Pope Accepts Irish Bishop Resignation, Ruth Gledhill, The Times, March 24, 2010

Pope Accepts Irish Bishop Resignation

By Ruth Gledhill
The Times
March 24, 2010

http://timescolumns.typepad.com/gledhill/2010/03/feeling-a-bit-sorry-for-the-irish-bishops.html

The Pope has accepted the resignation of Bishop of Cloyne John Magee, the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland said today. Magee stepped down earlier after a Church investigation criticised the way he complaints against two paedophile priests in the diocese of Cloyne in southern Ireland. I am desperately sorry for and, like so many, angry on behalf of the victims, but also starting feel a bit sorry for the Irish bishops. Only a bit, though. Read on to find out why. Belief.net has more links on this story.

Richard Owen writes in The Times today that 'Georg Ratzinger, the Pope's brother, was drawn further into the paedophile scandal embroiling the Catholic Church.' One of the priests concerned is Father Sturmius W, whose case was highlighted on this blog last week. Georg Ratzinger is not implicated in the scandals.

And also in today's Times there is a truly courageous and extraordinary testimony by the former Director of Public Prosecutions, Sir Ken Macdonald, of Matrix chambers. Sir Ken was a cradle Catholic. On the Pope's letter of apology at the weekend, he writes that child rape was not invented in the 1960s and it was not the result of a changing moral climate.

Sir Ken writes: 'Sad to say, paedophilia and abuse have always been around. Benedict may comfort himself by blaming priestly crimes on the decline of clericalism and the scourge of social freedom, but for most of us the opposite is true: it is only a stronger secularism and the flock’s dimming fear that have finally defeated the Church’s tireless efforts to keep civil society and its sharp means of justice away from these multiple crimes.

'The Pope’s first prescription for curing the Church in Ireland is a programme of adoration before the Eucharist. This may indeed provide spiritual comfort to Ireland’s remaining churchgoers, though whether it will provide much succour to those who have long since abandoned the Church that tormented them is more open to question. A simpler prescription might have been that canon law is no equal to crime or to rape. If you suspect abuse, the Pope might better have told the people of Ireland, don’t worry about canon law — just call the police.'

So what about that canon law?

In May 2001, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, wrote a letter which addressed the crime of child abuse. The original can be seen in Latin on the Vatican website.

Translations have appeared in various places only mysteriously to disappear. James at the Catholica forum still has a translation up however. He describes what has been happening, and adds this:

'When you read the letter and the three separate headings referred to below, you can understand why members of the hierarchy, Ireland included, would come to the quite reasonable conclusion that the obligation of “pontifical secrecy” applied not only to the Church’s internal disciplinary processes, but to any allegation that was made to the Church by a member of the faithful.'

Here is a translation of the relevant third section:

3. Direct violation of the sacramental seal.(10)

A delict against morals, namely: the delict committed by a cleric against the Sixth Commandment of the Decalogue with a minor below the age of 18 years.

Only these delicts, which are indicated above with their definition, are reserved to the apostolic tribunal of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

As often as an ordinary or hierarch has at least probable knowledge of a reserved delict, after he has carried out the preliminary investigation he is to indicate it to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which unless it calls the case to itself because of special circumstances of things, after transmitting appropriate norms, orders the ordinary or hierarch to proceed ahead through his own tribunal. The right of appealing against a sentence of the first instance, whether on the part of the party or the party's legal representative, or on the part of the promoter of justice, solely remains valid only to the supreme tribunal of this congregation.

It must be noted that the criminal action on delicts reserved to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is extinguished by a prescription of 10 years.(11) The prescription runs according to the universal and common law;(12) however, in the delict perpetrated with a minor by a cleric, the prescription begins to run from the day when the minor has completed the 18th year of age.

In tribunals established by ordinaries or hierarchs, the functions of judge, promoter of justice, notary and legal representative can validly be performed for these cases only by priests. When the trial in the tribunal is finished in any fashion, all the acts of the case are to be transmitted ex officio as soon as possible to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

All tribunals of the Latin church and the Eastern Catholic churches are bound to observe the canons on delicts and penalties, and also on the penal process of both codes respectively, together with the special norms which are transmitted by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith for an individual case and which are to be executed entirely.

Cases of this kind are subject to the pontifical secret.

Through this letter, sent by mandate of the supreme pontiff to all the bishops of the Catholic Church, to superiors general of clerical religious institutes of pontifical right and clerical societies of apostolic life of pontifical right, and to other interested ordinaries and hierarchs, it is hoped not only that more grave delicts will be entirely avoided, but especially that ordinaries and hierarchs have solicitous pastoral care to look after the holiness of the clergy and the faithful even through necessary sanctions.

Rome, from the offices of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, May 18, 2001.

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger

Prefect

Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone, SDB Secretary

There is another translation here.

James adds:

'It would follow from this that not only are the allegations of victims, but also the admissions by priests of having sexually abused children were subject to “the pontifical secret”. It seems fairly clear from what Fr. Sean McDonagh said in his letter to the Irish Times that this was understod by the clergy that it precluded those to whom such allegations were reported from going to the police with the evidence. That is an understandable inference from the letter.

'Now in fairness to the Pope, one could say that this was all just a misunderstanding, but it is very difficult for him to say that.

'Firstly it seems to have been the very widespread, if not universal practice not to bring these matters to the attention of the police. Even in Australia, one bishop refused to hand over his files to the police on particular allegations of sex abuse and only did so once a search warrant was issued against him. He resigned soon afterwards. I should add that this happened before the May 2001 letter, not subsequently.

'Second, since all such matters had to be reported to Ratzinger since 2001, where are the letters back from Ratzinger to the respective bishops ordering them to give the information to the police?

'I stand to be corrected again, but has anyone seen any evidence of such directions from the Vatican?

'The Irish Bishops statement that there was no responsibility in the Holy See just looks like an attempt to cover up the cover up.'

Many Catholics are hurting, no doubt about it, and not just the victims of the abusers. There is a tendency, as in so many crises, to blame the media.

In New York, Archbishop Timothy Dolan has posted some notes on the press converage of the crisis on his Facebook page. (How I wish our bishoips here had Facebook pages. Why don't they?)

Attacking psychiatrist Dr Werner Huth's criticism of the Church for ignoring abuse warnings, reported in The New York Times, Archbishop Dolan writes:

'What causes us Catholics to bristle is not only the latest revelations of sickening sexual abuse by priests, and blindness on the part of some who wrongly reassigned them — such stories, unending though they appear to be, are fair enough, — but also that the sexual abuse of minors is presented as a tragedy unique to the Church alone.

'That, of course, is malarkey. Because, as we now sadly realize, nobody, nowhere, no time, no way, no how knew the extent, depth, or horror of this scourge, nor how to adequately address it.

'The sexual abuse of our young people is an international, cultural, societal horror. It affects every religion, country, family, job, profession, vocation, and ethnic group.

'We Catholics have for a decade apologized, cried, reached out, shouted mea culpa, and engaged in a comprehensive reform that has met with widespread acclaim. We’ve got a long way to go, and the reform still has to continue.

'But it is fair to say that, just as the Catholic Church may have been a bleak example of how not to respond to this tragedy in the past, the Church is now a model of what to do. As the National Review Online observes, “. . . the Church’s efforts to come to grips with this problem within the household of faith — more far reaching than in any other institution or sector of society — have led others to look to the Catholic Church for guidance on how to address what is, in fact, a global plague.”

Leading the field in this area have been the Catholic Bishops of England and Wales, who deserve credit for making the Catholic Church in this country one of the safest for children.