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PDF versionCrisis hangs over pope in Malta like volcanic ash
by John L Allen Jr on Apr. 17, 2010
By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
Valletta, Malta
Though Pope Benedict XVI is struggling mightily to keep the focus on Malta and St. Paul during his weekend stopover here, fallout from the sexual abuse crisis continues to hang over the trip like the clouds of ash from an Icelandic volcano which are currently hovering over much of Europe.
Three fresh developments are keeping the crisis story alive, even as Benedict receives a warm and enthusiastic welcome from thousands of people in this tiny Mediterranean island nation:
- In Italy, an essay in the official newspaper of the Italian bishops’ conference described a Nazi smear campaign against the Catholic church based on reports of pedophile priests which was orchestrated by Joseph Goebbels in 1937, hinting that criticism voiced on the same theme in recent weeks bears striking parallels;
- In Spain, a defiant Cardinal Dario Castrillón Hoyos, now 81 and retired, insisted that he had the approval of Pope John Paul II when he sent a letter to a French bishop in 2001 applauding him for not reporting an abuser priest to the police;
- In Germany, a report in the Der Spiegel newsmagazine, citing anonymous sources, claims that an official in the Archdiocese of Munich who claimed that he, not then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, had allowed an abuser priest back into ministry, is now saying that he felt pressure to take the blame and thus to “take the pope out of the firing line.”
Meanwhile, Benedict XVI did not meet today with local sex abuse victims in Malta who have requested a session with the pontiff, and trip organizers refused to say whether such a meeting remains possible for tomorrow.
The cumulative weight of events makes it seem as if Pope Benedict XVI can’t escape the crisis even in ultra-Catholic Malta, which according to the New Testament offered St. Paul, the “Apostle to the Gentiles,” safe harbor from a storm some 1,950 years ago.
Goebbels and “moral panic”
The Goebbels comparison came from Italian sociologist of religion Massimo Introvigne, writing in the April 16 edition of L’Avvenire, the official daily newspaper of the Italian bishops. Though Introvigne is a layman, L’Avvenire is generally held to reflect the thinking of senior levels of the Italian church and of the Vatican.
While Introvigne’s essay is carefully documented, and he never directly compares critics of Benedict XVI to Goebbels or the Nazis, the implication nonetheless seems clear. The fact that it was given prominent treatment in an authoritative Catholic publication is also striking.
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Introvigne argued that Goebbels went about creating a “moral panic” about priestly pedophilia in 1937 as a form of payback for an anti-Nazi encyclical from Pope Pius XI. The nature of a moral panic, he asserts, is to take a handful of real cases, and then to distort their numbers beyond recognition.
An English translation of the essay is available on the NCR web site here: http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/sociologist-compares-todays-crisis-...
Castrillón Hoyos
Meanwhile, questions continue to mount about a 2001 letter from Cardinal Dario Castrillón Hoyos, at the time the prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for Clergy, to Bishop Pierre Pican of Bayeux-Lisieux, France.
Pican was sentenced by a French court to three months in prison, though that term was suspended, for failing to report a French priest, Fr. René Bissey, who was convicted in October 2000 for sexual abuse of eleven minor boys between 1989 and 1996.
Castrillón wrote to Pican in September 2001, saying: “I rejoice to have a colleague in the episcopate that, in the eyes of history and all the others bishops of the world, preferred prison rather than denouncing one of his sons, a priest. ”
That letter was published earlier this week by the French Catholic publication Golias.
After that report appeared, a Vatican statement attempted to distance the Vatican, and Pope Benedict XVI, from Castrillón’s letter. Jesuit Fr. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesperson, said the letter offers “another confirmation of how timely was the unification of the treatment of cases of sexual abuse of minors on the part of members of the clergy under the competence of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.”
That congregation was led by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the man who is now the pope, and who is credited with taking a more aggressive approach to sex abuse cases. In effect, the thrust of the Vatican statement was to suggest that Castrillón’s letter illustrated the problems that Ratzinger faced in kick-starting the Vatican into action.
On Friday, however, during at a conference at a Catholic university in Murcia, Spain, the 81-year-old Castrillón insisted that he had shown the letter in advance to John Paul II, and that the late pope had authorized him not only to send it but to eventually post it on the internet.
Castrillón said that the issue at stake in his letter was protection of the seal of the confessional. The cardinal said he was applauding Pican for maintaining the sanctity of the sacrament, and cited canon 983 of the Code of Canon Law, concerning the confessional.
Some analysts have questioned whether the sanctity of the confessional directly applies in this case, since Pican said in 2001 that he had discussed the case with the victims and with another priest. French law recognizes the seal of the confessional as part of a protected category of “professional secrets,” but makes an exception for crimes committed against minors.
According to reports in the Spanish media, senior church officials at the conference, including two Vatican cardinals, applauded when Castrillón issued his defense.
Beyond the specific question of the confessional, Castrillón has long been among those church leaders who argue that bishops should not be put in the position of reporting their priests to the police or other authorities, on the grounds that it disrupts a father/son relationship with his clergy. Instead, such leaders suggest, bishops should encourage the victims themselves to make a report.
Asked about Castrillón’s statements during a press briefing tonight in Malta, Lombardi said that he wouldn’t go beyond his statement earlier in the week, except to point out that the 2001 document assigning responsibility for sex abuse cases to Ratzinger’s office was signed “by John Paul II, not by me,” and invited journalists “to draw the conclusions.”
Gruber backtracking?
When media outlets first reported on the case of Peter Hullermann, a German priest from the diocese of Essen who came into the Archdiocese of Munich facing accusations of abuse while Ratzinger was archbishop and was given another assignment there, the General Vicar of Munich from the time, Gerhard Gruber, immediately took responsibility.
In statements released both by the Munich archdiocese and by the Vatican, Gruber said that he had been responsible for personnel decisions and that Ratzinger was not informed of the details of the Hullermann case.
Now, however, Der Spiegel is reporting that Gruber has privately told friends that he felt pressure to act as a “scapegoat.” According to the account, he was sent a fax with the details of the statement already prepared and felt pressure to sign off on it.
Der Spiegel does not cite any sources for its account. Asked about it tonight, Lombardi declined comment because he had not yet seen the article.
Many analysts feel that of the cases from Benedict’s past which have arisen in recent weeks, Hullermann remains the most potentially serious for the pope. The others concern his years at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and often his role came late in the process and was relatively marginal. Hullermann, however, came into Munich on Ratzinger’s watch, apparently without explicit restrictions on his ministry, and went on to abuse other people for which he was criminally convicted in 1986.
If Gruber indeed back-tracks from his original assertion of full responsibility, it could draw new attention to the pope’s role in the Hullermann case.
[John Allen is NCR senior correspondent. His e-mail address is jallen@ncronline.org.]
We are not getting the truth
We are not getting the truth from Joe Ratzinger. He is up to his old tricks. He will not take responsibility and he will not take major steps towards opening all of the Church;s hidden files on sexual abusers of children. We must also realize that some of these abusers were also bishops, not only priests. The fact that many countries regard cover-up and recycling of abusers by bishops and cardinals to be CRIMINAL behavior. Benedict is trying to play the martyr and it is not going to work or to serve him or the Church well. He is hurting the Church by continuing to protect secrets and not own up to his own role in this crisis. This is why so many Catholics are calling for his resignation.
Nothing much has really
Nothing much has really changed since the not-so-remote time of these two articles NCR online articles by John L Allen Jr. ...
... with public statements issued by Vatican officials including Julian Cardinal Herranz, Tarcisio Cardinal Bertone and Fr. Gianfranco Ghirlando, S.J., to the effect that bishops should not be obliged to cooperate with secular legal authorities in cases involving sexual abuse by clerics.
"...the implication
"...the implication nonetheless seems clear."
Memo to current pope:
As you yourself observed "this dark cloud that’s hanging over parts of Europe," while en route to Malta, one must ask:
Where's the SACKCLOTH to go with all this divinely provided ASH currently heading for ROME?
Time for the cappa magna Tridentine crowd to put all that silk away!
Hey that's a good article
Hey that's a good article there! It shows how balanced the NCR is.
However, I find that the devil is now pressing every button to push Pope Benedict out of the papal throne. I am a new convert to Catholicism from the Seventh-day Adventist, and am shocked to learn of these cover ups of sexual abuses. I personally feel that if there was some pope who would tolerate rationalism, gay priesthood and godless democracy and freedom, it would be "long live!" by all papers by now. The only crime of this pontif is being open and his frank dealings on sex abuses. I believe that all of us should pray for him.
If it is true, remember, that he who has no sin must throw the stone first. show me a pope without a sin to replace Benedict, and I will show you an impostor.
What is particularly sickening about this saga is how vocal and aggressive are non-Catholic groups and peoples. Do they mean that they would like to organise the administration of our church? The central focus of the church is Christ: as long as we seek to have omissions by the Holy Father condemned and let him resign, surely our firmness as a Christian community is questionable. Our church, just like any other community of believers, is built up of sinners who need Christ's salvation and not of pure saints. This also includes every successor of St. Peter. Even St. Peter himself had his own failings such as inconsistency.
May God bless you all, I just hope that we will emerge much stronger from this storm. keep on praying, our true joy without stain is at the right hand of God, where we strive to go on our death.
Lay Catholic here in Zimbabwe
The archdiocese of Munich has
The archdiocese of Munich has denied the Spiegel report about Gruber being pressured.
http://www.oecumene.radiovaticana.org/ted/Articolo.asp?c=373233
It would be good if Gruber himself would come forward and clarify the situation one way or another.
"Kellner erklärte dazu, dass
"Kellner erklärte dazu, dass dem Erzbistum schon seit Wochen ein Schreiben Grubers vorliege, in dem er Darstellungen von dritter Seite zurückweise, er sei „zu irgendetwas gezwungen“ worden."
(http://www.oecumene.radiovaticana.org/ted/Articolo.asp?c=373233)
Rough translation:
Kellner explained on this, that the archdiocese had weeks ago already presented a communication from Gruber, in which he rejected third-hand accounts, that he was "forced into anything."
"In Spain, a defiant Cardinal
"In Spain, a defiant Cardinal Dario Castrillón Hoyos, now 81 and retired, insisted that he had the approval of Pope John Paul II when he sent a letter to a French bishop in 2001 applauding him for not reporting an abuser priest to the police."
After being thrown under the bus, Castillon Hoyos is now pulling John Paul II under the bus with him. I have little doubt that Castrillon Hoyos had the approval of John Paul the Great Enabler. This is why the sainthood cause for John Paul II needs to be put on hold until all the documents from his reign are published.
Steve
"Some analysts have
"Some analysts have questioned whether the sanctity of the confessional directly applies in this case, since Pican said in 2001 that he had discussed the case with the victims and with another priest."
I don't much care about the requirements of secular law in instances where it is set over against those of the seal of confession. There is an obligation to God that is primary in these cases. The prosecution, successfully and rightly in my view, demonstrated that the seal of confession wasn't governing here and for the reasons you offer above. Pican appears to have been hiding behind the seal, which makes his claim of innocence particularly loathsome. Castrillón’s defense of Pican is made to appear knee-jerk as a consequence also. Could he possibly have considered the fact that Pican had known of the particulars prior to the priest's confession? I doubt if he cared from the sound of things.
Here's the problem: Joe
Here's the problem: Joe Ratzinger has a vested interest in preserving the "image" of the "infallibility" aura that has haunted the papacy since it was a declared dogma at Vatican Council I. Now, in the twenty-first century, most Catholics do accept that dogma as anything more than a very human power play. It's like the little man behind the curtain in The Wizard of Oz. It does not hold up to scrutiny. It is a man made device that has hurt the universal Church because it has little to do with the Church that takes its' message from Jesus. The imperial Roman empire model of the Latin Rite Church has failed and will continue to decay and crumble because it is not following the spirit of Vatican II, which was a reformation of the very things that was turning the Church into a museum. Christ did not intend to the imperial model. It has failed. Benedict want to preserve and protect this model at all costs. He is not only failing in this silliness, but he is hurting the Church. He can only win back the respect from the vast majority of Catholics, by being open and honest and this means FULL TRANSPARENCY. Right wingers find this impossible because they want and demand a model of Church that has already passed into another century. There is no going back to a triumphalist model. It is too late for such silliness in a world that is starving, hurting and so much in need of the inclusive love of Christ as practiced by the primitive Church. Joe (Benedict) Ratzinger really does need to open every file of the child sexual abusers and come clean with the world. His role in this scandal in criminal and he needs to own it. If he is unable to show such courage and backbone, then really should resign as Bishop of Rome.
"... church leaders who argue
"... church leaders who argue that bishops should not be put in the position of reporting their priests to the police or other authorities, on the grounds that it disrupts a father/son relationship with his clergy."
Mr. Allen, can you please elaborate on and critique this concept? The theology of it? How does this father/son relationship square with the shepherd/flock relationship that Jesus espoused in the gospels? What does it say about the attitude/beliefs of the Church hierarchy relative to who is the Church, the priests or the entire Church as the Body of Christ?
I continually find it hard to
I continually find it hard to believe that catholics would continue to support this corrupt church. I am a survivor of priest abuse as a child. I feel I have to constantly remind catholics of whatever political persuasion that the leadership of their church consciously tried to intimidate us survivors and then bribe us. And then they lied about it to their own laity, to civil authorities and the media. The leadership includes popes (living and dead), cardinals and bishops. They all took part in a conspiracy of silence. The church leadership should be tried for the crime of being accessories to child abuse, be found guilty and put in prison. I hope all catholics can hear this truth.
First, let me address the
First, let me address the three points that John Allen made:
a) Introvigne pretty much describes what happened in Germany in those dark years. The parallels in the methods are stunning indeed. Seeing how especially the German press treats the problem today (turning every unchecked rumor into a "Crucify him!"), it is very hard to not feel uncomfortable (take it from me, I am German).
b) The Hoyos case has been appropriately addressed by Fr. Lombardi. All that follows now will be attemts on the part of the Cardinal to pull some half-alive body out of the trainwreck that will be his legacy. This is a shame because he is a very decent priest who gives good homilies.
c) The former vicar general of Munich, Gruber, already denied the assumptions made by DER SPIEGEL: http://www.sueddeutsche.de/25438M/3318119/Ex-Generalvikar-wehrt-sich.html
The Smith and McKee and the likes I'd suggest that they show the kind of humility they demand of a man who probably has a bit more of a weight to carry than any given reader commenting here in a style that is lacking due respect ("Joe Ratzinger" - pur-leaze! What is this? "I am too enlightened to behave"-central?) or tries to boil the whole thing down to cheap ad-hom shots ("cappa magna Tridentine crowd"... Yeah, right! THAT'S what it's all about...)
As for "We are not getting the truth": Here's you chance to decide for yourselves whether you want to believe a notoriously anti-catholic fishwrap like DER SPIEGEL or Fr. Gruber, who is directly involved. Don't worry! There'll be plenty of self-righteousness left, even if you give Gruber some creds.
While I am pretty much on board with the total transparency (up to a point, that is), I feel obliged to remind everybody who is wielding the "Spirit of VCII"-axe, that there are certain documents out there, which will reveal this "Spirit" fairly clearly. And please: Drop the "inclusive love"-talk. That raises too many St. Mary's/Brisbane-flags. I am pretty sure that everybody who is educated enough to write comments here, wealthy enough to afford a computer and realistic enough about the "wine/water" thing will have no problems spending some of his/her time to indeed make the world a better place outside of com-boxes, just like the evil imperialists in the Vatican somehow still manage to maintain the largest welfare organization on earth.
On the Spiegel story, Gruber
On the Spiegel story, Gruber himself has now issued a denial:
http://www.sueddeutsche.de/25438M/3318119/Ex-Generalvikar-wehrt-sich.html
Very beneficial information.
Very beneficial information. Anticipate to observe a lot more content rapidly! * 28900
Good day! He will not take
Good day! He will not take responsibility and he will not take major steps towards opening all of the Church;s hidden files on sexual abusers of children. We must also realize that some of these abusers were also bishops, not only priests. The fact that many countries regard cover-up and recycling of abusers by bishops and cardinals to be CRIMINAL behavior. mkv to avi
thanks nice great sharing and
thanks nice great sharing and i have to say thanks
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