Smoking Gun?
April 9, 2010, 8:25 pm
Posted by Eric Bugyis
The NYTimes just reported the release of a letter from 1985 signed by then-Cardinal Ratzinger instructing that a known child molester not be defrocked:
The priest, convicted of tying up and abusing two young boys in a California church rectory, wanted to leave the ministry. But in 1985, four years after the priest and his bishop first asked that he be defrocked, the future Pope Benedict XVI, then a top Vatican official, signed a letter saying that the case needed more time and that “the good of the Universal Church” had to be considered in the final decision, according to church documents released because of lawsuits against the church.
drip, drip, drip……………
Eric… it’s an AP story.. saying it’s the NYT just gets C.Levada and Wild Bill Donohoe all riled up with the usual ‘bad translation’ or wrong curia congregation was lettered by the diocese BS.
As I said elsewhere Bishop Cummins Oakland had the best team in place to reduce abuse and work with survivors and he did that in the early eighties. Best in the nation.. and cardinal Ratzinger gave him the stiff arm. When will the excuse babies stop and get it. please if you don’t get it yet, stop posting the wingnut talking points.
. Hint…. Tiger…came clean and was cheered on first tee. .. Curia toadies have already taken this path away from BXVI.. so he has to resign,, please I hope he takes toadies with him.
Well, Benedict is being trussed up as a juicy scapegoat for angry secularists and angry Catholics. I feel sorry for him.
I wonder what commonwealers make of this analysis (in blame-the-gays mode): http://pblosser.blogspot.com/2010/04/validity-of-homosexual-vows-of-chastity.html
Not only is it an AP story, it’s an AP story that was first published seven hours before this blog post, so the “just” is a little misleading.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100410/ap_on_re_us/us_pope_church_abuse
No, it is not an AP story. The link provided by Eric is to a story by N.Y. Times staff reporters Laurie Goodstein and Michael Luo.
And no, the word “just” is not misleading, because the Times’s story had just been published when Eric started this post.
It is also true that, earlier in the day, the Times did publish an AP story; but that’s not the one that Eric’s post links to; it’s the one that Amy’s comment links to.
Here is a voluminous cache of defenses of the Pope: http://paparatzinger3-blograffaella.blogspot.com/
http://www.lastampa.it/_web/CMSTP/tmplrubriche/giornalisti/grubrica.asp?ID_blog=196&ID_articolo=755&ID_sezione=&sezione=
This is from the highly respected Enzo Bianchi.
We will hear how this is just another attempt to attack the Pope. Perhaps it is, but still, there is the need for change. It is not that I think he needs to step down, but I think he has a serious need to help create for a change. Benedict needs to make everything out in the open before the press does. He needs to say, “let’s have a real talk about the system in place, let’s have a real talk of what real changes we can put into place.” Yes, I understand change can be difficult. But it is clear there is a breakdown in the system, and until it is entirely recognized as such, it will continue to be an open, festering wound. I also understand many people want to suggest wrong kinds of change – and that, I think, is one of the many aspects of why the defensive posture; but that’s not a good enough reason not to correct this wound.
Father O’Leary,
Thank you for the links (in your 11:45 comment) which are worth consulting (some are quite thoughtful and do not merit being termed “wingnut talking points”).
As for “the highly respected Enzo Bianchi,” I suspect that he too would be considered by some a “toady.”
I appreciated the editorial in the current “Commonweal” for its thoughtfulness and balance. Mr. Karlson’s comment seems to me to reflect some of that balance.
“Benedict needs to make everything out in the open before the press does. ”
And he needs to stop saying “this proves I was right all along about secularization, sexual ferment, and Vatican II.” He needs to say this is not about liberals getting the upper hand, it is about the way power has been used and concentrated in the hierarchy. He needs to say — and to begin to model in the way he leads — that ensuring the future of the Christian mission, this great blessing with which we are all entrusted, is not primarily about *protection* (of reputation, of doctrinal purity, of assets), but about living out our encounter with and in Christ in love and trust.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/10/us/10beliefs.html?scp=1&sq=treating%20pedophiles&st=cse
From this morning’s NYT, an article about a psychologist who treated 300 priests.
From that:
—————
“I had predicted 15 years ago that this would go up to the pope,” Dr. Lothstein said.
He unwittingly found himself in the news almost 10 years ago, when it was reported that the Catholic Church had sent priests to the Institute of Living for treatment without always telling the doctors the full details of the priests’ transgressions. (One of those priests was the superpredator John Geoghan, whom Dr. Lothstein treated.) What’s more, the Catholic hierarchy often ignored the institute’s recommendations about the priests’ fitness for service.
“I found that they rarely followed our recommendations,” Dr. Lothstein told The Hartford Courant in 2002. “They would put them back into work where they still had access to vulnerable populations.”
This is the reason for the defensive posture. More is coming.
Eric:
Did you actually read the snippet you posted from the New York Times as well as the entire story? It does not say what you say it says. The NYT says nothing about the about “then-Cardinal Ratzinger instructing that a known child molester not be defrocked.” The part of the story you quote summarizes Ratzinger as saying that the case needed more time. The NY Times says (in its expert judgement of the legal actions of the CDF) that the Pope “put off punishing an abusive priest.” None of this is same thing as instructing someone not to “defrock” a known child molester. The priest was in fact later laicised as the story reported. Hardly the sensational “smoking gun” that you seem to want to find.
“Enough of all of this!” said Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone SDB. “These allegations are absolutely without foundation,” added Fr Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman.
Have you people in the United States (who “are not noted as examples of ‘high’ culture,” according to Cardinal William Levada! http://www.vatican.va/resources/resources_card-levada2010_en.html) ever heard of, “Roma locuta est, causa finita est” ?
Your “petty gossip” is deflecting attention from the more important things in the Church, like today’s opening of a two-month-long public display of the Shroud of Turin.
If there’s any element of healthy skepticism about the trial lawyer view of the world in this cycle of journalism, it’s extremely hard to find.
I prefer the days when newshounds were less sophisticated but more evenhanded, disillusioned about both sides of a controversy.
Regarding this particular case, if it is true that this priest committed this heinous crime, why did he only get probation? How does the court justify this? How does this sentence fit the crime and protect children from further abuse? Was there not enough evidence to convict? If there was not enough evidence to convict, how did this effect how the Church responded?
Anonymous: I don’t want to find anything.
Just a quick comment on the link that Joseph O’Leary passed on (the blame-the-gays one): even if one buys 100% of the “Pertinacious Papist” on the horrors of homosexuality, and the way it leads gay priests to become predators, what do we do with the bishops (to say nothing of curial officials) who enabled those priests to continue their predations, and to shield them from the law?
Perhaps we are meant to believe in a Giant Homosexual Conspiracy, involving homosexual priests, homosexual bishops, and homosexual curial officials, all covering one another’s tracks? That would seem to be the logical implication of such post.
As a general non-believer in conspiracy theories, I think there are easier and more convincing explanations.
Normally there is a rhythm to the press’ revelations of sexual abuse by priests. Typically, a report is released or some previously suppressed documents are given to journalists, who reveal their contents close the the time of acquisition. The other scenario is that an event of public record, like a ruling or a settlement, warrants investigation and analysis. After that there is usually a quiescent period of a least a few weeks. This recent spate of articles and responses from the Vatican has the rhythm of a snowball fight: a piece of “evidence” is hurled over the barricades by the press and the Vatican either ducks or raises a shield in an attempt to deflect. When Archbishop Dolan accused the New York Times of an anti-Catholic bias I dismissed this as a PR diversion from the issues. After 3 weeks of following this “dialogue” between The New York Times and spokesmen for the Church, I would not agree that their is a bias, but I certainly suspect an agenda. There seems to be a lot of inches of text in proportion to actual news. Is the Times pragmatically trying to boost circulation or is there an effort to elicit a specific response from the target? I am a practicing Catholic and an advocate for an unpopular cause in the Archdiocese of New York(Our Lady of Vilnius). I am not an intellectual operating at a cool remove. When I take in my morning paper I immediately look for this “page-turner” but when I find it I feel sick at heart. Yesterday’s paper, ifrom which this topic was totally absent, was a cause for joy.
It is the smoking gun.
The bishop wanted to laicize this priest, who had been convicted in court of crimes that should have made Cardinal Ratzinger aghast. Why wait? Because the priest was too young, Ratzinger says. For the good of the church. Hunh? If anyone understands what this means, please help me understand what it is. I’ve been puzzling over this. Did he think this was a phase he would outgrow?
One of the things that I was happy to see was that the American bishop in question was doing the right thing. That was cheering. Also, the woman who, after her letters were unanswered, finally succeeded in having this guy removed from her parish as a volunteer youth minister, by collaring the bishop at Confirmation! These are the heroes of the story, in my estimation.
I agree with Mark. Stop blaming the liberals, secularization, and Vatican II. “It is about the way power has been used and concentrated in the hierarchy. He needs to say — and to begin to model in the way he leads — that ensuring the future of the Christian mission, this great blessing with which we are all entrusted, is not primarily about *protection* (of reputation, of doctrinal purity, of assets), but about living out our encounter with and in Christ in love and trust.” Thank you, Mark.
As for Seamus, aka Anonmymous, above, your contention that putting off punishment is not the same as not defrocking is the sheerest sort of sophistry, and a fig leaf you should be ashamed to dangle over this incredible demonstration that the Roman levels of the hierarchy were in denial about even what constitutes a scandal. Delay for what? The case needed more time. Why?
Every time one of those stories comes out, people spend time arguing whether the responsibility of the mismanagement lies with the diocese or this or that office of the Vatican curia or Cardinal Ratzinger or John-Paul II, what the rules were and whether they were followed properly.
Regardless, isn’t is obvious that the church is mismanaged and that, as an organization, it is dysfunctional? Can we agree on that at least?
Bob Mickens:
Levada’s facts are so distorted; he took Brundage at face value. The corrective:
“Priest Who Oversaw Church Trial in Wisconsin Abuse Case Acknowledges Error”
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/09/priest-who-oversaw-church-trial-in-wisconsin-abuse-case-admits-error/#preview
Consider the source:
The Man Who Keeps the Secrets by Jason Berry
http://www.sanfranmag.com/story/man-who-keeps-secrets
“When San Francisco’s archbishop was called to Rome to become the church’s top cop, few were aware that William Levada has worked tirelessly throughout his career to protect sexual predator priests.” And now he heads the store.
Yes, mismanaged. For one thing, there’s the constant claim that they have only a few (10? 20?) people to handle all the cases. WHY DON’T THEY ASSIGN MORE?
If a house is knee-deep in “filth”, the owners hire additional people to clean it out — as many as it takes. They don’t just wallow and whine.
“WHY DON’T THEY ASSIGN MORE?”
Why do the same people who seem to think the Vatican is some sort of reactionary, monolithic empirical enforcer of strict orthodoxy then turn around and ask why the Vatican did not assign more people to monitoring the homosexual priest abuse scandal? Did you want to have a Vatican Inquisitor on hand in each diocese, just waiting for an abuse claim to arise so it could be dealt with that same afternoon?
Nicholas, just as it is unjust discrimination to incriminate Good Priests in the sexual abuse scandal, it is unjust discrimination to incriminate all those with a “homosexual” inclination in the abuse scandal. This does not change the fact that The Church should not accept into Religious and Diocesan Life, any person who does not recognize or denies The Truth regarding God’s intention for Sexual Love within a Holy Marriage between a Man and Woman as Husband and Wife.
Hi, Paul!
I hope you’re not placing me in the “same people” category. I don’t think (or speak or post) in terms of “strict orthodoxy” at all. As to dealing with problems “that same afternoon”? Yes, of course.
If a child goes home and tells his parents he was tied up and molested, should it be dealt with that afternoon or ten, twenty, thirty, years later? If you get tied up and molested, should it be dealt with that afternoon? Should the age of the molester be a consideration?
To answer some of the ‘defenders of the hierarchy’ concerns. As for homosexual priests.. Kiselle went on to molest girls. [Read sociopath]; Nancy asks why only probation in1978 from civil authorities [ read; diocesan attorneys, Catholic law enforcement, and bishop reachout]
Does anyone here know about the thousands of secret settlements for a few thousand bucks for the lawyer and counselling that was done in the eightys? .. until about 1985 when the insurance companies said ‘you guys have too many pre-existing conditions so go away’.
We have all heard about pre-existing conditions havn’t we?
So as others have well pointed out… it’s the cover-up… let’s discuss the fallout from the cover-up.. Who can remain in positions of leadership who participated in cover-up? If BXVI goes now or soon how can we have faith in the college of cardinals almost all of whom were fully knowledgable about the cover-up? Can they and should they be the ones to pick from among themselves the next Pope? Can they be obliged by the laity and the Holy Spirit to reach ‘down’ to the next tier of Bishops to name a successor, one who did not cover-up?. When Constantinople was looking for a new patriarch in the 400s they reached out to a holy monk and sent a military delegation to escort St John Chryostom to Constantinople to a welcoming cheering crowd.. Let’s repeat what has worked in the past.
Paul, you ask, “Did you want to have a Vatican Inquisitor on hand in each diocese, just waiting for an abuse claim to arise so it could be dealt with that same afternoon?”
That question makes me wonder the following: suppose you are the father of one of the little girls (or boys) Fr. Kiesele molested.
Would you hope for some resolution and protection of your children this afternoon?
Or eight years later?
If you’d want the resolution and protection of your children immediately, then I wonder why we ought to expect anything less, by way or understanding and protective action, from religious authority figures than we’d expect if the children in question were our own?
Carolyn, I’m sure Mr. Mickens intended his post to be ironic. (As Claire found out a few days ago, irony is perilous on a blog.)
Gerelyn, good point: “They don’t just wallow and whine.”
A position I’ve heard from some is to point out that this is not such a scandalous issue. The fact is, these bishops are human. Human beings covering up for each other in order preserve their power happens; the abuse happens. Far worse events in the Church have happened. Popes have fathered children, the Chinese Church is split between underground and above-ground collaborators with the government; clerics in the Soviet Union collaborated with the governments. These are far worse than the sexual abuse; these phenomena have a direct impact on the spiritual well-being and souls of those who are victims of these sins. A basic tenet of Catholic theology is that the institutional church and the sacramental Church are different entities. The institutional Church may fault; its clerics and its members may sin; but, the Church does not lose its authority, its power, because its power does not come from the institution. We seem to forget that in this in our reactions, and that these are human beings, men we should realize aren’t particularly strong to begin with.
I agree with those who view this as a serious issue the Church needs to confront. But, I suppose the question is why are we so upset, in light of the Church’s history and the sins that continue to be committed by members in the Church?
One can defend the hierarcy while incriminating those members who have brought scandal to The Church. Regarding the secret “settlements”, how is Justice served when such settlements do not protect Children from future abuse? If I were a lawyer, there is no way I would settle a case if that meant the guilty would be free to continue to abuse. Clearly there is a problem in our Justice System. As a Mother, I can assure you, no one could keep me from reporting the abuse of any of my Children or any Child.
Rita
The implication here seems to be that by “delaying” the laicization of Kiesle Ratzinger somehow put children at risk. But no, Kiesle had left active ministry on his own and was no longer functioning as a priest. Would and did laicization change of any of this? There is no evidence that it did. In fact to the contrary. The diocese did NOT always do the right thing. This apparent from the fact that Mr. Kiesle was functioning as a coordinator of a youth ministry program at a parish in 1988 which was after his 1987 laicization!
Why did Cardinal Ratzinger think he needed more time with the case? Well, we don’t know because the NY Times either could not or chose not to include the Acta from the case mentioned in the letters it published. Laicization is a legal proceeding. It is not something automatic. There could be all kinds of reasons legally speaking that could require more time for the case. The man was laicized a year and a half after Ratzinger’s letter. The Vatican spokesman was on to something when he said these are documents taken out of a legal context.
Seamus O’Connor
Mr. Karlson, Rita, and Carolyn – excellent balanced comments and documentation to back it up. This is getting tiresome in my estimation. As many of us have already stated, B16 or almost any other bishop/cardinal in the 1980′s behaved exactly in the same mode.
My guess is that a diligent reporter can find hundreds of cases in which Rome delayed, waited, excused their own bishops’ requests to laicize. Even this, as some of you have noted, misses the larger questions – these priests were not reported to civil authority in most cases; very few priests faced criminal charges because of the secrecy, SOL laws, etc. These types of “smoking guns” miss the point that the “SYSTEM” – bishops/cardinals covered up.
It is almost as if we can not see the forest for the trees (individual drip. drip, drip)
No, Joe, it won’t wash.
Collaborating with a coercive regime under Communism, evil though such action may be, is a decision taken under what may reasonably be seen as duress. There are penalties for refusing; there are pressures brought to bear that are not about PR or the Church’s reputation but about prison, beatings, and fears of a similar kind.
Fr. Kiesele tied up boys in his rectory and sexually abused them. He had already been tried and convicted in a civil court. His crime is considered reprehensible by his society, and by the law of the land. His bishop wants to defrock him. Ratzinger says it’s premature. How is this in any way similar to the moral decision faced by someone who is recruited as an informer for the Stasi or who works with the Patriotic Catholic Church in China? It’s just not.
There is one way in which the behavior of clergy under Communism may have something in common with the sex abuse scandal, and in both cases it is reprehensible and ought to be rooted out. We are seeing it in the Macial case: it’s bribes. Some the repressive regimes offered incentives for being an informer, as well as penalties for refusing. This form of corruption is as old as the hills, but it doesn’t mean we should accept it as inevitable.
Second, in Catholic theology there is not such a neat separation between institution and sacrament as you are supposing. Christ instituted the sacraments, and the power given to the Church flows through them; they are institutions just as they are means of grace. Like the word of God, which is both divinely inspired and the work of human authors, we have to reckon with both.
What about priests who themselves never abused anyone — sexually, physically, spiritually, financially, professionally, etc., but who knew fellow priests who were abusers?
Did they report the men they knew were molesting children? Did they report those who were not criminals, but who were having affairs with consenting adults? Did they confront those who were taking teenagers to their lake cabins, etc.? If not, why not? If so, with what results?
Seamus O’Connor,
Thanks, first of all, for sharing your name. Thanks secondly for clarifying what issues you are concerned about. Were more children endangered by the delay in his laicization? I really don’t know. I’ve known a few priests who have been in anomalous positions, out of active ministry, but who still maintain a following, self-identify as priests, and go about their business, such as it is. This fellow seemed to be pursuing “youth work” vigorously, with or without his collar. Laicization didn’t stop him, and may even have removed what little oversight his activities had while he was a priest. But what laicization does accomplish is a distancing of this individual from his symbolic role as a representative of the Catholic hierarchy. This is a net gain. (I’ve said here before that I find it unsatisfactory, as a lay person, that the lay state should be considered a kind of “dumping ground” for priest-criminals — we ALL ought to be held to the standards of Christ, by our baptism. But that’s another discussion.)
The second point you raise, that there may have been some legal reason that time was needed, is of course quite interesting. I just can’t imagine what it would be. If there were some definite reasons why the case needed more time, I’d be open to hearing them. Nobody has raised any, either in presenting this news or in “dismissing” it. I’ve even half wondered if this might have been a form letter. Wasn’t there a freeze on laicizations for a while? Rome wasn’t granting any, because they thought too many priests were leaving to get married? This would be no excuse, but you can see I am still trying vainly to understand what in the world could have been on Ratzinger’s mind here.
“Would you hope for some resolution and protection of your children this afternoon?”
By the local bishop, of course. Not by the Pope or the head of the CDF, for Peter’s sake. The point is that people are trying to inculcate Pope Benedict in this filth as if he were supposed to fly off to every parish around the world every time there was an abuse claim and resolve it that afternoon. Or that the Vatican should have prepositioned Inquisitors in every parish waiting in an office for a sexual abuse claim to be called in. Is that how we want our Church to be run?
The cases alleged to implicate then-Cardinal Ratzinger are simply unrealistic in their expectations of immediate Vatican high-level resolution of a problem that should have been resolved by the local bishop. Blame those bishops, fine. But don’t scapegoat the Pope. In particular, from a practical viewpoint, don’t blame Benedict, who has already instituted wide-ranging reforms to prevent (or at least minimize) such things from happening now and in the future.
For those who persist in calling for the Pope to resign: what would you have him do? Today? What specific action could he take that he has not already taken, what is it that would make you say “Alright, that’s what I wanted done, I now rescind my demand that he resign.” Specify.
Does anyone else get the impression that the clergy sex abuse crisis (including the cover-ups) has become the ultimate platform for everyone to project their favorite scapegoat onto? Angry neocon Catholics blame The Gays (who else?). Slightly less militant conservative Catholics blame a kind of spiritual atrophy; we’re in this mess because we aren’t authentically Catholic enough (ala George Weigel’s The Courage to Be Catholic). Angry, subtly anti-Catholic secular commentators who do not understand Catholic sexual ethics in the slightest blame celibacy. And liberal journalists blame clericalism, dogmatism, and the fact that the Church isn’t run as a democracy of liberal laypeople; after all, that’s what’s wrong with the Church today, right?
I don’t mean to belittle the scandal, and I certainly don’t mean to belittle the despicable cover-ups. It is the responses of people not directly involved in the scandal that seem to me to be utterly predictable.
Look for more stories. Not because of anti-pope or anti-Catholic bias. As the Vatican is on the defensive imputing motives rather than disproving accusations, it is natural for publications to seek to justify their reporting. Best is to apologize and acknowledge so we can build from that. If denial is the position it invites people to prove their case.
Rita,
thanks for the response. I have a similar position as you have. The actions by the clergy toward the sex abuse is of a different kind from those choices, as evil as they were, of the collaborating clergy under evil regimes.
As for the distinction between institution and its source of sacramental power, I thank you for your explanation. When I hear that type of argument, from good, orthodox Catholics (of which I consider myself a part of that group), it makes me pause. There is a tendency in some to forget about (or ignore) the relevance of the human dimension by overemphasizing this distinction and placing most of the emphasis on the grace and power bestowed by Christ. The indifference toward the significance of real world suffering (versus the more abstract crosses borne and sins overcome by the Mother Church as she continues her fight for Truth and against evil) is I think problematic. Should not clerics, though human, be held to a higher standard by virtue of their station and the powers exercised? Or, do we acknowledge their fallenness, the devil’s work in the world, realize the Church will overcome this problem as it has others far worse in its past, and move on?
Christopher, like it or not, there is a crisis.
And there are causes that contribute to the crisis that need to be dealt with.And ther eis the need for the full truth to make that possible.
One can put one’s head in the sand and say i’m not invoved, by the Church (us too0 is much involved.
We just had a big thread on whether people are leaving or not.
That’s inmdicative of how this issue is mightily important to many, many.
“For those who persist in calling for the Pope to resign: what would you have him do? Today? What specific action could he take that he has not already taken, what is it that would make you say “Alright, that’s what I wanted done, I now rescind my demand that he resign.” Specify.”
Resign. Today.
or:
1. Dissolve the Curia. It does more harm than good.
2. Dissolve all de facto and actual personal prelatures like the Leigionaries who have “purchased influence” [bribed] the Vatican.
3. Appoint an imparital “internal affairs committee” which has unlimited power and standing to ivestigate all accusations of corruption or clergy sex abuse. All reports of the committeee are in writing and published. The Pope, being the Pope has full discretion to ingore or act on the reports, but they are public.
4. Appoint another committee to investigate and determine worldwide whether celibacy is obverved at all and to what extent. Publish the results. No extensive study of celibacy and how it is observed has ever been condcuted. Acnectodal information indicates it is observed mostly in the breech.
5. Reconstitute the College of Cardinals. “Cardinal” historically was not a necessarily ordained position until the early 1900′s and the last unordained Cardinal died as recently as the late 1800′s. Return to that model. Require that 50% of the College of Cardinals are unordained. Require that 50% of the unordained cardinals be women. Any member of the college of cardinals has access to all churhc finanical information and all matters relatign to celibacy and sex abuse.
6. Prepare an annual report:
By diocese: Number of reports of clergy sex abuse.
Number of reports deemed credible.
Number reported to civil authorities.
Dollar amount of any settlements.
7. Get new PR people with two feet to stand on. The cuurent ones have shot both feet off.
On the one hand, I would not deny that when the Associated Press or the New York Times uncovers a story like the Ratzinger-Cummins-Kiesle matter, or the Ratzinger-Bertone-Weakland-Murphy matter, it deserves to be treated as a major story. But is anyone at all surprised? We have long known that there has been a sex-abuse problem in the Catholic Church, and that it has involved priests, bishops, cardinals, and popes. It is an institutional problem, and clearly all the major players in the institution are in some way responsible for the flawed handling of the problem.
It seems to me that if the position of the Church at the highest levels was that this has been a problem in the Church for decades, it was not handled well, everyone bore some responsibility, they are sorry, and they are continuously working to make things better, then the response from Rome to every new well documented case from the past that comes to light could be, “Yes, see, that’s what we’re talking about.” But when the reaction to every new case is, “Nobody did anything wrong! Nobody made any mistakes! We can explain this one. How dare you try to bring down Pope Benedict XVI!” it simply makes every new case one more nail in the coffin. The Vatican is basically inviting the press to publish as much documentary evidence as they can get their hands on, because the Vatican responses is, “Nothing you have published so far proves anything.”
I posted this — Sex abuse pervasive in USA Swimming — on one of the America Magazine blogs as an interesting parallel.
Mr. Nunz, I didn’t at all mean to suggest that the crisis is not a huge problem that requires major reform, or that people not directly involved in it should not be commenting on it.
Paul, thanks for your answer to my question.
But you didn’t really answer it.
I asked whether you, if you were the parents of a girl or boy molested by Fr. Kiesele, would want resolution and protection of your children this afternoon. Or 8 years later.
You never answered that question. Instead, you talked about Peter and bishops.
I’m asking YOU (and sorry for the caps, but I don’t know of a boldface option here) what YOU would want.
And for the record, since you end your response that’s not really a response by talking about those who call for the pope to resign, and you’re answering my question: I have never called for the pope to resign.
“Just a quick comment on the link that Joseph O’Leary passed on (the blame-the-gays one): ”
I guess that this means, therefore, that those priests who abused female children are, what —- gay wannabes?
The English have a great expression for this kind of stuff: codswollop. It’s usually cleaned up by bumf (bumfodder to the uninitiated).
Whoever asked about probation as a reasonable sentence: Almost certainly, it was done to protect the child. In the same fashion that Roman Polanski was given such a favorable outcome when he raped a 13 year old. Even if, as a prosecutor, you want to throw the book at the guy, the child’s parents will often refuse to go along with that strategy because it requires your child to be questioned, examined, and cross-examined. This is one reason why it’s so necessary to prosecute people, even if you can’t always get a harsh sentence — at the very least, a criminal sex offense record keeps them out of positions at schools or other places where children congregate.
I think we will see a steady flow of news coverage until the end of the year about internal church documents that show the Vatican responding inadequately to cases of clergy sexual abuse in the past. Church lawyers were required to hand over a lot of documents to plaintiffs’ attorneys in the past eight years. The plaintiffs’ lawyers will continue to turn over copies to reporters. Getting access to discovery documents is something journalists have always tried to do, so this is nothing new.
Did the various prelates who have harshly criticized the news coverage stop to think about this before launching their verbal attacks on the news media, especially The New York Times? Were they aware that there are other cases beyond those initially reported? Did they seek public-relations counsel?
Setting aside for the moment what happened in the 1980s and 1990s, they’ve really managed this terribly in the past few weeks.
” let’s discuss the fallout from the cover-up.. Who can remain in positions of leadership who participated in cover-up? If BXVI goes now or soon how can we have faith in the college of cardinals almost all of whom were fully knowledgable about the cover-up? Can they and should they be the ones to pick from among themselves the next Pope? Can they be obliged by the laity and the Holy Spirit to reach ‘down’ to the next tier of Bishops to name a successor, one who did not cover-up?.”
Ed Gleason –
Yes, it’s time to consider the specifics now.
Maybe Benedict should not resign. He was short-sighted and too much under the influence of JP 2, but the Maciel case shows he has a bit of gumption. Maybe he really is the one to clean out the Augean stables.
Who should go and why? I say any curial administrator who persisted in delaying the recommendations of the bishops in charge of the perverts should go, including first and foremost Law and Levada. And if there are in the curia who themselves covered-up miscreants when they ran dioceses they too should go.
The question is: who are this particular people besides the aforementioned Law and Levada?
Just what is the Holy See’s position? That neither the pope nor his predecessors nor any official of the Holy See ever handled any case inadequately in any way? They probably don’t know what their position is, but they seem to be responding defensively to each new charge as if that were their position. Sometimes their fearful response to the lates charge manages to deflect, say, half or even most of the accusation. But you know, and I know, and they know, and everyone knows, that they (including Benedict) haven’t handled everything flawlessly. Could somebody please convince the pope to say that already?! Until that happens, this game could go on for months, or I suppose years, with the media trying to catch the pope out and the spokesman desprately trying to foil the latest attack. Arrrgh!
Fr. Anthony Ruff, OSB
I think Paul Moses has said it all. We had all better buckle in for a long 2010 as the steady flow of accusations drips along. It will feel like death by a thousand pinpricks unless Rome takes control of the situation and inaugurates a sort of truth and reconciliation commission. I wouldn’t hold my breath, but with it being Easter, I live in hope (and hang on for dear life).
Joe McFaul –
The make-up of the College of Cardinals is crucial to any restructuring of the Church for the obvious reason that they elect popes. That’s another reason why it’s essential that the truth come out about which of the cardinals have shown rotten judgment about their management of child abuse — the cardinals outside of Rome, especially in So. American and the Far East, need to know who are the most able among the papabile. The laity must keep beating the drums to make the information public. The election of the next pope depends on it.
Further, in order to have representation from all parts of the Church, each national organization of bishops of the largeest nations should each have cardinal-representatives, but there should also be cardinal-representatives of groups of smaller nations. And the bishops should all have input into the choosing of their cardinals.
As I see it, whether curial administrators should be cardinals is debatable — many bishops complain that the curia treats them as children, when the curia should see themselves (and in fact be) assistants not only of the pope but also of the bishops. If there are curial cardinals istm there should be only a few, with those preferably not among those who formally recommend and vet new bishops.
Further, the make-up of the curia should not be predominantly from any one region.
Tiger Woods’ fans cheered him at the Masters yesterday. Maybe the golf-playing bishops will learn something from him.
Well said Fr. Ruff and Paul Moses. This crisis isn’t that complicated, and is fairly simply set on the road to resolution, even without major structural overhauls. The pope’s silence is chilly.
Isn’t there a Latin mistake in Ratzinger’s letter? “in casu postulata” should be “in casu postulato”.
The Ratzinger psychology shown in the letter is exactly the same as shown in many other pernickety, obstructionist, obscurantic documents issuing from his pen — the declarations on liberation theology for example. His fans loved this — now they are stuck with it.
FLASH: The latest insanity – from the other side (from The Times of London no less)
“RICHARD DAWKINS, the atheist campaigner, is planning a legal ambush to have the Pope arrested during his state visit to Britain “for crimes against humanity”.
“Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, the atheist author, have asked human rights lawyers to produce a case for charging Pope Benedict XVI over his alleged cover-up of sexual abuse in the Catholic church. \\
Go to tp://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article7094310.ece
Will it never end :-(
With enemies like Dawkins and Hitchens, who needs friends?
What exactly is the smoking gun?
Was there an attempt to cover-up the offenses? No
Was there a move to place the man in active ministry? No
In fact, all of the misconduct that occurred after the pope knew about this case happened after he was defrocked. What is the connection between protecting children and defrocking the priest? There is none.
What is this about? Is it about making children safe or playing gotcha? The Holy Father did nothing to shield this man, he did nothing to put him in situations that would make him more dangerous.
The most one can say is that this is evidence of a slow and cumberous bureacracy – some big surprise there.
Ed
That Keisle went on to molest a girl has nothing to do with the issue of homosexuality in this crisis because he was one of the minority of cases involving a pedophile. The issue of homosexuality has to do with the majority of abuse cases that dealt with priests exclusively abusing boys between the ages of 13 and 17. But I suppose it’s more important to preserve politically correct myths than to actually protect young people.
Sean Hannaway wrote: “The issue of homosexuality has to do with the majority of abuse cases that dealt with priests exclusively abusing boys between the ages of 13 and 17. But I suppose it’s more important to preserve politically correct myths than to actually protect young people.”
I think everyone should agree that pedophiliac abuse, tragic as it is, is quite rare, and in fact most of the abuse by clerics is same-sex of adolescent boys. Some progressives resist this because it sounds anti-gay. I don’t think it necessarily is. I say, admit the facts and ask why. I observe that homosexuals don’t abuse: troubled homosexuals do. And them we have lots of! The roots of this reality go very deep in the Catholic tradition. The current ban on homosexual seminarians can only confound the problem. It prevents homosexuals from being honest, pressures them to stay in the closet, and impedes their maturation. I don’t blame them, I blame the larger clerical culture and the official ban on homosexuals. I think the Pope needs to look at this policy, and ask himself seriously whether it might contribute to future abuse for which he would be at least partially responsible.
Denying that most of the Catholic abuse is same sex, in the name of gay rights, is like denying that people of color are doing poorly in our schools, in the name of racial equality. In both cases I think it’s best to admit the facts and examine their causes.
Fr. Anthony Ruff, OSB
You know Sean, I like to think that every member of an organization would align themselves rather in the same direction on something like this. And even if Ratzinger wasn’t “responsible” for placing this guy in any particular place, nor did he exercise whatever authority he had to ensure that he would not be placed among vulnerable populations, and made it more difficult for the bishop to act, because, like it or not, he was forced to deal with him as a member of his corporate body. And as many have noted elsewhere, Ratzinger was capable of acting with lightning speed, comparatively, when he perceived theological wrongdoing. The comparison stings and is hard to explain.
Sean,
So, I take it from your first comment (at 7:52) that you do think that Church bureaucracy should be seriously overhauled and more power should be given to local churches. Kind of like lessening the power of the federal government in favor of states’ rights?
Sean Hannaway says:
I’m not sure where Sean is getting his figures. This is what the John Jay Study says:
I’ve written this before, but in the face of claims like Sean’s, it bears repeating: 51 percent of victims were between 11 and 14. Do we know whether most of those kids were postpubescent? The DSM-IV defines pedophilia as involving sexual activity by an adult with a prepubescent child–13 or younger. People who want to define the abuse crisis as a gay problem group the victims in the direction of postpubescence. When you group the victims in the other direction, you see that 73 percent of victims were 14 or younger.
Other facts about the data set complicate the claim that the abuse scandal is a gay problem: More than one-third of accused priests “were also recognized as having other behavioral of psychological problems–including 17 percent with known substance-abuse problems.” And, more important, 149 priests were allegedly responsible for abusing 2,960 victims–that’s 3.5 percent of all accused priests accounting for 26 percent of all allegations. How can we draw firm conclusions from that kind of data?
Paul Moses: “Church lawyers were required to hand over a lot of documents to plaintiffs’ attorneys in the past eight years. The plaintiffs’ lawyers will continue to turn over copies to reporters. Getting access to discovery documents is something journalists have always tried to do, so this is nothing new.”
Paul, you’re right. But do you think journalists have done their job simply by writing about the documents supplied by plaintiff lawyers?
Sometimes a wild shot hits home.
Yesterday on this thread, I wondered out loud if this might have been a form letter.
Today, Jeffrey Lena, lawyer for the Holy See, is reported to have said this:
“Cardinal Ratzinger’s letter, written in Latin, “appeared to be a form letter typically sent out initially with respect to laicization cases,” the lawyer said, although it specifically mentions Father Kiesle’s relatively young age.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/11/world/europe/11lena.html?hp
For those who might not find this exactly exculpatory, and who additionally know something of the pain and suffering caused by the Vatican’s refusal to laicize priests who wanted to marry, it suggests another gaping hole, doesn’t it? The drive was to make a hard-line response to a DIFFERENT crisis, the crisis of men leaving the priesthood in droves over mandatory celibacy.
Where charity and understanding really were called for, by those men who had responsibly chosen to leave the priesthood because they realized they were called to marriage, the answer was wait, yes, wait for years.
The sexual abuse of children was so far off the radar scope that this case got a FORM LETTER!
Well, now we know what was REALLY important. Protecting celibacy. This is getting curiouser and curiouser.
Last night we watchd “Judgement at Nuremberg” om TCM.
I kept thinking about the current Church scandals and how easily we can talk about things that are not relevant to the main issue that continues to seethe: justice.
Then there’s today’s Times lead editorial on the Financial Crisis Commissions getting “apologies” from the likes of Ron Rubin as not being enough.
How do we hold people accountable for wtrongs done? And what actions do we take to correct what lies behind what went wrong?
Whether people stay or leave (another thread) , whether the Pope resigns or not or practices “repentance (Benmedict in the Dock”), whether we have more devotiuons or siliness like “arresting the Pope”, wjhether or not we’re all to blame and other things as well, there will be continued expressions, intended or not, to prevent getting real justice done, including the manipulation of law, media and even the pulpit.
I think Paul Moses is right that this is going on and on.
Soundings from Canada today, for example.
But, I submit the issue will live and burn until we get some kind of real justice that people can beleive in.
Rita,
I don’t necessarily buy Holy See Attorney Lena’s statement about a form letter. He was reacting to statements about the Ratzinger letter, and trying to minimize its damage. I think that was his own dismissive spin (rather clever actually), the way I read his whole statement somewhere.
Whether form letter or not, it hardly appears a fill-in-the-blank effort. Though I am sure all the opening titles, closing salutations, prayers and honorifics are de rigeur, as any organization has its formats.
Thank you Bob Nunz: “I submit the issue will live and burn until we get some kind of real justice that people can believe in.”
I also thank God for plaintiff attorneys by whose work we have access to the truth in the documents. Those attorneys acted because survivors had the courage to come forward to them, and attorneys were the only ones who believed them.
Let all the documents come out so we may appreciate the height and depth of episcopal negligence that so wounded our children and young people. But no wonder bishops everywhere fight tooth and nail to keep them hidden.
Now, why are bishops embarrassed, if it was all so innocent in fact and motivation? Here is a fascinating article about a doctor who treated 300 priests, but found incomplete histories were forwarded to him, and his recommendations were not followed.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/10/us/10beliefs.html?scp=1&sq=treating%20pedophiles&st=cse
The sense that we ought not be so exercised about revelations because they occurred so long ago and, “look how we have taken care of all that now” is unpersuasive. I am sure bishops hoped they could handle whatever in the same secrecy as always, and then no one would be the wiser.
The truth is a stubborn thing however, regardless of when it is revealed. The really scary part is that bishops do not think they did anything legally or morally wrong, but lie to cover it up. And I do mean lies, “when an apparently correct statement contains some deliberate ambiguity, or deliberately omits the essential part of the truth.”
My mantra: stop the spin, tell the truth, own your culpability, not in some generalized cloud, but in all its particulars. I can go forward based on truthful communication, “the real as it exists in God,” in Bonhoeffer’s words. Not the gruel we have been served so far.
Grant
I have never said that the abuse crisis was a “gay” problem. And I certainly don’t want to diminish it, but facts are facts. I have prosecuted a number of sex offenders and there are important differences between pedophiles and sexual predators both in terms of sexual orientation and in terms of recidivism. Those are facts. The people who try to call this a “pedophile priest” problem it seems to me are the ones who are minimizing things. There are many dimensions to it, and ignoring a very important segment of the problem because it doen’t jive with your political views again belies the motives behind the criticism of the Church.
Eric,
Important difference – you may leave the Church this very day and never come back.
*jibe*
Every member of the Catholic clergy who had authority over more than 100 priests or religious for an extended period of time almost surely had to handle cases of sexual abuse. That includes the majority of the people currently pope, cardinals, archbishops, bishops of large dioceses, and heads of religious orders.
Until very recently those cases were handled in secrecy, and often mishandled, leading to more abuse. So, many in the hierarchy, otherwise respected leaders, good men who have spent their lives striving for holiness, now must realize that they have some responsibility in the crimes committed against children. It must be very, very hard for them to face that — maybe impossible. They are weighed down by the past. That explains their lack of empathy and defensiveness.
We will see if any knows to put self-examination and repentance into action, even when it concerns decisions that had such serious consequences. If they keep trying to evade their responsibilities, we might have to wait until the current generation of church leaders is gone before we can try to reclaim some integrity in the church hierarchy.
Sean, It sounds like you are saying that there are only two choices: put up with a slow and cumbersome bureaucracy (and I would add woefully negligent) or leave the church. That sounds like a recipe for disaster. Can there be no room for forceful but constructive criticism?
Sean.. these posts are about hierarchal cover-up ..stop parsing kinds of sex abuse. we all know about the different kinds. all are irrelevant to the cover-up. Hierarchs covered-up embezzlement too. What’s not to understand .. that it’s the cover-up.. ????
Lena’s parsing as reported in today’s San Francisco Chronicle:
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/04/11/BAKI1CSRIL.DTL
What exactly is the smoking gun?
Sean,
The smoking gun is the letter showing that then-Cardinal Ratzinger was not significantly different from any other Vatican officials or bishops in not having an approach to the problem of sex-abusing priests that would stop their abuse, revent future occurrences, and send a clear signal that sexual abuse by priests would not be tolerated.
In the Kiesle case, what was the point of standing in the way of a priest with a criminal conviction for abusing boys who wanted to leave the priesthood?
What does the following (Cardinal Ratzinger’s response) mean?
What, specifically, was “the good of the Universal Church” that was mentioned? What does Kiesle’s age have to do with it? It appears that the CDF was concerned that it would look bad to laicize a young priest. I just really don’t understand what was going on.
There have been mentions that Pope John Paul II felt too many priests were leaving, and he wanted to slow the process down. But why would the Church want to hang on to convicted child molesters?
Carolyn,
Thanks for your response. I can well understand why you would be skeptical of “spin” coming from any Vatican lawyer. I share that skepticism. But if this is so, then how do you explain the letter’s evident assumption that the man’s relative youth (38) is relevant? I mean, what could Cardinal Ratzinger have been thinking when he wrote those words, if this was the case he had in mind and it wasn’t a form letter sent without thought? He must have been thinking something; he’s not a stupid man when he has his mind on something.
In all of the cases I have read, with all of the excuses and minimalizations I’ve seen traded in, I can’t think of one that said of the perpetrator “He’s too young, wait until he’s older.” Maybe with your greater acquaintence with the documentary evidence you are aware that this is typical of a certain approach. If so, as a student of pathology I would love to know what it is!
If it is true that this is a form letter, this does not exculpate Benedict. It shows severe negligence. To send a form letter, instructing delay? It represents a decision that was very, very wrong. In its own way, it’s monstrous. The “banality of evil.” But it also squares with Benedict the moralist and Benedict the systems-upholder. (I can see him saying to his secretary: “Go through these requests, and anyone under 40, send them this letter” sooner than I can see him reading this case through and saying, “Well, give him time; we’ve all known sado-masochist child molesters who have gone on to have an excellent career of service to the church.”)
It is of a piece with the other item in the case, in which files were “lost” (please send them again) — an inept bureaucracy.
Eric, with all due respect, the abuse and the cover-up appears to have occurred mostly in the local churches, with a failure of some of these local churches to deal with the abuse and protect children from the abusers.
How can anyone defend those in the justice system who simply gave the priest accused of abusing the two young boys in the California rectory sixth months probation unless they believed there was not sufficient evidence to convict? As a Parent, would you not fear not only for the Life of your Child, but other Children? Why is this issue not being addressed?
correction:three years probation.
Regarding the possibility that the letter may be a form letter, then it may be that Pope Benedict was not aware of the charges against this priest and was responding to what he believed to be a young priest who wanted to leave the Priesthood.
Nancy, Your point is well taken, but what the revelations about Benedict do is destabilize the very idea that this was/is a problem isolated to particular diocese, but is rather a systemic issue that implicates the highest levels of the episcopacy. Beyond that the letter in question suggests that those systemic forces not only allowed local negligence, but also hampered local vigilence. Finally, this conversation is about the failure of the church, not the secular justice system. The latter is a conversation for another time. Though, I will say that whatever the limitations of the justice system, the church has not been exactly welcoming of it’s authority, which as some have indicated, may have simply exacerbated (if not taken advantage of) the very limitations
you see.
unless they believed there was not sufficient evidence to convict
Nancy,
Kiesle was convicted. He pleaded no contest. Pleading no contest results in a conviction the same way pleading guity does.
I have not seen explicitly stated anywhere, but this was almost certainly a plea bargain. The initial charges were no doubt more serious, but they were reduced on the agreement that he would plead no contest and spend three years on probation and undergo therapy.
Two points:
1. Three years on probation is not insignificant.
2. The vast majority of cases are plea bargained. “More than 90% of convictions come from negotiated pleas, which means that less than 10% of criminal cases result in a trial.”
If you object to plea bargaining with reduced sentences, you will have to propose a system by which our existing courts can handle ten times the number of trials they already do and overcrowded prisons can handle additional prisoners.
Regarding the possibility that the letter may be a form letter, then it may be that Pope Benedict was not aware of the charges against this priest and was responding to what he believed to be a young priest who wanted to leave the Priesthood.
Nancy,
The letter reads in part:
It hardly makes sense to maintain both of the following: 1. Then-Cardinal Ratzinger didn’t do anything that should be criticized. 2. He didn’t know the facts in the case when he signed the “form letter.”
One wonders how many man-hours were devoted to the Kiesle case at the CDF. Delay seemed to be deliberate, not the result of too few people to handle too many cases.
The New York Times has an article that at least has one person’s answer to a question that has been on my mind. It is a standard defense of the Church’s handling of the abuse crisis that bishops relied too heavily on therapists in determining what to do with priests guilty of sex abuse. Often the implication of people who claim this is that reliance on therapy is the kind of thing only people on the left do, and therapists were instruments of the sexual revolution. But we have this:
Also watch at least the first couple of minutes of this video of Archbishop Weakland’s 2008 deposition.
Notable that my pastor in today’s homily said that he was more like the doubting Thomas and against Divine Mercy Sunday which gave too much play to pedophiles over protectint witnesses. Benedicict’s perfidy seems to be affecting the local church.
The youth of the priest was relevant if, as I have heard, it is Vatican policy not to grant laicization to priests younger than 40. Some blog commenter says that it is about the statute of limitations — which of course is a spurious suggestion. Andrew Sullivan’s coverage of the case suggests propaganda to me. He would have us all parrot his party line.
A factor to be borne in mind is the extreme hostility of John Paul II, Ratzinger’s boss, to laicization procedured. He is said to have swept a sheaf of laicization applications off his desk soon after taking power in a gesture of dismissal.
I would have to say that Michael Sean Warner’ latest post criticizing the press (The Frustratingly Poor Quality of Press Coverage) makes one of the weakest defenses of then-Cardinal Ratzinger I have as yet come across. In 1981, the arrest of a priest for “sexual liberties” with six boys, ages 11 to 13, and the fact that the sentence was only three years on probation made the crime appear not to be all that serious:
One wonders what the reaction would have been in 1981 to anyone (priest or layman) who admitted in the confessional that he had molested six boys ages 11 to 13. Even if criminal penalties were too lenient in 1981, that would hardly have influenced the Church on the moral gravity of such behavior. My Catholic education took place in the 1950s and early 1960s, and I never got the the impression that the Church tolerated any sexual activity between two males, let alone sexual activity between a priest and 11- to 13-year-old boys.
I just reject any defenses of “we just didn’t realize how serious priests abusing minors was, and now that we’ve seen the light, criticism of past actions is unfair and anti-Catholic.”
David, how does three years probation for this heinous crime protect the victims of this crime as well as protect other children from being abused by this criminal who you claim was convicted of this crime? What exactly was this priest convicted of, and why was he allowed to plea bargain if he was accused of this heinous crime?
Regarding the sentence,”although it regards the arguments presented in favor of removal in this case to be of grave significance…”, unless this letter states exactly what the argument presented in favor of removal is, and that argument reveals that this priest has been convicted of a heinous crime, then this is no smoking gun.
Eric is exactly right:
“what the revelations about Benedict do is destabilize the very idea that this was/is a problem isolated to particular diocese, but is rather a systemic issue that implicates the highest levels of the episcopacy. Beyond that the letter in question suggests that those systemic forces not only allowed local negligence, but also hampered local vigilence.”
On another note, I’ve actually been relieved not to hear more about this in my own parish. I think it is very hard to say anything that doesn’t infuriate somebody. Sometimes it’s a no-win situation; the less said the better. Also for me it’s a reminder that, thank God, life does go on apart from all of this…
David Nickol,
Thank you for quoting from Dr. Lothstein at the Institute of Living. There was a news article some years titled, “Doctors: Church Used Us,” along the same line.
Here’s an interesting bit of deposition of a Jesuit psychiatrist:
1 What is your reaction, Doctor, from
2 yesterday and today having seen this
3 information — and when I say “this
4 information,” I mean the Stevens letter, the
5 Higgs letter, the article in Gays Week, the
6 report in 1988, the allegation in the 1960s
7 about the abuse and Father Shanley’s response –
8 what is your reaction when you see these
9 documents today in terms of how it might have
10 changed your opinion?
(Those letters referenced Shanley’s statements about sex between adults and children, where the child is the seducer.)
A. Castration would have been too good for him….
24 Q. And there was no discussion about allegations of
1 sexual abuse at that time with you, was there?
2 A. Obviously not. They were obviously concealed by
3 Father McCormack.
The deposition goes on to discuss several other priests where the doctor’s recommendations were not followed and incomplete records were forwarded to him.
Actually, if this letter signed by Pope Benedict does not state that a California priest accused of molesting children should not be defrocked without further study, then The New York Times is guilty of slander and libel against Pope Benedict. That would be your “smoking gun”.
David Nickol,
You are right about MSW’s reading of the documents regarding the Kiesle case. What he describes as the euphemistic nature of Bishop Cummin’s votum, does not diminish the seriousness of the charges for which Kiesle was convicted when he pleaded nolo contendere. Cummins says clearly that Kiesle was charged with molesting six boys. Trying to separate that from the request for laicization on the basis of psychological maturity, simply because the language of graviors delicta was not invoked, appears to me to be simply special pleading. Furthermore, MSW does not account for Cummins’ careful language aimed at protecting himself in the eyes of the Vatican. In the end none of what the bishop wrote about the young priest, his co-operation with therapy, his placement with a young priest to supervise him, or his attempt at employment were deemed mitigating enough for the bishop not to have drawn the obvious conclusion that he stressed first in the votum and then a year later in a letter to Ratzinger: Kiesle should be removed from the clerical state. The repeated message of the possibility of grave scandal would have indicated the urgency of the situation. In my opinion, it would have been clear to Ratzinger that this was no ordinary petition for laicization.
Surely the NYT should expand its focus on the Vatican’s involvement in sex abuse to include another potential coverup:
“The Catholic Church’s involvement in the castrato phenomenon has long been controversial, and there have recently been calls for it to issue an official apology for its role. As early as 1748, Pope Benedict XIV tried to ban castrati from churches, but such was their popularity at the time that he realised that doing so might result in a drastic decline in church attendance.
“There have also long been rumours of another castrato sequestered in the Vatican for the personal delectation of the Pontiff until as recently as 1959, but these have been definitively shown to be false.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castrato
Patrick Molloy, that’s frivolous, and you know it.
Question: if the priest-abuser had been removed from ministry, then Benedict did not put any children in harms way, right?
Ms. Ferrone — I apologize. I should have labeled my comment as possibly offensive to pious ears.
Lets just summarize the defenders of the hierarchy talking points.
1. The abuse if there was any was done by homosexuals.
2. Everybody abuses but only Catholic clergy are blamed
3. It happened long long ago and never happens any more[except in those other groups]
4. The media lies, slanders and libels. [and does other nasty stuff]
5. Catholic cleanup is doing everyone else a favor in showing how to forgive and move on.
6. only liberals who have weak faith will be leaving over this. [good riddence]
7. these accusations are only a smoke screen to cripple the Church governance/
8.Fake charges and greedy lawyers are starving the poor.[especially in upperclass suburban enclaves]
9.The bishops got bad advice from psycologists [whose 'science' they detested, who they were taught to make fun of, did'nt allow in Catholic higher education till the late sixties.] .
10 Memo ..rescind immediately ‘it’s an English disease’ [it makes Germans angry and one does not want Germans acting up]
“The repeated message of grave scandal would have indicated the urgency of the situation. In my opinion it would have been clear to Ratzinger that this was no ordinary petition for laicization.”
Perhaps you could make this argument if the response to the initial letter written in 1982 was sent within a reasonable time frame and not 1985. Clearly there was no sense of urgency on the part of the priest’s bishop.
Question: if the priest-abuser had been removed from ministry, then Benedict did not put any children in harms way, right?
JC,
I don’t pretend to know what usually happens when a priest is “removed from ministry,” but in the cases of Father Murphy and Father Kiesle, they both were involved with young people, in their capacity as priests, after they had committed their offenses and been disciplined. Take a look at this timeline for Kiesle, and you will see this:
The petition for Kiesle’s laicization was sent in 1981, but he was not defrocked until 1987.
Perhaps you could make this argument if the response to the initial letter written in 1982 was sent within a reasonable time frame and not 1985. Clearly there was no sense of urgency on the part of the priest’s bishop.
Nancy,
If you’re not going to do your homework, how can you possibly make any sensible arguments? The original letter was in 1981, not 1982. The Diocese of Oakland was in contact with the Vatican several times between 1981 and 1985, including a visit by Bishop Cummins to the Vatican in 1983 to discuss the case in person. If you just take a look at the timeline, you can see it was the Vatican, not the Diocese of Oakland, that had no sense of urgency.
- July 1981: Oakland Bishop John Cummins sends Kiesle’s file to the Vatican in support of the priest’s petition for laicization.
- November 1981: Vatican asks for more information.
- February 1982: Cummins writes to Ratzinger providing additional information and warning of possible scandal if Kiesle is not defrocked.
- September 1982: Oakland diocese official writes Ratzinger asking for update.
- September 1983: Cummins visits Rome, discusses Kiesle case with Vatican officials.
- December 1983: Vatican official writes Oakland to say Kiesle’s file can’t be found and they should resubmit materials.
- January 1984: Cummins writes a Vatican official to inquire about status of Kiesle file.
- September 1985: Cummins writes Ratzinger asking about status of Kiesle case.
- November 1985: Ratzinger writes to Cummins about Kiesle case.
David, where does it state that in 1981 a letter was sent to Cardinal Ratzinger and John Cummins received confirmation that the letter was received by Cardinal Ratzinger? In 1981, John Cummins claimed he sent Kiesle’s file to the Vatican. What information was in those files, to whom did John Cummins send the file and from whom did he receive notification that the file was sent? What additional information did the Vatican request, and who in the Vatican requested it? When the Oakland diocese official wrote to Cardinal Ratzinger asking for an update in September of 1982, why did he not confirm that Cardinal Ratzinger received his request for the update? In September of 1983, one year later, who did John Cummins discuss Kiesle’s case with at the Vatican, and what did they discuss? In December of 1983, who in the Vatican informed who in Oakland that the Kiesle file was missing and what materials were then submitted by whom and to whom? In January of 1984, who did Cummins write to at the Vatican? In September of 1985, what did John Cummins write in his letter to Cardinal Ratzinger? What did Cardinal Ratzinger write in his letter to John Cummins about the Kiesle case? How come the New York Times does not mention the time line, and why didn’t they do their homework before they printed this article?
Nancy: what are you trying to prove? This could be endless. Are you suspecting that something is afoot?
If you have a possible story line in mind, why don’t you just say it, and we can see whether it might make sense given the information we have so far, and if it would be possible to confirm your theory some other way? That’s what Father Z. tried to do on the wdtprs blog.
If something doesn’t make sense if the information we have, why don’t you say what you don’t understand, and we can discuss it?
I have not followed this closely, but my personal guess is that, as Kiesle was not in active ministry nor currently causing scandal, it was not a high priority folder. I can imagine that the Vatican has three types of folders: “Very urgent — causing scandal” (for example, a priest openly living with a woman), “Urgent — may cause scandal any time” (for example, a priest who says he wants to get married and who was discreetly having sex with a woman), “Less urgent — has caused scandal but not at risk of causing more right now” (for example, Kiesle). That’s what I would do if scandal was my paramount concern.
For the same reason, when Cardinal Ratzinger finally answered, there was no reason to make an exception to the Vatican’s habit of waiting until priests were 40 years old before accepting their request for laicization, and he could just slightly adapt their standard form. That may have seemed pragmatic. Of course, the Vatican would have much preferred that rape of children had no happened, but they could not undo it after the fact, so, oh well.
Callousness, lack of empathy, misplaced priorities. In the 1980s, Cardinal Ratzinger, no more and no less than the rest of the Vatican and the majority of bishops. That’s my guess as to the story line. What’s your story? Are you hoping for something like in Munich, where everything happened around Cardinal Ratzinger but he was magically protected (according to them) from the stain that sullied the people around him?
B16 ‘. . .it is also unable to make light of the detriment that granting the dispensation can provoke with the community of Christ’s faithful, particularly regarding the young age of the petitioner.’
Benedict links the odd statement about the perp’s young age to the community of the faithful. Can he mean here that laicizing such a young man will somehow scandalize the faithful even more than laicizing an old one? If so, I still don’t understand it. What effect does he think laicization has on the laity? I wonder if there is a translation problem.
About the bishops not following the advice of the therapists –
Priests and religious my age were taught not to trust Freud — he was an atheist who seemed to reduce all problems to sex. I would be very surprised if the older bishops really took therapists seriously. I wonder if they sent the perps to therapy because their insurance companies insisted they (the bishops) act defensively in case they were sued later.
Perhaps the Vatican is, in general, worried about ex-priest womanizers? Age would dampen their ardor, to the relief of the Vatican.
Nancy –
Benedict is not being faulted for having ignored or approved of child abuse. The criticism of him has to do with whether or not he did what needed to be done to prevent further abuse. He is also being faulted for explicitly choosing to protect “the universal Church” over the children. To me it is quite clear from that letter that that for him protecting the image of the Church trumped protecting children. That is what is so terribly disappointing. I don’t doubt he is sorry about the children and wants healing for them. But the image of the Church is even more important to him than they are :-(
wasn’t everything already being done to protect children from the priest independently of the question of laicization and the letter.
in fact the priest was allowed access to children after his laicization, not through Ratzinger’s fault.
http://www.catholica.com.au/forum/index.php?id=45175
Suggests that Ratzinger was confused about the age of the petitioner — thought he was in his later 20s rather than 30s.
Was Ratzinger aware of the priest’s offenses? And were the offenses as blatant as reported?
http://www.catholica.com.au/forum/index.php?id=45214
(not sure if I’m correct above, that the priest has access to kids in a pastoral situation after his 1987 laicization)
It is absurd that a tiny group of clerics in the CDF were handling these issues from all over the Catholic world with its population of one billion +. Control freakery caused them to bite off more than they could chew.
If you insist on appointing reactionaries as bishops, and BENEDICT IS STILL DOING SO, then you cannot be surprised if THIS is the result: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/apr/11/catholic-bishop-blames-jews
French intellectuals, including liberal journalist Tincq and philosophers Marion and Brague defend the Pope: http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2010/04/appel-la-verite.html
The signatories to the French petition are here: http://www.appelaverite.fr/
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/12/us/12abuse.html?scp=3&sq=priest&st=cse
NYT this morning: “Oakland Priest’s Accuser Describes Sexual Abuse”
After reading some of the posts on this thread, I am sure glad Pope Benedict is in charge – and not us laity.
:-)
According to the article, the priest abuser was volunteering at a parish after he was defrocked.
I don’t know why Ratzinger didn’t defrock him sooner, but the delayed defrocking doesn’t seem to be related to his continued abuse of children, or even his ability to pass himself off as a youth minister.
The article and postings here seem to share an underlying assumption that the canonical punishment for child abuse is defrocking. Is that true according to canon law?
They also seem to assume that defrocking will somehow keep him away from children, which is also not true, as the article shows, he has continued to abuse children post-1987.
The whole issue of defrocking is a red herring.
JC, the issue of defrocking is not as important as referral for criminal prosecution. I have no disagreement there, but it is important in the sense that it removes the ability of the priest to represent himself as a priest in good standing, and to gain whatever assignments (substituting, for instance) he might be able to get. As a volunteer, he took advantage of what were likely lower standards in place for screening volunteers, which tells me that he is truly predatory, because that’s how these guys work — exploiting whatever loophole exists to find access to vulnerable populations. Does this make it the fault of Ratzinger? Not totally, of course not — but he didn’t make it easier and he seems not to have seen the situation as grave enough to warrant quick action. He obviously understood that the priest would continue to be part of the Catholic “community” as the bishop was exhorted to give him pastoral care. It’s just a very odd way of reacting that looks more like deliberate inaction or delay.
Joseph OLeary posts a list of French ‘intellectuals’ defending the Pope. I wondered if this was the same bunch who signed pediphile Polanski’s petition .. Some one should check This out…. I won’t I gave up on the French after Dunkirk.
Quite apart from the rights and wrongs of the cases in themselves, Paul Moses’ point earlier about the public relations debacle is well taken. The Vatican is either not seeking or not accepting good advice about how to handle the attention surrounding the crisis. They don’t seem to know how to make helpful statements, or how to effectively interact with the media or the public around these issues. This compounds the problem that they are dedicated to the proposition that they have always been right and don’t need to do anything to make amends for anything or explanations for their behavior.
Frankly, they are floundering. The longer this goes on, the harder it will be to untangle the rights and wrongs of anything. The story becomes fixed through being repeated, and right now it looks like we are in a loop: allegations reported in the media, Vatican denies all wrong-doing and blames media, public finds Vatican’s defense incredible. New allegations arise, new denials are made, more blaming of somebody else, Vatican emerges with even less credibility. If nobody in Rome breaks this cycle, it will keep going in a downward spiral.
The pope has a trip to Britain scheduled. If he goes at this time, it will be extremely unpleasant.
“Quite apart from the rights and wrongs of the cases in themselves, Paul Moses’ point earlier about the public relations debacle is well taken. ”
I agree.
I’ve also seen Anthony Ruff commenting in a couple of these discussions: ‘tell the truth.’ Ultimately, that will be the only way. They can either tell it themselves, or the trial lawyers and friends in the press can continue to spin it against them.
I guess I’m not shocked that this was mishandled, at any level of the church, in 1985.
I want to agree that MSW (who thinks O’Malley is the “fixer”) is just part of the continuing cycle of folks talking out of their hats that Rita so well ldescribes in the post right above.
Credibility will only break the cycle when truth is out, accountability in some real sense, not just “apologies” or “this won’t happen again” speak, takes place and resistance to change and a break from the curial defence league leads to better governance structures.
Eric,
First, I was making the distinction between my objections to big government and yours to the Vatican based on your apparent suggestion that my positions were inconsistent. Aside from the fact that all of our associations with the Vatican are voluntary, the Vatican can’t throw me in jail or have anyone killed. These things make the comparison inapt.
Second, I am all for constructive criticism, but that’s not what’s going on here, and the people participating in it know that. Certainly they want change, but the change they desire seems based on first destructing the very thing they criticize and replacing it with something else.
*deconstructing*
I also see Austen ivereigh at America is defending MSW and the “feeding frenzy” the media is now embarked on.
Even if i granted his point for the sake of argument, if the truth of what happened is balled up in secrecy and if information, yes, suplied by (the putatively gredy) attorneys helps penetrate that secrecy, then another peel of the onion about the tryth of what’s happened comes to light while most will spin it the way they see it.
If people want truth, accountability and crdibility and better governance and that’s the “change” Sean is talking about, I don’t know what he means by “constructive.”
F.Y.I.-
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/constructive
Sean,
There are two things here, as you rightly separate them. First, theologically speaking, I’m not sure I agree with your suggestion that being Catholic is a choice like deciding which school one is going to send the kids to. I don’t think that those who were recently received into the Church at Easter would describe it as that either. In fact, I think many would say that being Catholic (which includes heeding the words of the Vatican) is even less of a choice than being American. I think most theologically mature Catholics would describe their presence in the Church much like being part of a family. It is something you can’t help but see as a part of who you are, and as such, you can’t just dump it even when you find some of its teachings and practices abusive. You stay in, you have to, if only for the sake of protecting your siblings in the faith. This is why so many who have been/are being wronged by the Church stick with it, conservative and liberal.
Secondly, I wonder what would constitute constructive criticism for you. When does it become an illegitimate deconstruction? Sometimes it seems that any suggestion that there was wrong doing on the part of the Pope, and that as a result of that wrong doing, we might consider some reform to prevent future injustice is equal to deconstruction and replacement. For example, if we say that negligence on the part of the Vatican resulted in allowing abuse to go on unpunished for too long, and then suggest that greater collegiality and local control invested to local Bishops might increase the speed and pastoral sensativity with which future issues are handled, how is that, prima facie, following the logic of deconstruction and replacement?
Eric,
I am not saying that it is a simple choice, but it is a choice. It is a choice each and every day.
If we are part of a family, then are you and others protecting me by advocating a different role for the Holy See? By advocating female ordination? How does this work? What if I don’t want your help?
Constructive criticism is criticism with a positive purpose going forward. All of this recent carping is written as if absolutely nothing has happened in the Church over the last 8 years. If you have players on team and that isn’t playing well, it is constructive to teach them how to play better. It is merely change, not constructive criticism, to replace them with your own players.
Also, how can you factually support the assertion that local control will result in less abuse of children – that is what we are talking about right? What evidence do you have that this is even true? In fact, isn’t there a great deal of evidence that this isn’t true? Weren’t many more of these cases occurring during the 60′s and 70′s in the time before the great supposed retrenchment of JPII? Look at the John Jay report. The incidents declined in the 80′s and 90′s. Moreover, most abuse of children occurs in contexts where there is a great deal of “local control.” Children are abused in schools, on sports teams, in extended families at rates exceeding rthose that occurred in the Church. Is there any evidence at all that your ability to vote on the school board made any of those kids safer?
As one of your brethren who doubts the reasons for wanting this change, I think it is incumbent on thise who are attacking the Holy See to show why they will do a better job.
The issue for me is how the Church as a body, can most effectively police itself. I have yet to see any evidence that the current monolithic, closed structure of governance will achieve that. To believe otherwise is tantamount to a belief in squaring the circle.
As Hendrik Hertzberg writes in today’s New Yorker ( http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2010/04/19/100419taco_talk_hertzberg
) :
The Catholic Church is an authoritarian institution, modelled on the political structures of the Roman Empire and medieval Europe. It is better at transmitting instructions downward than at facilitating accountability upward. It is monolithic. It claims the unique legitimacy of a line of succession going back to the apostolic circle of Jesus Christ. Its leaders are protected by a nimbus of mystery, pomp, holiness, and, in the case of the Pope, infallibility—to be sure, only in certain doctrinal matters, not administrative ones, but the aura is not so selective. The hierarchy of such an institution naturally resists admitting to moral turpitude and sees squalid scandal as a mortal threat.
While in modern parlance “defrocking” sounds oddly funny like some sort of caricature, this scandal is nonetheless a serious matter.
As such it seems best to use the proper term for changing a priest to lay person status; to laicize.
Ed Gleason, I know 3 of the signatories personally — upright men and outstanding Catholic philosophers — your Polanski jibe is misplaced. Apparently there are some rightwing types among the signatories, but the outstanding journalist Tincq (who warned against a “cult of personality” a few days after JP2′s election) gives the petition great credibility for me. There are some 30000 signatures already.
Anyone who is trying to excuse then-Cardinal Ratzinger for his slowness in defrocking abusive priests–there is NO excuse for anything whatsoever taking 12 years, especially when pedophilia is involved.
Dorothy Carter
I think that the hierarchy has lost its collective mind. Today we hear from Cardinal Bertone that it is the homosexuals that are responsible for the pedophilia (psychologically incorrect) and from a retired Italian bishop that it is the Jews that are behind the scandal. A document is going viral on the internet that says that 10% of Protestant clergy have been convicted of pedophilia. And we wonder why the scandal grows.
F.Y.I.:
http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=5981
Question: Does anyone know who runs the AP organization? I am just curious.