether a priest has access to ministry. Bishops individually grant that access on the spot and can take it away just as quickly with no Vatican knowledge or input. Indeed, many of our U.S. bishops have quickly removed the priestly faculties of sex offenders, and those who did not are individually responsible for what happened next. It was never up to then-Cardinal Ratzinger or any pope to intervene and remove faculties. The NYT is on a witch hunt against Pope Benedict personally, and has no ethics in carrying out its campaign. I for one will not be paying for online access to read its anti-Catholic blather.

Trying to lift the facts, just the facts (apologies to Jack Web of Dragnet fame)from the gloss one is left with the impression that a great deal of time and effort was spent trying to get the Curia and the Archbishop of Rome to learn a new language. Learning a new language always requires that one makes an effort to step out of preconceived paradigms and concepts of the known language.

This period of learning delayed remedies and it apparently has uncovered the fact that the Curia was a slow learner.

The facts illustrate that it took a long time for the Curia to understand, that a man could be both a priest and amoral, or a priest and so sick that the grace of ordination was stymied. They had / have a hard time understanding that bishops throughout the world had ordained some few men who were are very sick or are amoral.

In the end though do we not have a right to expect moral courage from the bishops that work in the Curia? We have a right to expect courage that acts rightly even when the head of the Church is so wrong.

Usually I am a huge fan of Laurie Goodstein's work and I'm sitting here just shaking my head about this piece. It was an absolute train wreck. The language at the top of the piece is nowhere near justified. My analysis is linked but I make many of the same points you did.

This 4,000-word hit piece discredits the entire Times reporting on the situation -- which was already not on the firmest ground.

You're not suffering from a siege mentality. The NY Times knows very well that they blew their Holy Week attack and did as much harm to their own credibility as they tried to do to Benedict (and succeeded to some extent.) They ARE on a witch hunt as regards this pope. I cannot help but wonder if all of this is meant to be a shot across the bow toward the college of cardinals, who have to be exhausted from all of this. The warning: when Ratzinger goes, don't appoint another traditionalist/conservative, or this witch hunt will never end.

If you think about it, though, Ratzinger is quite a liberal pontiff, opening up the liturgy into inclusiveness of many forms.

The biggest disappointment, here, is Laurie Goodstein, who I used to think was a great religion reporter. Since last year she has revealed that she not only does not understand much about Catholicism (even on a basic level) and she doesn't seem to know what she does not know.

The Times has a clear animus against Benedict. Not, specifically the church, but for sure, this pope.

''The warning: when Ratzinger goes, don't appoint another traditionalist/conservative, or this witch hunt will never end.''

We'll just have to develop thicker skins, plus witch hunts get a little boring. I'm bored already. The Holy Spirit chooses whom He wills for the office of Pope, not the NYT. Sorry NYT. Your sales are pathetic and you are going down, you are desperate. The Church of Jesus Christ has stood for 2000 years and will never be brought down, we have God's word on that.

If it hasn't been obvious to date, it should be now: The NYT, as well as many in the AP and other media outlets, have declared war on the Roman Catholic Church—as well as any faith or ideology that does not support same-sex marriage, a female priesthood, abortion, or other core beliefs of the Progressive gospel. (Of course, this is true of those on the far right, too.)

What's worse, I am not convinced that these reporters, or their supporters, really care about the sexual abuse of minors--which I've seen destroy lives, so have some knowledge of the matter. If they did, they’d expand their scope. Rather, this NYT story uses such tragedies as part of a loosely organized (or well orchestrated?) movement to discredit the Church. This piece is not reporting—nor does it pretend to be. It is punishment.

Of course, those who credit well-meaning journalists for reporting on the abuse crisis in the past decades are correct to do so. We owe many in the mainstream media great credit for telling the stories that needed to be told. The truth will set us free.

But sadly, while the gates of hell will not prevail against the Church, many a soul will ignore “irrelevant” Church teachings--that is, the Gospel--because of sin within the Church, and increasingly biased reporting against it.

Tragic.

I thought the New York Times story was excellent. It was important for us to know how hard the bishops tried to get the Vatican to pay attention to this scandal. We needed to hear that side of the story. The bishops have taken most of the heat to date for what happened during the scandal. And what is still happening. ----- I posted a link to this story on my Facebook page, (72,000 people) and think that all Catholics might take some time to read this story. For me the New York Times gets it right, over and over again. ------- And I fully understand why they included Benedict's theological and spiritual concerns here. ----------- The Pope wants to be heard by the whole world when he speaks. Well, if you claim to be talking to the whole world, that whole world is going to care about who you are, and what you've done, as well as about what you have to say. The Church asked for this. I recommend the article in the New York Times.

Let us not lose sight of the fact that the real issue is the abuse of children and those who covered up crimes not the New York Times. The extent of Mr. Winters commentary on a news story does make one think that if such extensive defense is warranted for an institution as large and powerful as the papacy and the Church things are not as simple as where a story appears in a newspaper. Mr.Winters comments that by the 1990s "much of the abuse had already occurred." Since most of the information on the number of cases comes from the self auditing of the bishops and in addition we have learned from scholars and victims that it takes 25, 30, 40, 50, and sometimes 60+ plus for survivors to come forward after abuse, it is difficult to know if Mr. Winters' statement can be considered a definitive one.

MSW, I guess I'm at a loss to see how you can separate Ratzinger from JPII's refusal to take the abuse crisis seriously. What you more or less state here is that Ratzinger had no right to act according to his own conscience if his papal boss said no. Maybe you don't see this concscience thing because you actually believe you are supposed to check your conscience over to the Church upon baptism and for sure at ordination.

That's one of the huge problems this whole crisis illustrates. Our bishops and senior clergy will not act on their individual consciences even though they know they should. They would rather let the Vatican take the Church into oblivion than buck their superiors. Our senior leadership is leaving the impression they are either pathetic or predatory. No wonder so many lay people are looking elsewhere for spiritual leadership.

Refusing to respond to accusations by questioning the accuser is the stuff of Rupert Murdoch. Shame on you Michael.

Most of the above Pro-NYT comments are vicious hypocritical blather. For those commenting, the only thing that really matters is degrading and humiliating Benedict XVI -- probably because he is a "conservative" (read minion of the devil).

Where were you when Weakland was sodomizing and paying off his boyfriend? AND shuffling around child molesters -- and now falsely claiming he was prevented from suspending the criminals? What about the atrocities of moving preditors committed by Mahoney in Fresno and LA? These were real crimes and no one here seems to be concerned about them. Perhaps because these are "liberals". Any old falsehood, distortion, and lie is good enough to beat Benedict.

Whitened sepulchers . . .

QUOTE
""In the 1970s and 1980s, many priests were seeking laicization, and Pope John Paul II understandably worried that this phenomenon was casting doubt on the fact that the priesthood is forever. Indeed, even a priest who has been defrocked can, in extremis, hear a confession or say Mass. To return someone to the “lay state” is to dispense them from the vow of celibacy. There is no way to dispense someone from ordination. Why? Because the actor in a sacrament such as ordination is not the bishop or the Pope, it is God, and you can’t just un-do that. We had this debate with the Donatists in the 4th century but I am not sure the editors of the Times would know a Donatist from a doughnut.""
UNQUOTE

So ex-Fr. Oliver O'Grady can, in extremis, hear a confession and say Mass? Thanks for clearing that up.

The Times is a good paper, generally, but there's a bad leak between its editorial side and its news side. Its editorial slant is strongly secular and contemptuous of organized religion, at least of the Western variety. Combine the leak, the slant, and the fact that scandal sells, and you have the current drumbeat of Catholic sex-abuse scandal stories. It's deplorable, but it will continue until readers tire of it or something jucier comes along.

Of course, the NYT is on a tear against the Catholic Church. Horrible mistakes and crimes were committed by a small minority of bishops and priests; most of this happened two or three decades ago. If the Times were really concerned about the sexual abuse of children, it would run exposes of sexual abuse in the public school systems (where investigations are thwarted by the teacher's unions and their factotums in the state legislatures) and single-parent families (a child growing up in a single-parent home is much more likely to be physicially abused than a child living with two biological parents--by a factor of forty). But such cases--whose numbers dwarf anything that has happened in the Church--apparently do not disturb the Times at all. I recently cancelled my subscription to the Times and am glad that I did. Years ago, someone said that the Times was a great newspaper, but not a good one; now it is neither.

Whatever these reporters knew, Ratzinger knew more. Whatever the spirit of this article, the Vatican did not respond to Louisiana, or to Dallas, or to Tom Doyle's clear warning in 1985. If the children had mattered to them, they could have done something. I see in many of the comments on this thread an unwillingness to face the horrors that the hierarchy also could not face, and an impulse to take the same refuge in technicalities the curia did.

Compared to the lives of children, priestly faculties don't matter. Compared to the lives of children, curial politics don't matter. Compared to the lives of children, doctrine doesn't matter.

Whatever these authors knew or didn't know, Ratzinger knew more. There was no meaningful response to Louisiana, to Dallas, or to Thomas Doyle's clear warning in 1985. Even the response to Boston was half-hearted.

I see the authors of some of these comments discussing irrelevancies, instead of coming to grips with the horror that the church allowed to happen and the horror of the church's response.

I agree with Anne. I think the piece did a good job of reporting on how hard some of the bishops on the front lines of this crisis tried to get the Vatican to overcome its normal cautiousness and face this issue squarely.

It did not paint the current Holy Father with a completely negative brush. It portrayed him as someone who was open to the severity of what was going on, but who nevertheless waited far too long to do anything about it.

We need to regain our integrity as a Church.

Michael Sean Winters is a prolific writer who is substantially confused in his theology. For a church which has distance itself from the poor mostly for 17 centuries, dismissing liberation theology is most serious. Why didn't Jesus just let the multitudes starve and tell them their reward will be in the next life.

"The article speaks of the laicization process, which is under Vatican direction, as if it were one and the same as removing faculties."

Precisely so. For all PRACTICAL purposes, laicization is about allowing a resigned priest to marry in the Church. So, in other words, the NYT's accusation is that, when the Church was face with a predator pervert priest, doing the paperwork to allow him to have a Catholic Church wedding was not high up on the Church's to-do list.

Ooookaay... Is this supposed to be a criticism of the Church?!?!?

Oh, and another thing... If laicization is supposed to be the Church's only tool against pedophile priests, then when a "credible accusation" of sex abuse has been made against a married lay person should that person's marriage automatically be annulled? Should those annulments be the Church's number one priority?

That ordination creates an "indelible mark" or an "objective reality" is a matter of faith (one I happen to share), but you know what else does (measured empirically)? Being molested by a priest!

But Michael Sean Winters (& Co), please DO go ahead and keep blaming the NYT. The more you ignore the crisis/scapegoat everybody EXCEPT the Vatican, the more you drive your Best & Brightest (Whole & Holiest) to the Episcopal Church!

JCF, blessed to be an Episcopalian

I am so sorry to see Winters come to NCR with his defenses of the Vatican. His bias is so marked, I despair of responding in detail. But here is one instance. Please, NCR, sideline him, though he has just arrived.

Winters objects to the Times mentioning the confusion of canon law as a problem in handling abuse cases. Don't the Times reporters realize all law is complicated (note "Law and Order" shows), he writes, so in effect what's the problem?

Never mind that such complications prevented timely removal of abusive priests! Here are the conditions bishops faced, which Winters dismisses:

Beginning in the fall of 1989 American bishops begged for canon law reforms to allow them more latitude in removing abusive priests.

Representatives sent to negotiate with the Vatican returned empty-handed, with the ridiculous non-sequitur that since the streamlining of canon law processes had resulted in numerous marriage annulments, similar streamlining for accused molesters “could be a threat to their rights.” (Vows of Silence, p. 130)

No response was available beyond cumbersome secret trials lasting perhaps up to ten years, and that constituted impediments in civil case discovery. Bishops were also aware of their ineffectiveness. Priests like Anthony Cipolla and Robert Trupia appealed to Rome, and despite compelling evidence to the contrary, had their suspensions revoked. It took years of follow-up to get these molesters removed.

Again in 1993, a delegation of American bishops unsuccessfully pleaded for reforms. JPII personally denied them greater autonomy under canon law.”You’ll get no quick fixes out of me,” he told them (p. 93).

Finally by 1994, after ignoring abuse victims, JPII allowed two changes: the statute of limitations was extended from five to ten years after the victim turned 18, and the age of minority was extended from 16 to under 18. (Ignore that an average age of survivors reporting abuse has been the mid-40’s at the earliest. And the scapegoat theory that the pope just did not know is questionable at best.)

In 1995, the church’s highest court modified canon 1044 on “psychic defect” to include a sane priest with a “general mental disorder.” IOW, at least you did not have to be judged insane to be removed.

In 1997, the pronuncio was peppering US bishops with questions about diocesan policies and procedures that could be “canonically null.”

Fast forward to Dallas, 2002 after survivor lawsuits, the courts and the media brought episcopal negligence to the fore. Under guidance by the PR firm of R.F. Binder, bishops went into major damage control with the Dallas Charter and Essential Norms.

By 2002-2003, JPII allowed the CDF to waive “prescription” in individual cases, the canonical equivalent of statutes of limitation. The CDF could henceforth handle abuse cases using an administrative or non-judicial process.

The Times was right to mention canon law as a genuine impediment worth serious attention.

Winters’ off-base again:

Earlier this year at America's blog, Winters blasted the Times, defending Benedict as usual: http://americamagazine.org/blog/entry.cfm?blog_id=2&entry_id=2746

An associate editor at Commonweal demolished Winters' argument:
http://www.commonwealmagazine.org/blog/?p=7803&cpage=1

In his letter explaining why he is against Liberation Theology(ies), Ratzinger condemns the extreme versions of these movements, that attempted to mix the valid Christian desire to help poor, with Marxist materialistic ideology. He was against using the Christian faith at the service of a materialistic ideology that was atheistic in its inception. As someone that grew up in the shadows of the Soviet Block, he knew this was a real threat. However, perhaps what we are seeing now is the same phenomenon, but in reverse. Over the last few decades, the church has been infiltrated by various movements that largely are at the service of atheistic selfish philosophies of the Yan Rand type. But for some reason, these are not condemned, but allowed to flourish and take the rains of power in the church. One reason the church was slow to act on the abuse issue, it seems, was to protect people like Fr Maciel, the money and influence he brought. It is not hard to find out who was in charge in the curia in the first part of the 2000’s, when JP2 health was failing. Many were members of these so called movements. The hope is that the same standards that were applied to Liberation Theology will be applied to these right wing forces. But the corrupting money, the superficial “orthodoxy” that they bring will make this difficult. The instinct will be to play the role of the persecuted victim (as John Allen recently pointed out and as evident in this article), even though the true victims were the most vulnerable members of the church, its children. If the church is sincere in its re-evangelization and pro-life efforts, it needs to come clean, and shed its excessive self-serving clericalism (e,g. play secular power brokers at the service of elites that fund them, instead of sticking to teaching about, ministering and safeguarding the Sacraments), as called for in Vatican 2. Its to the advantage of the church to actively engage, teach and partner with the lay to make it stronger as a whole, it seems. Tom

While I agree the NYT often has no Clue, I am thinking the Church is even more so....

"...it was Pope John Paul II who was dismissive of such charges, having seen the communist authorities in Poland use similar accusations to besmirch the reputation of the Church..."

Probably, these charges were true regardless of where they come from. Just as today, the Vatican is constantly claiming that "enemies of the church" are behind their problems.

The NCR has a wide steak of this cluelessness as well , suggesting that the their is some sort of "pedophile period," a stretch on distinct time, when all this bad stuff happened and that it is not really some sort of enduring problem deep in the heart of the Catholic Clergy.

Just a comment on one of the statements above. "The Holy Spirit chooses whom He wills for the office of Pope, not the NYT."

Really? The Holy Spirit chooses the pope? A dangerous doctrine. Did the Holy Spirit choose, for instance, Alexander VI, father of many illegitimate children while a cardinal, and keeper of a mistress in the Vatican while pope? And who used his papal office to enrich his family? Did the Holy Spirit pick out the war-loving Julius II? Did the Holy Spirit choose Pope Formosus, or one of his successors, Stephen VI, who had the corpse of Formosus dug up, put on trial, found guilty, then mutilated and tossed into the Tiber?

Unlikely. Let's not blame God for what we do wrong. The Pope is chosen by men -- human, fallible men, sometimes saintly, sometimes ambitious, sometimes politically motivated, sometimes trying valiantly to transcend their human failings. We are all human beings, and we are all capable of frustrating the designs of the Holy Spirit. It's called free will, and if we abuse it, it is our fault, not that of the Lord.

Please remove previous post and replace with this one (or just let it be posted in Mr Allen's blog). Ayn was misspelled sorry and thank you. T

In his letter explaining why he is against Liberation Theology(ies), Ratzinger condemns the extreme versions of these movements, that attempted to mix the valid Christian desire to help poor, with Marxist materialistic ideology. He was against using the Christian faith at the service of a materialistic ideology that was atheistic in its inception. As someone that grew up in the shadows of the Soviet Block, he knew this was a real threat. However, perhaps what we are seeing now is the same phenomenon, but in reverse. Over the last few decades, the church has been infiltrated by various movements that largely are at the service of atheistic selfish philosophies of the Ayn Rand type. But for some reason, these are not condemned, but allowed to flourish and take the rains of power in the church. One reason the church was slow to act on the abuse issue, it seems, was to protect people like Fr Maciel, the money and influence he brought. It is not hard to find out who was in charge in the curia in the first part of the 2000’s, when JP2 health was failing. Many were members of these so called movements. The hope is that the same standards that were applied to Liberation Theology will be applied to these right wing forces. But the corrupting money, the superficial “orthodoxy” that they bring will make this difficult. The instinct will be to play the role of the persecuted victim, even though the true victims were the most vulnerable members of the church, its children. The detrimental slowness to respond by the hierarchy has yet to be addressed. If the church is sincere in its re-evangelization and pro-life efforts, it needs to come clean, and shed its excessive self-serving clericalism (e.g. play secular power brokers at the service of elites that fund them, instead of sticking to teaching about, ministering and safeguarding the Sacraments). Its to the advantage of church to actively engage, teach and partner with the lay to make it stronger as a whole, as called for in Vatican 2, it seems. T

Kudos to Laurie Goodstein and the NY Times for keeping the pressure of truth on the Catholic Church. The article above by Michael Sean Winters proves that the "secular" press is needed more than ever. Winters claims that Ratzinger's handling of liberation theologians was as important as handling the protection of children and young people.

Liberation theology is and always has been a gift to the church and its theologians should be hailed as heroes. Had Ratzinger not been waylaid by the unnecessary and irrational fear of liberation theology, he may have had time to handle cases of pedophile priests. But the Vatican is so dysfunctional that it punishes the innocent and promotes the guilty. It happens in Rome and it happens in dioceses throughout the world.

Michael Sean Winters needs to go to "Laurie Goodstein" journalism school.

When I would complain that the Church seems to be stuck in the past, my mom would respond by saying: "The Church moves slowly, and that's not necessarily a bad thing." She was right of course. Truth is not relative, and humankind evolves very slowly. However Mr. Winters is off base. The church is once again "stuck in the past" except this time the issue is moral as opposed to doctrinal, and there is considerable evidence that the Church swept abuse issues under the rug. The failure of the CDF, and John Paul II, to address the abuse issue in a timely fashion was reported accurately by the Times. Understanding who knew what and when, as Jack McCoy would no doubt agree, is essential to determining innocence or guilt.

It is a shame that a newspaper like The NYTimes publishes such an article. It is obvious that these journalists there try to attack Pope and Church with a deluge of words and so-called "facts." Sometimes they contradict themselves because of lack of profound research. Shame on the NYTimes!
I am sad that even some readers cheer for such unprofessional journalism. What seems for many more important than the truth is hitting the Church and the Christian faith

I think it is very good that the National Catholic Reporter has added Winters to its roster of reporters. Although much of your work is very good (God bless Jason Berry), a lot of it is simply unthinking defense of the Vatican. John Allen especially bounces back and forth between writing with insight about the Vatican and using deceptive techniques to obscure facts he wants readers to gloss over. Everyone who has read MSW knows that he does not usually use rational thought to back up his cheerleading for the pope. You have had, frankly, an undeserved reputation for fairness among Catholic publications. Please do all that you to promote pieces like this from Winters and make it obvious that the NCR cannot be counted on.

Let's commend the NYT for educating the public about the theological basis for the global crisis in the Catholic Church. As Winters makes clear, the Church hierarchy invests itself with divine power, cleansing abusers of their sins and thus making them safe to return to service, a process that was repeated countless times. This article finally begins to explain why the bishops constantly imagined that serial predators needed only to be moved from place to place while their crimes were hidden by the seal of papal secrecy.

The only downside of the Times' insightful reporting on Ratzinger's indifference to thousands of cases of molestation around the world is the implication that the abuse crisis has somehow been resolved in the U.S. However, here in Boston, once the epicenter of revelation, accused priests are now being returned to service in the aftermath of huge settlements. Victims are paid hundreds of thousands, then the Archdiocese announces that the charges were not credible, then anyone who is paying attention can only wait for the abuser to be accused again.

While the Church is withering, the wonder is how many Catholics still manage to follow the Pope's example, looking away from thousands of cases of sexual violence and molestation in order to maintain their faith in the magic power of an undeniably corrupt and fundamentally sick hierarchy. If you are one of those Catholics, you must ask yourself if any coherent spiritual system would encourage believers to ignore so many grave offenses against so many defenseless victims in order to ensure their own salvation. To remain a practicing Catholic in these times is to collude either directly with abusers since nearly all churches are crime scenes, or somewhat less directly with bishops who exposed countless children to soul-killing injury. How could such profound selfishness ever translate into a state of grace?

I am glad to see that the people who responded to Michael Sean Winters article are able to see that sometimes even a good writer can fall into the trap of letting his point of view overshadow his interpretation of what he is reading. I admire the writers who contribute to this news site and think that the articles are usually fair and attempt to present both sides of an argument. this is not the case with many of the catholic online news sites. I agree with Carolyn Disco's comments about Mr. Winter's article. There were several other well written responses to the article which also shows that the reader's of NCR are very intelligent and fair minded. I think it is time for the Vatican and the USCCB to take full responsibility for the scandal that has been festering for many years in our Church. The leaders who protected the sexual offenders should face the music in court.

Mr. Winters,

I can't tell that many of the commenters here have read your piece (or bothered to respond to its particular points) but I'll say that I liked it.

--Dwight

Again, C'weal answers Winters, revealing Winters' own distorted understanding of the issues. A little less bluster and more humility by NCR’s new correspondent would go a long way. See http://www.commonwealmagazine.org/blog/?p=8980

Nicholas Cafardi is “a canon lawyer and a professor of civil law at Duquesne. He was also one of the first members of the U.S. bishops’ National Review Board for the Protection of Children and Young People:”

Cafardi writes: “It is rare when issues of canon law make the front page of the New York Times and EVEN MORE RARE WHEN THE SECULAR MEDIA GETS THEIR CANONICAL ISSUES RIGHT. BUT THE TIMES STORY … **DID JUST THAT.** As the Times reported, it truly was a failure in the church’s canon-law system that exacerbated, if it did not help to cause, the clergy child sex-abuse crisis in the United States.”

Still, at the end, Cafardi writes: “It is unfair to lay this contretemps at the current pope’s door. He is a theologian, not a canon lawyer, and, like other laymen (nonprofessionals) in the field of canon law, he has to rely on what the experts tell him. But whoever inserted the phrase “hucusque vigens” in Ratzinger’s 2001 letter and whoever his Vatican canonist colleagues are, they have a lot of explaining to do.”

Is not Benedict responsible for what he writes and takes over for his purview? I understand from prior reading, the 2001 SST was essentially his initiative. As a brilliant theologian, with decades of experience in CDF matters that did include sexual abuse in certain instances, and not just in solicitation in confession, he becomes exempt from responsibility instead of sharing in it as the man in charge, or possibly the one who inserted “hucusque vigens”?

All the canonical intricacies/delicacies do not negate that a normal outrage and revulsion should have favored aggressive action. Where confusion reigns in such a vital matter, where was the sense of urgency all those decades?

Or was secrecy the highest value?

Jim Jenkins, former SF Review Board chairman, adds immeasurably to canonist Nicholas Cafardi's favorable response to the NYT, reproduced above:

http://www.commonwealmagazine.org/blog/?p=8980&cpage=2#comment-77121

"Nicholas Cafardi gives a very lawyerly account of how it all went terribly wrong legally (canonically speaking) for the Vatican in its handling of the priests sex abuse scandal.

You get the impression that if only those fumbling career politicians in the Vatican had followed their own canon law, things could have been different.

I have a decidedly less sanguine view of the Vatican’s management approach and its use of canon law to insulate itself from taking the only morally defensible response to the rape and sodomy of children.

Despite what Cafardi claims, the debate among and between the Vatican curia and American bishops about the statute of limitations in canon law regarding the sexual abuse of children by priests was still going on in 2002.

I know this is so because [now Cardinal] William Levada told me so after his return from Rome from consultations at the Inquisition (now the CDF) where then Cardinal Ratzinger was still running the show.

The San Francisco Review Board, of which I was then the chair, specifically requested that Levada convey to the curia our great distress over the possibility that the statute of limitations that would govern our investigations be anything but the American legal standard.

Our fear was, I believe justifiably, the public would never understand and further undercut any credibility of review board investigations.

There was also pushback from the Inquisition about what would constitute majority age for males and females, the canonical or the American legal standard. The Review Board was equally adamant about using the accepted American standard of 18 years of age.

These were not insignificant points of contention. If the canonical standards were used (which Cafardi confirms were still being debated within Vatican circles), this would have meant effectively that most allegations of sexual abuse against priests were mute (as far as canon law were concerned), and never would warrant any further investigation by the church’s review boards across the US.

Levada reported to us on the SF Review Board that it was the opinion of the Inquisition that canon law should always supersede American law.

Ratzinger and his allies in the curia were maneuvering to render all of the investigations of the Review Boards worthless before they even got started. Little did we then know that the hierarchy never had any intention of ever conducting independent and unvarnished investigations of sexual abuse by priests.

One of the architects of the so-called “Dallas Charter,” the Rev. Gregory Ingels, [canon lawyer and former SF chancellor for Levada] himself eventually indicted by a Marin County grand jury for the rape and sodomy of adolescents, predicted to me personally that canonical charges against him would never stand because of the prescriptions in canon law regarding statute of limitations and the majority age of males and females.

My recollection of Levada’s report of his consultations at the Inquisition was that the curia was not too pleased with the “zero tolerance” approach either adopted by American bishops at their Dallas meetings.

Face it, with Ratzinger running the show at the Inquisition, and now as pope, there was never any intention to deal forthrightly with the abuse scandal on the part of the Vatican hierarchy.

The Vatican hierarchs were engaged in a calculated strategy of delay and dissemination in hopes that they could eventually survive the tidal wave of scandal that has swamped their leadership.

How’s that working out for them?

I’m glad that Cafardi thinks that “Vatican canonists” have “a lot of explaining to do.” But, isn’t that what “Ricky Ricardo” used to say on the old “I Love Lucy Show” after one of Lucy’s comic stunts exploded in her face.

The problem, of course, is that the rape and sodomy of children by priests and bishops never has, and never will be, comical.

Winters' blind defenses of the Vatican are becoming more disappointing by the day as his analysis of US policy, as a Catholic democrat, can be so sharp. The NY Times article does a decent job--theologically, canonically, and civilly--to lay out the story. Critiquing them for not giving an expose of Catholic theology of priesthood--which, let's be honest, does not make us look all that great in the first place--is a misunderstanding of the reporters' job in this case. Also, Winter's critique that they portray then-Cardinal Ratzinger in both a negative light and a positive light misses one of the larger points of the article: The Vatican's inconsistency in it's handling of these cases points to the very disturbing fact that the Vatican (from the pope all the way down through the curial offices) does not see the responses (or lack there of) to the sexual abuse cases as a structural problem.

For years, they view each case as instances of immoral acts committed by the offending priests with no regard for the victims, the victims' families, or the communities affected. The local ordinaries or vicars had no authority to remove a priest from ministry to protect the community--granted many did not even try and it is not clear that would have done so had they had authority. The problem, then, as the article shows, is that it was the Vatican's perception of each case as a moral act between the priest and God and it's failure to adjust structurally to handle these cases.

Perhaps it is that on West there has never been any established anti-Catholic movement that had affected my family in five generations in California, but I am very suspicious of many who are on the East coast that cry "Anti-Catholicism" any time the Church is not presented in a flattering light in the press. The press is not just the watchdog of the government, it is the watchdog of any abuse of power and we, as Catholics, should be very careful not complain of bad press coverage or cry "Anti-Catholic" bias whenever the press reports on the sin that can be present in our Church.

As a Catholic convert of 26 years, I can only say becoming Catholic gave me the forgiveness of my sins and a framework of belief that works for me...I do counseling at the local Planned Parenthood where standing up for life by the concerned is looked on favorably...very favorably by many, many people in St. Louis.

I recall in the 1980's someone told me this story: A tour group was e njoying the beautiful churches of Europe. One event took them to a small chapel where behind a grated wall, men were singing the most beautiful chants that could be imagined! The tour group was stunned by the beauty of the singing. One tourist asked the guide who these men were. The guide said that the men had all abused children and this singing would be their work for the rest of their lives.

Need I say more! Patricia in St. Louis, MO

Work as if it is all up to you;pray as if it is all up to God. As for me, I will continue as a facilitator for Protecting God's Children/Virtus for my diocese. Quit arguing and get to work, people! Pray, if you can do naught else. Accept that WE have no easy answers, but the ONE who knows all things will answer and comfort all, punish all, as each deserves.

So, once more with feeling - Get to work!