Douthat’s Defense of the Vatican
Douthat defends the Pope against his critics in his column today. Here’s the gist of it:
In the 1990s, it was Ratzinger who pushed for a full investigation of Hans Hermann Groer, the Vienna cardinal accused of pedophilia, only to have his efforts blocked in the Vatican. It was Ratzinger who persuaded John Paul, in 2001, to centralize the church’s haphazard system for handling sex abuse allegations in his office. It was Ratzinger who re-opened the long-dormant investigation into Maciel’s conduct in 2004, just days after John Paul II had honored the Legionaries in a Vatican ceremony. It was Ratzinger, as Pope Benedict, who banished Maciel to a monastery and ordered a comprehensive inquiry into his order.
As for the most recent revelations about Ratzinger’s dilatory response to the request to defrock a California priest who had a habit of tying up and molesting children in Church rectories, Douthat demurs:
The more recent smoking guns, though, offer more smoke than fire. The pope is now being criticized not for enabling crimes or covering them up, but because in the 1980s and 1990s the Vatican’s bureaucracy moved slowly on requests to formally laicize abusive priests after they had already been removed from ministry.
Douthat seems to miss the point about the latest revelations. The issue is not (or, I should say, not just) that the future Pope took his time responding to the request to defrock Fr. Kiesle. That is, in part, the issue. As Andrew Sullivan points out, the Vatican is capable of moving (even to excommunicate bishops) very quickly when the theological implications of failing to do so are sufficiently significant to decisionmakers.
The more salient issue in the Kiesle case seems to be that, when he did respond, Ratzinger’s words made clear that he was more concerned with the implications of the defrocking for the image of the Church (particularly the shortage of vocations) than for the well-being of Fr. Kiesle’s victims:
In the November 1985 letter, Ratzinger says the arguments for removing Kiesle were of “grave significance” but added that such actions required very careful review and more time. He also urged the bishop to provide Kiesle with “as much paternal care as possible” while awaiting the decision, according to a translation for AP by Professor Thomas Habinek, chairman of the University of Southern California Classics Department. . . . The future pope also noted that any decision to defrock Kiesle must take into account the “good of the universal church” and the “detriment that granting the dispensation can provoke within the community of Christ’s faithful, particularly considering the young age [of the priest].” Kiesle was 38 at the time.
Finally, I have never found the 2001 centralization of these cases in the Vatican to cut one way or the other in assessing Ratzinger’s role in all of this. As Douthat correctly notes, Ratzinger is a great administrator. Centralizing all of these cases in the Vatican was, administratively speaking, a wise move that ensured greater Vatican control over a crisis that was, by 2001, clearly an institutional threat. But whether that move means that Ratzinger took child abuse — as such — more seriously than his predecessors can only be proved by looking to the actual disposition of the cases handled by the Vatican, not by the decision to centralize. That sort of assessment has yet to be undertaken, but this is, to my mind, a situation where substance matters much more than process. And that is why the 1985 Kiesle letter deserves the attention it is receiving. The letter has the potential of offering a brief glimpse into the thinking of the current Pope on substantive issue — the perceived significance of child abuse (at least as compared to other institutional considerations) — in a situation where there was no question of the priest’s guilt and years before the problem was clearly identified as an institutional threat requiring the attention of Ratzinger’s considerable bureaucratic talents.
Commentary in this situation is fast becoming a hall of mirrors. It’s dizzying but not clarifying much beyond how clerically oriented we Catholics really are. The point. The point is that children, young human beings were sexually abused by clerics, who in turn were protected by bishops. Where we are now is on the bishops: and the bishop of Rome is the focus of attention. So, diving into the hall of mirrors, I agree that the letter from Cardinal Ratzinger about Father Kiesle does give us information about Ratzinger’s earlier thinking on the issue of the clerical sexual abuse of children. But the point, the point is that abuse is criminal, damaging to the one abused, and is a sin that cries out to heaven for justice. And it will continue to cry out until justice emerges.
Douthat has at least the courage to say that Benedict is a better pope that John Paul II. That is a step in the right direction.
Eduardo Peñalver
I am not convinced that Ratzinger is a “great administrator”. There is a big difference between setting up an organizational mechanism to manage a problem and being able to properly execute and make proper decisions.
A case in point is the failure to accept all four resignations of the Irish Bishops named in the Murphy Report plus the failure to demand the resignation of Cardinal Brady fro the same failures as the four bishops.
By contrast his quick but unexplained acceptance of Bishop Wingle’s resignation in Ontario for what is announced as “health” reasons goes begging the question when Wingle is so closely associated with both the Bernard Prince secular abuse case out of the Pembroke Diocese and the Nova Scotia child pornography case of Bishop Leahy (and earlier sexual abuse case). Wingle spent time in both locations.
I would not call in of the above “great administrat(ion)”.
“I am not convinced that Ratzinger is a “great administrator”. There is a big difference between setting up an organizational mechanism to manage a problem and being able to properly execute and make proper decisions.”
John — I agree with you. I was trying to use the word “administrator” in the narrowly (and amoral) technical sense of the bureaucrat (setting up an organizational mechanism) and not the broader, substantive leader (being able to properly execute and make decisions). That technical meaning is the only sense in which Douthat’s claim is plausible absent evidence of the substance of the decisions the Pope made in the run of cases.
The most interesting take on the Douthaut column is where Catholic conservatives are moving on their favorite pope, once it was JPII, now it is BXVI.
Yes, they missed a chance for a great headline: “John Paul the Meh”
The King is dead….
The King died by a ‘no accident under the bus.’ hit and run.. I never would have thought that the conservative pursuing the ‘smaller and purer.’ would end up discarding JPII too. Their take on preserving the ‘Faiths’status quo is gaining my admiration for stubbornness, consistancy and pragmaticism but I wish them complete failure.
We have to understand, many of the “traditionalists” were not fans of Pope John Paul II – they were upset his inter-religious dialogue, his excommunication of the SSPX, his willingness to have liturgies which reflected the culture they came from, et. al. They have wanted something to pin against him — they knew he was popular and it was his popularity which made him “great.” They think they have something here.
Of course, it’s interesting how they are framing it. They are acting like Benedict’s actions were directly guided by John Paul II. I do not think that is the case. It fails to acknowledge the speed Benedict was to act in theological matters. More importantly, it sees it all as an issue of the Pope — even if it is the case he wanted the frequency of priests returning to lay status lessened, it doesn’t mean a particular case with a known abuser couldn’t have been sped up. That was Benedict’s decision as far as we can tell.
I do think John Paul II had a blind spot for this issue, because of how the Soviets made false claims about abuse way too often, so he thought it was mostly people crying wolf. This seems, in part, to be the foundation for how the Church reacted to the media, and seems, in part, to still be in place — a mistrust of criticism. I hope that changes — the sooner, the faster we can deal with the system-wide problem.
Douthat doesn’t speak for Catholic conservatives; he speaks for himself. And there really is no official conservatives position on the relative merits of Benedict and John Paul II. Even John Paul’s most ardent champions would admit that he had blind spots and weaknesses, and no one ever claimed that administration was his strong suit. One can reasonably argue that it is impossible to be a great pope without being a good administrator, and when people get carried away with wistful talk about the good old days of the previous papacy it is fair to remind them of the buried problems that are now being unearthed. But “John Paul the Meh” and “the King is dead”? If I didn’t know better, I’d say that’s the sound of Schadenfreude. I think many Catholics would be more receptive to criticism of the Vatican from within the church if it were presented with a less conspicuous delight. The conservatives have no lock on triumphalism.
“…the perceived significance of child abuse (at least as compared to other institutional considerations) in a situation where there was no question of the priest’s guilt …”
If it is true that there was no question of the priest’s guilt, then why did he receive only three years probation if he were guilty of this heinous crime?
Ed, as a liberal-conservative Catholic, I am Praying for a larger and purer Church.
I think the reputations of JPII and BXVI will not be fully established til some time hence, when (hopefully, more truth) is known.
I suspect the judgememt will be somewaht harsh, given the secrecy and defensiveness that is part iof the Roman response, but that’s my opinion.
I do think the “JPII the Great” labeling has suffered and that’s probably good.
But it’s only a sidelight to the big questions around which we keep talking and (as Rita pointed out in the Smoking Gun? thread below,) go around mainly in our own circles.
Thank you, Matthew Boudway. You say something well that I’ve felt here for a long time.
To get the thread back on topic, I would say that this question of what this says about Ratzinger’s motivations is important. Penalever says they show that Ratzinger was more concerned with the image of the church. MSW has addressed this in a post at America. He says that the context is self-requested laicization by young priests. He points out that two of the documents sent to Ratzinger don’t even make the sex abuse accusations clear.
http://www.americamagazine.org/blog/entry.cfm?blog_id=2&entry_id=2746
All of this gets back to a point I made on the tail end of the other post: laicization/defrocking is not, in and of itself, relevant. Whether the abuser is removed from ministry is the real issue. Defrocking might help get the abuser away from kids, but it might not. The basis of Ratzinger’s decision in this case may have been based on other considerations.
What next?
Front page of NYT
Pope Makes Spelling Error, Infallability in Question
The crisis was all about moving aorund priests who then abused more children . . . no . . . no . .. it’s more than that
It’s about covering up abuse to protect the Church . . . no . . . no . . . it’s more than that
It’s about not formally laicizing abusive priests fast enough, yes, there we go, we can pin that one on him
Eduardo -
You say – “Ratzinger’s words made clear that he was more concerned with the implications of the defrocking for the image of the Church (particularly the shortage of vocations) than for the well-being of Fr. Kiesle’s victims.”
You must start calling yourself The Amazing Eduardo since you must be a mind reader if that’s what’s “clear” from the statement. Are you saying you shouldn’t consider the “good of the universal church”?
Great post and your summation is very well written, cogent, and thought out. Thanks. You have especially grasped the nature of the crisis – it is not in searching for “smoking guns”; individual cases, etc. but what they each point to in terms of the attitude, approach, etc. – yes, it appears to have evolved since 1085 but at such a slow rate. Why?
Some added thoughts from this post and earlier posts on this specific case:
a) the timeline of this case indicates that Bishop Cummins twice traveled to Rome to meet with the Pope and key dicastery heads – would assume that the Kiesle case was on his agend and was discussed. You would think that this would have impacted Ratzinger’s decision making, delays, etc.
b) what about the part of the timeline in which the dicastery states – lost paperwork; re-send?
c) I personally experienced the JPII “Wall” on laicizations after he assumed office. Per my colleagues and friends (one who is currently head of the US Canon Law Society and handled my case), JPII would not review or grant any laicizations until 1990. He relented then only because key cardinals/bishops continually pushed him to reconsider his stance – the argument was that JPII’s focus on families, teens, children did not exactly match his refusal to laicize – that only left families, spouses, children hanging legally outside the church. He eventually relented and changed his policy.
Agree with your comments about centralization – one of the confusions in all of these mixed messages is that JPII and B16 have stripped the bishops’ conferences of all power and ability to make decisions around serious issues e.g. sexual abuse. We know that Rome could not handle or did not handle cases well in the 1980′s. Bishops were left to deal with Rome individually and complained that the canon law system was skewed to protect the pedophile priest; not victims.
Now, we have folks saying that B16 changed things in 2002 – yet Msgr. Scicluna stated that they dealt with 3,000 cases since 2002 – only 40% involved pedophilia and he only has 7-10 priests working in this centralized unit. There is no way humanly possible for the volume of cases to be handled in this way.
There is also the link to the 1983 canon law promulgation and that it tooks years to figure out the new canon law perspective and regulations around pedophilia.
Talk about confusing.
Are you saying you shouldn’t consider the “good of the universal church”?
Sean,
Can you please explain what the “good of the Universal Church” was in this context? I really don’t understand what it was supposed to refer to.
“a) the timeline of this case indicates that Bishop Cummins twice traveled to Rome to meet with the Pope and key dicastery heads – would assume that the Kiesle case was on his agend and was discussed.”
Bill deH. –
Thus far all of our discussions have assumed that a pope has enough time to make such decisions as whether or not a particular miscreant shall be defrocked. But given the many, many hundreds of thousands of priests world-wide, are there enough hours in the day for such decisions to be made at the very top? Isn’t that an impossible sort of micro-managing?
ISTM that the solution would have to be delegation of such decision-making authority to regional groups of bishops, who would sit in judgment of each others’ management. There would be collegiality not only in establishing doctrine but also in the administration of regions of the Church. Yes, that’s a different thread, but maybe the blog could get to it sometime. To paraphrase Carville, the Vatican is the problem, stupid.
In Hendrik Hertzberg’s commentary on the matter in today’s New Yorker, he concludes:
“Our largely democratic, secularist, liberal, pluralist modern world, against which the Church has so often set its face, turns out to be its best teacher — and the savior, you might say, of its most vulnerable, most trusting communicante.”
You guys ought to wander over to America, where MSW offers a very thoughtful dissection of this alledged “smoking gun” you guys are going on about.
I see, David Nickol, that you have commented over there, so clearly you understand that Benedict’s comments re: “the good of the Church” doesn’t refer to the abuse charges against Kiesel but to a separate juridical issue. I struggle to understand why you continue to carry on as if there aren’t other facts to consider. Even if you disagree with them, integrity would seem to require you to at least mention them.
There is clearly more to the story than Commonweal contributors and commentators are letting on and when MSW and American Papist are actually on the same side of something, it speaks volumes about the shear force of the truths that must be reckoned with.
G
he crisis was all about moving aorund priests who then abused more children . . . no . . . no . .. it’s more than that
It’s about covering up abuse to protect the Church . . . no . . . no . . . it’s more than that
It’s about not formally laicizing abusive priests fast enough, yes, there we go, we can pin that one on him
Sean,
The crisis was, in general, that the Church mishandled priests guilty of sexually abusing youths. They moved them around, they kept their offenses secret when they moved them around, and they hung on to them for no apparent reason rather than letting them go. Note that in both the Murphy and the Kiesle cases, both priests were involved with youths as priests even after they had gone on leaves of absence or been removed from ministry.
I don’t think it is necessary to “prove” that then-Cardinal Ratzinger was indifferent to abused children or the potential continuation of the abuse of children (although he may have been). I think what is newsworthy about these cases is that the Catholic Church as an institution for whatever reason had not figured out how to handle priests who were abusing young people. It was a major failure on the part of the Church, and Cardinal Ratzinger as head of the CDF was a part of it.
This doesn’t mean a defense has to be mounted to prove Ratzinger was not an “evil monster” (as Jimmy Akin did in the National Catholic Register). It seems to me that what the Catholic Church needs to do is say, “Regrettably, as an institution, we did not come to grips with handling abusive priests until just a short while ago. A lot of damage was done as a result, for which we are truly sorry.” Then, when one of these cases came to light, they would have to say, “Yes, this is an example of what we were talking about. So regrettable it happened. So fortunate that we finally have made real progress in handling these cases.”
I see, David Nickol, that you have commented over there, so clearly you understand that Benedict’s comments re: “the good of the Church” doesn’t refer to the abuse charges against Kiesel but to a separate juridical issue. I struggle to understand why you continue to carry on as if there aren’t other facts to consider. Even if you disagree with them, integrity would seem to require you to at least mention them.
Gregory Popcak,
Thanks for questioning my integrity, but as you can see from my message to Sean above (April 12th, 2010 at 12:59 pm), I am bewildered as to what the reference to the “good of the Universal Church” referred to. And I have no idea what the “separate juridical issue” is that you mention. I would be more than happy to be enlightened.
“We have to understand, many of the “traditionalists” were not fans of Pope John Paul II…They think they have something here…Of course, it’s interesting how they are framing it.”
I do not believe Mr. Douthat considers himself a “traditionalist” so who are you referring to when you say “they”? Anyone specific?
David,
No I can’t, can you? That’s the point. Unless you read all the documents leading up to this as well as any other discussions, how can you “clearly” conclude that this was about the Church’s “image”?
Fact, this was a petition by the priest, not a punitive action undertaken by the Diocese. If you look at the letters they almost all focus on why he should be absolved of his obligations – why it is good for him or why he isn’t fit for the vocation. The fuller quote is that the CDF, “nevertheless deems it necessary to consider the good of the Universal Church together with that of the petitioner.” Do you know what all the records the diocese produced in 1982 said? That’s what the CDF is responding to. How is this about protecting the “image” of the Church? As one of the earlier letters pointed out, giving the guy the boot was a better way to do that. What Eduardo and others are saying is “clear” is just spin.
David,
Frankly, given that the NYT has shown nothing to indicate the pope did anything to endanger anyone in these cases, I think their intention is to sling enough mud hoping something sticks.
Michael Sean Winters’s attempt to disarm the Kiesle situation comes up short:
http://www.spiritual-politics.org/2010/04/the_kiesle_case.html
Although Mr Winters fails to persuade Grant, I would suggest reading Austen Ivereigh’s post on what is going on in Britain right now. According to him, the press there seems to have become unhinged.
http://www.americamagazine.org/blog/entry.cfm?blog_id=2&entry_id=2748
Gregory Popcak
Michael Sean Warner says:
I have no quarrel with this as a possible interpretation, but it is not really in the documents. And I would note that Rev. Mockel, in relating the contents of Cardinal Ratzinger’s letter to Kiesle says, “There is also some concern whether granting the dispensation might ‘provoke some scandal among the faithful.’” Of course, Rev. Mockel was directly involved in the case. You and I aren’t. So I would give more weight to his reading of the matter of what the CDF was concerned about than the reading of you or MSW.
Grant, thanks for link to the rebuttal of MSW. It does seem correct.
It still remains unanswered why defrocking is so important to the story.
Frankly, given that the NYT has shown nothing to indicate the pope did anything to endanger anyone in these cases, I think their intention is to sling enough mud hoping something sticks.
Sean,
I have not seen anything in the New York Times claiming or implying anything then-Cardinal Ratzinger did endangered anyone. I personally don’t think that’s the point. And it seems to me that by calling the reporting of these incidents mud slinging, you are contributing the the perception that they are accusations of something reprehensible. I think the people who are insisting that Cardinal Ratzinger never did anything remotely regrettable in his entire life are just as far off base as those who insist he must resign because of his reprehensible behavior.
My take on this is that Ratzinger was just a part of a bad system. Hanging on to priests who abused was part of a bad policy. To deny that he delayed defrocking priests who abused is simply nonsense. Such a big deal was made by his defenders that he didn’t have anything to do with the Murphy case (not at all certain, by the way) have resulted in a similar case with actual documentary proof look damning.
“…what is going on in Britain right now. According to him, the press there seems to have become unhinged.”
Naw, that’s just the way they are normally. Very opinionated, the British. ;)
Still, it does start to sound like fury unleashed = revolution. See what stubborn refusal to come down off your high horse leads to? (I repeat what I said earlier, on the Smoking Gun thread: this is a bad time for the pope to go to the UK.)
David
I never said he never did anything remotely regrettable. What I am saying is that splashing relatively minor incidents that could be described at most as a slow and cumbersome process all over the front page of a major newspaper is not news. It isn’t even interesting. No one ever said the CDF didn’y delay things, the point was it isn’t important.
It’s too rich to now say his defenders are “making a big deal” or making it seem “sinister.” Last time I looked, I don’t have editorial control over the NYT.
Rita-
Do you think the pope bought a non-refundable plane ticket? For our sake, I hope not!
Anthony
Matthew B: I should have been clearer with my “John Paul the Meh” line…That was my glib interpretation of what it sounds like Douthat (and perhaps others) are doing to JP2. Not schadenfreude, just surprise (on my part) that the late pontiff is suddenly so woeful. I think his shortcomings in this regard were evident for a long time, and the John Paul the Great hosannas probably didn’t do him any favors.
As for the media coverage, I agree with David Nickol’s last post here. It seems pretty indisputable that Ratzinger was not the crusader against abusive priests that is being claimed by some of his overreactive defenders.
It’s too rich to now say his defenders are “making a big deal” or making it seem “sinister.” Last time I looked, I don’t have editorial control over the NYT.
Sean,
Many of the people who have taken on the role of defenders of the Church are hysterical. Just because the Times puts a story on the front pages pointing out something a Cardinal or a Pope did does not mean it is an accusation of some horrible misdeed. As I have said before of the Murphy case, Vatican Declined to Defrock U.S. Priest Who Abused Boys was reasonably accurate.
http://www.vatican.va/resources/index_en.htm
Vatican now has a resources page on the abuse crisis; I wonder how much more it will reveal, and when?
George Weigel weighs in with some good perspective and sensible suggestions.
http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2010/04/another-long-lent
Can anyone explain to me why a bishop or Superior General (or whatever) of a congregation of male priests can ordain pretty much at will, but has to get Vatican approval to defrock once a man is ordained?
It couldn’t have anything to do with self-protecting clericalism, could it?
Bishops can approve Catholic divorce (oops, annulment) and matrimony is a sacrament. Why not the same for the sacrament of orders?
And don’t give me this stuff about ontology, blah blah blah.
Ann: “To paraphrase Carville, the Vatican is the problem, stupid.” Ann is absolutely right — the problem is the structure of governance itself. The Roman Catholic Church is governed as an absolute, divine right monarchy. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us, supreme power in the Church resides for life in the Pope as the Roman Pontiff, who derives this right to rule directly from the will of God as the successor of Peter. That means the entire Church (over a billion of us) have to depend upon the experiences, inclinations and fears of one fallible human being and his small cadre of administrators. This is absolute insanity.
George Weigel weighs in with some good perspective and sensible suggestions.
Jim,
Weigel begins
You call that “good perspective”?
I wouldn’t want to reargue the whole thing, but it seems quite obvious that the CDF ordered the trial of Murphy brought to a halt. If then-Cardinal Ratzinger didn’t personally give the order, his second-in-command (Archbishop Bertone) clearly did. Where was the calumny?
“I would suggest reading Austen Ivereigh’s post on what is going on in Britain right now. According to him, the press there seems to have become unhinged.”
Anybody who accuses the press of acting “in locus vulgi” is either completely illiterate or somewhat unhinged himself.
I see [so far] no ‘traditionalist’ or ‘conservatives’ coming to JPII defense. The dog that does not bark..sees that nothing is going wrong.
See Vatican rebuts allegations of stalling sex abuse case.
It is absurd to suggest that centralizing sex abuse cases in that nutty office in Rome was a good idea. If the bishops of the world are unable to handle them, you can’t expect a tiny coterie of heresy-hunting clerics with no pastoral experience to be able to.
The rebuttal posted by David Nickol seems quite reasonable to me. People’s anxiety to find a smoking gun has produced smoke but no real fire. Indeed it has backfired.
Amazing how quickly JP2 was thrown under the bus…
David: Actually,all the good stuff from Weigel comes after the bit you quoted. Well worth a read all the way through.
Btw, I’ve taken a shot at composing a non-calumnious headling for the original story: “Obscure Vatican Functionary May or May Not have Done Something Decades Ago, the Gist of Which We’re Unable To Explain In Clear and Simple Terms”
“Don’t give me this stuff about ontology” — if you want a merely functional definition of ordination, would you also say the same about baptism?
I think that divorce (as opposed to annulment) can also be granted only by the Vatican.
Jim, you know what the Vatican didn’t do? It didn’t act affirmatively in any manner that would have lessened the potential for harm. “Failed to act” is an equivocation, not a defense.
I don’t believe in magic. Just because someone has gone through the process of receiving a sacrament (baptism, ordination, matrimony) doesn’t mean that, if the person doesn’t continue to cooperate with and actively live out that sacrament, somehow something magic continues to happen.
Color me a prod in that respect.
Notable conclusion by the District Attorney in Ga. on the quarterback Rotheburger case when he refused to prosecute: “We prosecute crimes not morality.”
The morality still cries out to heaven against Benedict. His “good of the church” refers to the scandal of priests being defrocked, which JPII slowed up compared to Paul VI. Nevertheless, there is little concern for the victims. Therefore the NY Times is absolutely right that the victim’s situation took a back seat. There will be more to come. Why some here are denying this is baffling. There is a smoking gone which will turn into a blazing fire because Rome is on the defensive.
It would be easier for Benedict to admit he made a mistake but he and his aides are on the defensive. The smoking gone will literally go ballistic.
Jim,
I read it all the way through.
I would not call the head of the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith an “obscure Vatican functionary.” People knew who Cardinal Ratzinger was before he became Pope Benedict XVI.
The CDF put an end to the trial of Father Murphy, a known sex abuser. Whether that was good or bad thing can be debated. But the story was accurate in saying that it happened. If it mattered not at all (and actually, I am not sure it did), why were so many people so determined to prove Cardinal Ratzinger was not involved. It’s another one of those cases where the argument is logically incoherent. “Absolutely nothing wrong was done, and Cardinal Ratzinger had nothing to do with it!”
the head of the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
Omit either “the head of” or “the Prefect of”
Bill Mazzella, the smoking gun should have gone ballistic already if it is a real smoking gun. It looks more like a damp squib to me. And I really don’t think you are going to find any more interesting dirt on Ratzinger than what is already known.
“I don’t believe in magic. Just because someone has gone through the process of receiving a sacrament (baptism, ordination, matrimony) doesn’t mean that, if the person doesn’t continue to cooperate with and actively live out that sacrament, somehow something magic continues to happen.”
But the validity of all the sacraments administered by a priest would then be undercut. How could we know if the priest had retained the worthiness to make him a valid minister? I’d have to color you Donatist!
Joseph.
I agree with you that the centralization of authority in the Vatican has been a part of the problem. I think there could be something where it should be a both-and process. That is, a bishop should have more of their traditional authority and position restored to them, so that they can act, without having need for constant contact with the central authority to approve of their every action. The way I know many bishops look to the Pope shows to me they do not see their position as one of authority as much as a tool for the Pope. This is sad. On the other hand, because I do know bishops can and will make mistakes, I do not think the Vatican need to have no say. Rather, I think they should be informed of actions and criminal investigations and everything which happens within the dioceses. The bishop does not have to wait for them, and should not wait for them, to do something on his own. But if the bishop, for whatever reason, does nothing, the Vatican investigation should also be able to lead to an action. The primary means should be with the bishop, the Vatican should be used to make sure nothing gets lost instead of being the primary gatekeeper. This still will not be perfect, but I think it would go a long way forward.
David
Just this morning in the gym I heard two of the network morning news programs lead in stories on this subject with – New information that the pope was personally involved in the cover-up of priest abusers.
I was born at night, but not last night. Since the first story in March the NYT and others have been trying to tie the Vatican to the overarching story of a cover-up in ways not supported by the facts.
For all of thiose saying this is evidence of the need for more local control, it was the local control that failed in the first instance. Everyone is complaining about the dillatory Vatican, when it was local priests and bishops that sat on the issue and took years to elevate the cases. Please, provide one shred of evidence that problems like these will be avoided or solved better if local laymen get more control.
The more this unfolds the more I am convinced that the loudest critics care very little about the actual issue and more about having a hobby horse to ride for their reformist agenda.
Sean
What has been surprising is if the facts were so clear, why are the ones who have been saying “We have the facts, and the NYT are wrong because of X” get shown by the NYT to be the ones in error and have to constantly go “I’m sorry, I was wrong” when new evidence comes out? Seriously, the people handling the affair and complaining about the NYT making mistakes do not get a free pass just because the NYT makes mistakes. They are showing the typical approach seen with a cover-up: blame the one investigating, showing how the investigation sometimes is faulty, all the while each moment they are shown to be in error to say “sorry, that escaped my notice.”
It is, imo, a part of the way the Vatican thinks of things which is right now the problem. It is the system and how it is used to hiding things from public view during times of real persecution (Nazis, Romans, etc) that has led to a failed understanding of how to deal with an internal crisis when the issue is not persecution.
So Matthew Boudway: Are you officially representing Douthaut, or are you a citizen volunteer? Why do you think he was a column on the op-ed page of the Times? He speaks for Conservative Catholics! or at least some of them, probably even the brightest among them.
Sorry for the delay in rebutting: Verizon melted down yesterday.
Henry
That’s the whole point. What cover-up?!?!?!?
None of these revelations have anything to do with a cover-up. I am not blaiming the NYT for investigating, but for inflating their findings into something they aren’t. This is journalism by impression. Let’s not worry about the actual facts, let’s just create the right impresssion.
What are these “constant” corrections? I am aware of only one, and that wasn’t significant. Besides, this misses the whole point. There was no protection of an abuser, there was no cover-up of abuse. In fact, the only abuse happened after one of these priests was defrocked. We might as well conclude that this incident was caused by the Vatican’s decision to defrock the priest. It would make about as much sense as the claim that the delay in defrocking caused any harm.
The anti-Ratzinger ideologists are far more dogmatic than Ratzinger, and that is precisely why no explanation will ever satisfy them.
It doesn’t have to do with being anti-Pope Benedict to see the need for a forthright discussion on everything, not letting everything just drip, drip, drip out. I am pro-Benedict, but one can see the failures of people you respect.
Sean: Just look to the constant about faces going on with Fr. Brundage. First, it is the New York Times misquoted him. Er, sorry about that (if you are going to make a charge of misrepresentation, that isn’t going to go well). Then there is the “oh, sorry, THAT letter” moment he had. It just keeps coming.
And before you ask what I mean, it is this:
In the file e-mailed to me was a August 15, 1998 draft of a letter that I drafted and Archbishop Weakland slightly edited which became the text of the August 19, 2008 letter from Archbishop Weakland to Archbishop Bertone in which he declared that he had instructed me to formally abate the case. This letter was not part of the file that I had access to and I had not seen that letter in nearly 12 years.
In all honesty, I do not remember this memo but I do admit to being wrong on this issue and I apologize for my mistake.
—–
Interestingly enough he points out he didn’t have access to the file. The one who is making a defense, based upon his own actions, didn’t have access to the file itself. Isn’t that rather telling and to the point?
Joseph S. OLeary,
It is notable enought that you are now becoming a defender of Ratzinger. But to be Absolute about it seems to be really pushing it.
March 1977: Joseph Alois Ratzinger appointed Archbishop of Munich by Pope Paul VI.
January 1980: Archbishop Ratzinger chairs the Munich Diocesan Council meeting where the case of a priest, Peter Hullermann, accused of sex abuse is discussed. (Hullerman, 31, had plied an 11 year old boy with alcohol and then had him perform oral sex on him.) The Council decides to refer the priest to counseling.
That’s the whole point. What cover-up?!?!?!?
Sean,
Are you denying there was a massive attempt to cover up sex abuse by priests, or are you just saying Benedict never played a part in it?
Regarding the Kiesle case, in the 1985 letter from Cardinal Ratzinger, he says:
Commenting on that paragraph, Father Mockel of the Diocese of Oakland says he sees two options, the second of which is given in the second paragraph in this block quote:
In writing to Kiesle, Mockel says
It has been argued that there already had been a scandal, so it doesn’t make sense to say Cardinal Ratzinger was trying to avoid scandal, but nevertheless, it seems like Mockel was partly reading the letter from Cardinal Ratzinger to be about avoiding scandal. (See passage in boldface in the CDF letter and Mockel’s letter.)
Here is what definitely happened. The CDF was very slow to defrock a sex-abusing priest. The fact that they have subsequently speeded up the process clearly indicates that the slower process was not the optimal approach. Kiesle did, by the way, do volunteer work with a youth group while he was waiting to be defrocked. Murphy also continued to work with youths when he was on leave of absence.
Here is what may have happened. The CDF was at least partly concerned with scandal, and so it dragged out the process of laicizing a sex-abusing priest to six or seven years.
Even if the CDF was merely carrying out an alleged policy not to defrock anybody until the age of 40, they were still keeping sex-abusing priests in the Church. They were also misleading people who were petitioning to be laicized or have someone laicized by claiming they needed a long time to handle the petitions.
The Murphy and Kiesle cases may not prove Cardinal Ratzinger “did something wrong.” But they do show that the Church had policies that were desperately in need of reform, and Cardinal Ratzinger was carrying out those policies.
Henry,
I think this is a very telling bit of information regarding Brundage:
It is an acknowledgment that the trial was stopped by Bertone. There have been thousands of arguments made that the CDF was only making suggestions and that Weakland was free to continue the trial if he wanted to. But when Brundage — who drafted the letter for Weakland to send declaring he was formally abating the trial — is asked why the trial was stopped, he clearly indicates that Bertone was responsible, and he doesn’t even really understand why.
David
I am taliking about this subject – the recent attempt to characterize these cases as part of a general cover-up.
How do you cover up a case that had been presented in public in a court of law?!?!?
He is talking about a case that was public knowledge. The victims had come forward. The man was found guilty of a crime in a criminal court. In the case of Murphy, people were marching outside the cathedral carrying signs about the case.
I ask again – What cover-up?!?!
Your reading of the “scandal” language again is based on a predisposition to find something that isn’t there. The meaning of these words apply to what was actually happening, not to what you want them to mean.
The priest in question wanted to be defrocked, it was his petition that the pope was delaying. The pope was looking at this from the perspective of the man’s request to be released from his obligations, not as a punitive act. When he talks about scandal, he talks about it in the context of other considerations.
My sense is that the CDF are frustrated that the diocese has treated this as if laicization was a forgone conclusion without going throught the proper analysis and considerations.
Henry
A couple of clarifications and retarctions by one man on one subject hardly amount to “constant” about faces by everyone defending the pope.
“…the trial was stopped by Bertone.” If this is true, I wonder why?
“The Murphy and Kiesle cases may not prove Cardinal Ratzinger “did something wrong.” But they do show that the Church had policies that were desperately in need of reform, and Cardinal Ratzinger was carrying out those policies.”
David, I think that’s a reasonable conclusion. But it isn’t the picture that the NY Times set out to paint.
You asked me (sorta :-)) what I liked about the Weigel piece. Here’s one thing: he hits a bull’s-eye when he states that this is all about ginning up an overarching narrative.
When the narrative has a basis in fact, then the church can’t really complain. (She can feel sorry for herself, which isn’t a very edifying spectacle, but she has no right to complain).
The narrative that the NY Times and its litigator sources are trying mightily to construct right now is, ‘Catholic church is hypocritical and corrupt from top to bottom – rotten to the core. Pope up to his neck in sex abuse cover-up.’ Nothing brought forth so far comes close to supporting that narrative.
“I would not call the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith an “obscure Vatican functionary.” People knew who Cardinal Ratzinger was before he became Pope Benedict XVI. ”
I was referring to Bertone, not Ratzinger.
Jim Pauwels, you are probably right. People are trying to make Ratzinger the villain of the piece because of a powerful scapegoat mechanism well analyzed by Rene Girard. At most they can show that he was the average type of bishop in the 1980s (compounded by his absentee style in Munich), the average type of Vatican bureaucrat in the 1990s. They give him no credit for his efforts to take the situation in hand in the 2000s.
Of course you can make a good case that as a man of the system, indeed THE man of the system, Ratzinger is a figure to be deconstructed and overcome, as we return to a Vatican II style church polity. But that is too subtle a case for journalists to make. Der Spiegel’s long piece was mostly tired rehash, without any ecclesiological analysis. Kung is disappointing too.
Let’s be careful and not turn the scapegoat mechanism itself into a scapegoat for those who are in positions of authority. I think the reason why many find concern in Pope Benedict’s actions is because of how he handled different priorities — he was quick, and efficient, when dealing with theological questions, but it appears he was slow, and not as concerned, when dealing with sexual abuse. That it was in part because he was following the system is true, but we must remember, that doesn’t remove all the culpability. I’m not one who is calling for his retirement, by no means, but I think a more open discussion instead of a defensive stand is necessary and that is something which he is not yet encouraging. The few things (like the new resources on the Vatican) are not what are needed, especially when they come with all kinds of “how dare yous” to the media.
Mrs. Steinfels’ snottiness aside, I do think Matthew Boudway makes a good point that a) Douthat speaks for himself and b) the Schadenfreude is palpable. They’ll know we are Christians by our love, right?
For those who are forever congratulating themselves as possessing the true spirit of Vatican II, it would be a refreshing exercise in humility and genuine collective penance to inquire of their priests and lay church staff, liberal and conservative alike, what they knew and when they knew it. Because the fact is, in the rectories and the parish offices, EVERYONE knew and yet did not blow the whistle. Democratize the Church? Let’s start by pointing fingers at ourselves as much as the hierarchy.
“Douthat doesn’t speak for Catholic conservatives; he speaks for himself. And there really is no official conservatives position on the relative merits of Benedict and John Paul II. Even John Paul’s most ardent champions would admit that he had blind spots and weaknesses, and no one ever claimed that administration was his strong suit. One can reasonably argue that it is impossible to be a great pope without being a good administrator, and when people get carried away with wistful talk about the good old days of the previous papacy it is fair to remind them of the buried problems that are now being unearthed. But “John Paul the Meh” and “the King is dead”? If I didn’t know better, I’d say that’s the sound of Schadenfreude. I think many Catholics would be more receptive to criticism of the Vatican from within the church if it were presented with a less conspicuous delight. The conservatives have no lock on triumphalism.”
Just thought this was right. I found the tone of the posts and the comments baffling.