Omertà in the Vatican, Lez Get Real, April 17, 2010

Omertà in the Vatican

Lez Get Real
April 17, 2010

http://lezgetreal.com/?p=31542

He who is deaf, blind, and silent will live a hundred years in peace~ Sicilian proverb

Omertà is the code of ethics that a Mafioso follows when he swears into La Cosa Nostra. It says he must maintain absolute silence when questioned by law enforcement on the subject of alleged illegal activities by other members of the organization. This can result in one member "taking the fall" for others, facing criminal contempt of court charges or even taking sole responsibility for a crime that others committed. He does this with the assurance that he and his family will be supported by the organization during and after his imprisonment.

Late Thursday afternoon, Vatican spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi released a statement about a letter from 2001 in which a cardinal appears to applaud a French bishop for his decision to not report a case of priestly sexual abuse to civil authorities.

The September 8, 2001 letter, published this week by French magazine Golias, in which then-prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy, Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, offered congratulations to Bishop Pierre Pican for choosing not to report a priest who had been accused of sexual abuse to civil authorities.

Cardinal Hoyos wrote Pican a saying; that he "rejoices" that he has a brother in the episcopate that would choose prison over reporting a priest under his watch.

"I congratulate you for not having reported a priest to the civil administration," wrote Hoyos.

The priest, Abbot Renè Bissey, was sentenced in 1998 to 18 years in prison for abusing 11 minors. Bishop Pican later received a suspended prison sentence from a French Court for withholding information.

Having reached retirement age, Pican retired as a bishop last month, with all the benefits due a bishop in good standing with the church.

Fr. Lombardi said that the letter serves as confirmation of how timely the decision made in 2001 to channel all cases of sexual abuse through the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, headed at the time by then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. This move guaranteed a "rigorous and coherent management," Lombardi said.

Yesterday Hoyos justified praising Pican, saying the French bishop did not report Rene Bissey to the police because he was told of the child abuse during confession.

"After consulting the pope, I wrote a letter to the bishop, congratulating him as a model of a father who does not turn in his children," said Hoyos.

Castrillon Hoyos is a staunchly orthodox cardinal and old school Curia official who was in the forefront of restoring the old Latin Mass to more frequent use and reintegrating the four excommunicated bishops of the ultra-traditionalist Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) despite opposition from other bishops and the Holocaust-denying views of one of them, Richard Williamson. He also headed the Vatican department for priests from 1996 to 2006.

And yes, Hoyos is also still a Cardinal.