Vatican Insider
July 1, 2011
http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/homepage/world-news/detail/articolo/brasile-vaticano-teologia-brazil-vatican-theology-brasil-vaticano-teologia-3881/
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| Rio de Janeiro |
The situation is delicate especially since "the Recife case" of 2009. The Holy See's worry is concentrated on the crisis of discipline in the clergy, the growth of the evangelical Church and the influence of liberation theology amongst young priests
Wikileaks has revealed that the Vatican was worried about the conduct of Brazilian priests regarding celibacy. This has reopened a question of extreme delicacy for the Holy See, in particular because of the thorny issue of Brazilian (and South American) priests moving closer to liberation theology and the various tensions with Rome, glaring proof of which was seen in the Recife case where controversy arose around the abortion carried out on the mother/child.
According to the documents revealed by Wikileaks, the Vatican has expressed grave concern about the behaviour of priests in Brazil, especially their failure to adhere to and their indifference towards the rule of clerical celibacy. The source cited by the U.S. diplomat in the information is a Brazilian prelate, an official of the Secretary of State Stephen Monsignor Migliorelli and a close collaborator of Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who reported to the U.S. ambassador, Francis Rooney that Benedict XVI's trip to Brazil in 2007 came out of alarm over the situation in the local Catholic Church.
"Monsignor Migliorelli complains that the level of training of priests in Brazil is very low and in many cases the tenets of clerical discipline are not being respected (for example, clerical celibacy, etc. ...)", highlights the document prepared by the diplomat Francis Rooney for the American administration. According to another piece of information, prepared in 2007, the crisis in the priesthood, the decline in people choosing the vocation and the lack of discipline in the clergy in Latin America are the worst in the United States.
The Holy See, according to the U.S. statement, voiced its alarm at the growth of evangelical churches in Brazil in the South American region. According to the Vatican Secretariat of State; Brazil and Latin America must be regarded as a «land of mission», where it is necessary to «start over»; and «the clergy must be re-formed» to halt the advance of the evangelical churches. A worrying situation then, that which the cleric Migliorelli denounced to the US diplomat Rooney.
The Recife Case
Two and a half years ago the crisis reached a level of high alert between the Holy See and the Brazilian bishops. Bringing tension to a head was the "Recife case". The Church must respect the professionalism of doctors even when they perform operations that seem to contravene the Church law as in the case of the 9 year old child who was raped and forced to abort in Brazil because her life was at risk. The excommunication of the mother and the doctors was "a judgment that weighs like an axe and makes the church seem insensitive". On March 14, 2009 at the "Roman Observatory" the then President of the Pontifical Academy for Life, Rino Fisichella stigmatized the position taken by the Archbishop of Recife, Jose Cardoso Sobrinho. A week before he had announced the severe canonical sanctions against those who interrupted the pregnancy, despite the child who was pregnant with twins being in danger of dying. It was a case that caused uproar all around the world and provoked strong protest from President Lula against "the Church that is less correct than medicine". "Before thinking about the excommunication there was an urgent need to safeguard the innocent life of the child and bring it back to a level of humanity of which we men of the Church should be expert preachers and teachers", argued Archbishop Fisichella.
The Vatican minister of Bioethics also added on the subject of the mistaken approach taken by the Brazilian archbishop, "unfortunately the credibility of our teaching suffers as it appears to the eyes of many as insensitive, incomprehensible and without mercy". It is true that "little Carmen was carrying other innocent lives like her own inside her, even if they were the result of violence, and they were suppressed, but anyway that is not enough to pass a judgment that weighs like an axe". In addition the Vatican minister Fisichella acknowledged "because of her very young age and her precarious health conditions, her life was in serious danger due to the pregnancy and nobody took a decision like this easily; it is unjust and offensive even to think it". However, just a few hours after the excommunication, the Curia said "excommunication is correct for those who caused the abortion".
But total support in the Vatican came from cardinal Giovanni Battista Re for the archbishop of Recife who ended up the target of the civil authorities for the excommunication. "It is a pitiful case but the real problem is that the two twins conceived were innocent people with the right to life and this should not have been taken away" the Minister of the Vatican Bishops and president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America commented at the time that "life should always be protected so the attack on the Brazilian Church is unjustified".
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