https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=THE+SHCKING+TRUTH+WHY+POPE+BENEDICT+RESIGNED

Joshua J. McElwee  |  Mar. 28, 2017

ROME – A member of Pope Francis’ commission on clergy sexual abuse says his group has asked the pontiff to create a new Vatican office to train the city-state’s personnel in how to respond to letters from abuse survivors.

Jesuit Fr. Hans Zollner, a member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, told the Italian Catholic channel TV2000 Monday  that Vatican officials need training before they can respond to survivors.

“Many people in the Vatican do not know how to respond because they lack the psychological, theological and juridical background,” said Zollner, who also leads the Pontifical Gregorian University’s Center for Child Protection.

“It takes a complex set of competences and professional abilities,” he said March 27. “We have asked the pope to create an office to train people who can respond, as we must, to people.”

The question of how the Vatican responds to abuse survivors’ letters has been raised this month following Marie Collins March 1 resignation as a member of the pontifical commission.

Collins, an Irish abuse survivor, said her decision to resign was immediately precipitated by one Vatican office’s refusal to comply with a request from the commission, approved by the pope, that all letters sent to the Vatican by abuse survivors receive a response.

Zollner spoke March 27 following the commission’s meeting in Rome March 24-26.

“People who write to the Holy See expect a confirmation that their letters or emails have been read,” said the Jesuit. “It is a reasonable and human desire that clashes with the reality of an office that is very often limited in its human and linguistic resources.”

“Our request to the Holy See is that there might be someone able to respond adequately and that this might give a concrete and serious sign,” he said. “The most important thing is that people have the perception that they have been heard.”

In Blunt Talk At The Vatican, Sister Simone Campbell Blasts ‘Male Power’

By Josephine McKenna – for Religion News Service – March 7, 2017

(Edited by Brian Mark Hennessy}

(Referring to Marie Collins, who recently resigned from the panel appointed by Pope Francis to look into allegations of past Vatican obstruction of child sex abuse investigations, Campbell said: “Blocked by men – Isn’t this the real problem within the church?”)

The U.S. nun, Catholic activist Sister Simone Campbell, leader of the “Nuns on the Bus” campaign that toured America during the recent election cycles, spoke frankly in an interview ahead of a conference being held at the Vatican on Wednesday (March 8) to celebrate women’s contributions to peace.

Sister Simone suggested that senior clergy at the Vatican are more preoccupied with power than confronting issues, like clerical sexual abuse, that affect the faithful. “The institution and the structure is frightened of change,” Campbell told ‘Religion News Service’. “These men worry more about the form and the institution than about real people.”

Referring to Marie Collins, who last week resigned from the panel appointed by Pope Francis to look into allegations of past Vatican obstruction of child sex abuse investigations, Campbell said: “Blocked by men. Isn’t this the real problem within the Church? The effort to keep the church from stopping this sort of thing is shocking,” she added. “It is about male power and male image, not people’s stories. The real trouble is they have defined their power as spiritual leadership and they don’t have a clue about spiritual life.”.

This is the fourth consecutive year that women gather at the heart of the Vatican – timed to coincide with the U.N.-sponsored International Women’s Day. Campbell said she was shocked, and also moved, to have been included on the guest list for the Vatican conference. She was among the American nuns targeted in the controversial investigation of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious that was authorized in 2012 under then-Pope Benedict XVI. The Vatican investigators charged that the American sisters were straying too far from traditional doctrines, but Pope Francis, who was elected in 2013, put an end to the investigation in 2015.

No Vatican officials are scheduled to speak at the conference, which has drawn leaders and activists from around the world. Campbell noted that senior members of the Curia, or Vatican administration, were at a spiritual retreat outside Rome all this week and so unable to attend the women’s conference. “I don’t know if it’s a slap in the face or evidence of how much power they think we have,” she said. “Most of the guys who run this place haven’t dealt with an ordinary human being who’s been abused, an ordinary woman or a boy who has been abused,” she said. “If you don’t deal with the people you don’t have your heart broken open. The bureaucracy is so afraid of having their heart broken that they hide.”

Campbell heads Network, a social justice organization currently lobbying U.S. legislators in both houses of Congress to protect and maintain affordable health care. She acknowledged the church was changing but said it was “outrageous” that it was failing to respond to the sex abuse crisis more effectively. While noting that Francis was seeking to create a more inclusive church, Campbell expressed concern about the church hierarchy and their response to clerical abuse.

THE “CRUX” OF J R ALLEN JNR’S CONTEMPT FOR VICTIMS OF ABUSE

By Brian Mark Hennessy

From the point of view of a “Survivor”, who has long observed all the ultra-right trappings with which John L Allen Jr comments upon the Catholic Church in his weekly “CRUX” writings, I am not surprised at the arrogance of his disingenuous treatment of Marie Collins. His comments were not just thoughtless and in bad taste, but insulting – and not just to Marie Collins either, but to all Survivors – innocent children – who are the Victims of clerical sexual abuse. John L Allen Jnr should now get off his high horse, reflect a little on his miss-judgements before he indulges in his natural tendency to defend himself – and apologise unreservedly.

That term – “clerical sexual abuse” – has, at times, acquired in the writings of some commentators an almost sanitized glow to it – and so let us call it by what it is. None other than the United Nations has described the heinous crime of sexual abuse against innocent children as a form of “torture” due to its cruel, degrading and punitive nature –  and the UN went on to comment about the lifelong scars that can be afflicted upon such victims and the many forms of “restitution” that must be made. (“Restitution” in that context does not refer specifically to payments of money – I should add for those priests of the Comboni Missionary Order who said of “their” Victims of clerical sexual abuse “you are all money grabbers”!).

I have commented myself upon John L Allen Jnr’s articles on a number of occasions before because of his lack of both subjective research and distinctive idiomatic knowledge. He has shown himself to be, at times, almost thoughtless and unbalanced in the speed with which he jumps to make judgements regarding the intentions of both Victims of child sexual abuse and those who spend a lifetime in doing their best to represent them. He possesses an intellectual “blind spot” to all the hurdles that the Catholic Church places in the way of Victims. I assume that, quite deliberately, he allows himself this limited latitude of direction to forestall progress in what he would most probably understands as part of a “left-wing” agenda. His ability to find no faults with the Vatican Curia is suggestive of a self-created role as a “Champion” of the beleaguered Catholic Church.

Allen has shown that he is impervious to the cold and often callous treatment of the wrecked and wretched lives of the child Victims of cruel, sexual abuse. No doubt too, he applauds the remarks of Cardinal Muller in an article below, “I believe this can’t be resolved only by threatening with punishment, either civil or canonical.” In truth, the Vatican Hierarchs remain today, in practice and in word, more concerned with the welfare of those within their ranks who have committed life-destroying heinous “crimes” – than the innocent children who were damaged by those same clerics’ callous, depraved, self-gratifying acts of lust.

Whilst Christ said, “Suffer not little children to come unto me”, the Vatican Hierarchs welcome with open arms those cruel clerics who ravaged childrens’ innocent, youthful bodies and destroyed their minds. As regards those same children, Cardinal Muller is not shy in saying he cannot be bothered even to write a letter to thank Victims for bringing evil crimes of abuse by clerics within their ranks to their attention and to say what action they intend take. Without any form of written acknowledgement, how will those children know if anyone has even received their letter. “Oh – some Bishop or Religious Leader will contact you,” Muller is likely to add in his blindness to the needs and suffering of Victims.

I have personal experience of failed expectations of a letter from the Vatican. Two years ago I sent a document to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, but received no reply. A year ago, I badgered the Cardinal Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster, relentlessly over the matter. Ultimately, Cardinal Nichols delivered to the CDF a copy of the report by hand on behalf of those many seminarians abused by clerics of the Comboni Missionary Order at the Mirfield, Yorkshire Seminary – and Cardinal Nichols confirmed that he had done so. Not a peep from CDF or anybody else in the multitudinous dicasteries of the Curia by way of a response! For all I know the 177-page document may have been handed to the CDF’s janitor to light the Sistine Chapel stove at the next conclave! Hopefully, Pope Francis lives long enough to see it retrieved from such destruction.

Not that any Cardinal in the Vatican is going to tell the lay faithful of the Church, but, surprisingly, there is much enshrined in Canon Law in relation to the rights of the Lay Faithful – and they should be cognizant of it and demand that they should be heard. To start with, the Church comprises not just clerics – but all the baptized Christian Faithful – and it is about time the Lay element of that Christian Faithful started to let clerics know that those clerics are not superior to them – but equal in Canon Law. Yes, there were “Elders” in the Early Christian Church who imparted their knowledge and wisdom, but every widow, slave, merchant and farmer had an equal voice at the table where bread was broken – and that should still be the case now. The Pope and the Vatican’s primary and sole role is to be the “Guardians” of the Gospel traditions. The lavish trappings and symbols of status that were bestowed on bishops and other clerics by Byzantine Emperors to assist in the administration of their Empires – more than a thousand years ago – are superfluous historical flotsam and jetsam that have no place in the Catholic Church today. That is why the narcissism, protectionism, lack of introspection and sheer arrogance of so many clerics of all ranks – is so utterly and contemptuously not just un-Godly, but downright un-Christian! The following Canons should be learned by heart by all Lay Catholics!!!!

Can. 208: From their rebirth in Christ, there exists among all the Christian faithful a true equality regarding dignity and action by which they all cooperate in the building up of the Body of Christ.

Can. 220: No one is permitted to harm illegitimately the good reputation which a person possesses.

Can. 221 §1: The Christian faithful can legitimately vindicate and defend the rights which they possess in the Church in the competent ecclesiastical forum according to the norms of law.

Can. 227: The lay Christian faithful have the right to have recognized that freedom which all citizens have in the affairs of the earthly city.

Can. 1417 §: By reason of the primacy of the Roman Pontiff, any member of the faithful is free to bring or introduce his or her own contentious or penal case to the Holy See for adjudication in any grade of a trial and at any stage of the litigation.

Why Survivor’s Exit From Papal Panel May Be A Blessing In Disguise

By: John L. Allen Jr.March 1, 2017

Although the optics of the exit of the lone survivor serving as an active member of Pope Francis’s anti-sex abuse commission aren’t good, the reality is that naming survivors as members puts them in an extremely awkward spot, trapped between their loyalties to the Vatican and to fellow survivors.

In terms of the optics of the situation, there’s just no way in which the departure of Marie Collins, the only abuse survivor who was also an active member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, looks good for Pope Francis.

Citing frustrations with resistance to the commission’s work from within the Roman Curia, Collins announced today that she’s stepping down, though she’ll continue to work with the group in delivering anti-abuse training to clergy. Her exit comes at a time when Francis’s standing with survivors was already taking hits, in part because of revelations that he’s lightened the punishments imposed on several abuser priests in what the pontiff sees as a spirit of mercy, but what critics regard as a breakdown in accountability.

Certainly, the bureaucratic inertia and power games described by Collins raise legitimate questions about how serious the Vatican may be in terms of its commitment to reform. However, if one looks at the situation dispassionately, there’s also a case to be made that Collins’s resignation, along with the inactive status of the only other survivor on the commission, Peter Saunders of the UK, was both inevitable and arguably for the best.

Here’s why. When Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston and his team at the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors recommended that the pope name Collins and Saunders as members, the intentions were obviously noble. O’Malley understands from extensive personal experience that if you want to understand the spiritual and emotional devastation caused by clerical sexual abuse, there simply is no substitute for hearing the voices of survivors.

They also know that any credible clean-up effort has to be informed by the insights and perspectives of survivors, or it won’t fly. That’s not just a once-and-for-all fact of life but an ongoing one, since survivors need to be at the table whenever new problems and challenges arise, and to help monitor the implementation of whatever plans have been hatched.

In retrospect, however, making individuals such as Collins and Saunders full members of the commission turned out to place them in a politically untenable spot that was neither fair to them nor, ultimately, helpful to the commission.

Both Collins and Saunders were well-known as survivors of clerical abuse long before their nomination to the commission, with a reputation for outspokenness and leadership in the fight against abuse. That was a large part of the reason they were selected, on the theory that their credibility in the survivors’ community would translate to the papal commission.

The reality, however, is that being perceived as part of the pope’s official team and the Vatican’s power structure often left them trapped between their loyalty to the commission and their loyalties to their fellow survivors. Anytime a controversy arose, whether about the commission’s work or some other decision the pope or the Vatican had made with regard to sexual abuse, it was dicey for them to figure out how much they could say publicly, how hard they could push back, because they also felt obligated to try not to handicap or embarrass the group.

When Francis named a bishop in Chile in 2015 with a track record of defending that country’s most notorious abuser-priest, for instance, the decision troubled many abuse survivors and their advocates around the world. It left both Collins and Saunders in an especially difficult spot, because their fellow survivors looked to them to speak up, to lead the protests, and yet their institutional role on the commission made doing so politically complicated.

The reality likely is that survivors of clerical abuse will never be fully satisfied with the Church’s response, and that’s as it should be. Survivors, especially those with the courage to go public, need to be free to speak out and to help keep the Church honest, cajoling it to remain eternally vigilant – if necessary, even shaming it into action.

That’s an essential role, but awfully difficult to play when, at the same time, one is also part of the “system.”

Moreover, it’s not as if making survivors full members of the commission is the only way to ensure that their voices are heard. Collins herself is now an illustration of the point, no longer sitting on the group but still accepting an invitation from O’Malley to continue to be part of their training efforts, including for newly appointed bishops from around the world.

Survivors can be brought in routinely as consultants and advisers, they can be asked to take part in the commission’s meetings, they can participate in various projects and initiatives, and so on, all without being forced to carry the political weight for whatever decisions are reached – and remaining free to speak up if they believe those decisions are flawed.

The commission can also organize listening sessions with abuse survivors around the world, on the premise that the experience of a survivor in, say, Western Europe, is likely very different from that of someone in sub-Saharan Africa or the Indian subcontinent.

The bottom line is that the exit of Marie Collins isn’t necessarily the end of the road in terms of abuse survivors being represented on the pope’s commission. It could actually mean a transition to a more honest, freer, and less personally conflicted way of doing it. Problem with anti-abuse panel isn’t survivors, it’s the Roman Curia

[CRUX Editor’s note: In the wake of the resignation of the last clerical abuse survivor to serve as an active member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, Irish lay woman Marie Collins, Crux editor John L. Allen Jr. published an analysis suggesting that the outcome may have been both inevitable and desirable. Collins objected via social media, and Crux offered her the opportunity to reply. The following is that response.]

The Problem With Anti-Abuse Panel Isn’t Survivors, It’s The Roman Curia

By: Marie Collins – March 5, 2017

Crux editor John Allen’s recent argument that my resignation from the pope’s anti-abuse commission will “free me up” and allow me to feel less “conflicted” is not only inaccurate, but patronizing. The problem with the commission isn’t having survivors as members, but opposition from clerical men in the Roman Curia.

Firstly I want to thank Crux for offering me the right of reply. Although in the article I am combined with Peter Saunders, I am here speaking only for myself. I was quite disturbed reading this article as in many cases John Allen purports to know my feelings and how I was thinking in certain situations. I found this not only to be inaccurate, but also patronising.

The statement that my resignation was “inevitable” is certainly not true. There was no “inevitability” of my leaving, unless Allen knew in advance that there were men in the Roman Curia who would be obstructing the commission, and I would refuse to cover it up! I accepted my appointment to the Pontifical Commission with every intention of remaining for my full term.

The article seems to imply that because I was sexually abused by a priest in childhood I am incapable of independent thought or action, that I must always be looking over my shoulder concerned how my words or actions might be seen by survivors outside the commission. It also stated that I was put in a “politically untenable spot.”

If Allen knew me and my record in working for child protection over twenty years, he would know I have always kept completely clear of “politics,” both Church and survivor politics. I have concerned myself solely with bringing better understanding of the effects of abuse on a victim’s life and better protection of the vulnerable. I have always followed my own conscience and not seen myself as a representative of any group. This at times has angered some survivors, but that has never swayed me from my determination to be independent.

Allen states that my selection for appointment to the commission was partly in order that “credibility in the survivor community would translate to the papal commission.” If this is true (I do not know who are the sources for this) it would indicate enormous deceit in those who spoke to me on behalf of the pope before I accepted my appointment.

I was clear then I had no intention of being a “token” survivor there to add “credibility.” I was assured strongly this was not the case. I was being asked in order to bring my personal understanding of abuse as a survivor into the Commission as this perspective was of vital importance to the work.

I had been chosen specifically because of my experience of working on safeguarding policy development, having been involved in the setting up of a diocesan child protection office, my involvement in educational projects on child protection and the response to my participation in the 2012 Symposium on abuse held in the Gregorian University.

Therefore, I was qualified to work on policy development, to impart understanding of the survivor experience and had shown in the past my ability to work with the Church. If all this was a lie, then shame on those men of the clergy who made these statements to me. It would validate every accusation that the Church only cares for optics not the reality.

At no point during my time with the Commission did Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston [president of the commission] or members of the commission treat me with anything other than respect as an equal, working for the better protection of children. I certainly never felt my contribution was seen as only as a name on the member list!

Allen states that it was “dicey” at times for me to “figure out how much to say in public.” I can say without hesitation that at no time did I have any difficulty in discerning what I could or could not say in public. I at all times respected the confidentiality rules as per the statutes of the commission, and would not have accepted my appointment if I had felt I was not capable of so doing.

The statement that survivors “will never be satisfied” in the context of the article implies that I would never be satisfied and that this in some way was the motivation for my resignation. If all dioceses in the Church replicated the policies and their implementation as some dioceses have, e.g. the Archdiocese of Dublin in Ireland, then we would be in a much better place. What I do say is no one in the Church or the secular world should ever be complacent about the safety of children or vulnerable adults.

Finally, Allen says in regard to survivor input to the commission in the future, that now I have resigned, “it could actually mean a transition to a more honest, freer, and less personally conflicted way of doing it.” I would assure anyone who is interested that I at all times was honest, free and did not spend my time “personally conflicted.”

The article clearly uses a familiar device – when in difficulties divert attention away from the actual problem. Survivors on the commission are not the problem – the resistance to change by clerical men in the Curia is the problem!

 (CRUX – Editor’s Note: German Cardinal Gerhard Muller, whose Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was cited by abuse survivor Marie Collins as part of the reason for her resignation from Pope Francis’s anti-abuse commission, has fired back, saying it’s time to drop the “cliche” of a reforming pope being hobbled by internal opposition in the Vatican).

Drop The ‘Cliché’ Of A Reforming Pope v. Vatican Foes, Cardinal Says

By Vatican Correspondent Inés San Martín – March 6, 2017

ROME-The head of a powerful Vatican office cited by the last survivor of clerical abuse to serve as an active member of the pope’s anti-sexual abuse commission as part of her reason for resigning has fired back, saying it’s time to drop the “cliché” of Pope Francis wanting reform and his opposition in the Roman Curia seeking to block it.

“Sustaining the pope’s universal mission, trusted to him by Jesus, is part of our Catholic faith and the ethos of the curia,” said German Cardinal Gerhard Muller, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Asked to explain why Marie Collins had decided to resign, he said that the work his department and the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors is very different. The congregation, he said, carries through the canonical process against the clerics accused of the gravest crimes.

“Yet the congregation has cooperated in the constitution of the commission,” Muller said. “One of our collaborators is part of it. I can affirm that in these last years there’s been permanent contact.”

Marie Collins had spoken of “shameful lack of cooperation” within some sections of the Roman curia, the Vatican’s governing body, and eventually spoke specifically about the CDF being part of the problem.

Speaking with Corriere della Sera, Muller said, “I believe that we have to end with this cliché, the idea according to which on the one side there is the pope, who wants reform, and on the other, a resistance wanting to block it.”

Talking to America, Collins had also spoken about the CDF’s refusal to send a letter of acknowledgement to survivors who send letters to the Vatican, something which she claimed had been proposed by the commission and approved by the pope. Every Vatican office was supposed to do it, but a monsignor from Muller’s wrote back saying they wouldn’t.

On this, Muller said that it’s the responsibility of the local bishops, or superior generals when abuse was committed not by a diocesan priest but by a religious, to give pastoral support to survivors.

“The congregation has the task of running canonical trials,” Muller said. “Personal contact with the survivors is better done by local shepherds. And when a letter arrives, we always ask the bishop to provide pastoral care to the victims, clarifying to them that the congregation will do everything possible to do justice.”

It’s a misconception, he said, to believe that the office in Rome could take care of all the dioceses and religious orders in the world, because it would not respect the “legitimate autonomy of dioceses and the principle of subsidiarity.”

Asked about what Collins had said to Crux and other outlets regarding lack of cooperation from members of the curia, Muller said in the interview published on Saturday that beyond the letters, he knew of no such cases.

Another issue many observers saw as one of the reasons behind Collins’s resignation was the idea of a new tribunal, suggested by the commission and approved by the pope, to judge bishops accused of dropping the ball on abuse allegations. That tribunal was announced, then quietly dropped.

According to Muller, it was discussed between Vatican departments after the announcement was made, and they reached the conclusion that the Congregation for Bishops already has what’s needed to prosecute bishops for what they did or didn’t do regarding specific cases of clerical sexual abuse.

Closing the interview, Muller also said that a global change of mentality is needed, not only within the Church, when it comes to sexual abuse of minors, and that with the commission Pope Francis attempted to set an example.

“I believe this can’t be resolved only by threatening with punishment, either civil or canonical,” Muller said. “We need a total change of mentality: From selfishness on sexuality, to the full respect of the person.”

ENDS

Claims of Sex Orgies, Prostitution and Porn Videos Shake Catholic Church in Italy

Josephine McKenna Religion News Service  |  Mar. 9, 2017

(Paraphrased y Brian Mark Hennessy)

Lurid accusations of priests involved in sex orgies, porn videos and prostitution have emerged from several parishes in Italy recently, sending shock waves all the way to the Vatican and challenging the high standards that Pope Francis has demanded of clergy. In the southern city of Naples, for example, a priest was recently suspended from the parish of Santa Maria degli Angeli over claims he held gay orgies and used internet sites to recruit potential partners whom he paid for sex.

The allegations concerning Fr. Mario D’Orlando were brought to the attention of the diocese when an anonymous letter was sent to a Naples bishop. D’Orlando denied the charges when he was summoned by the city’s archbishop, Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe, but is now facing a formal inquiry conducted by local church officials. “He has been removed from his position while the investigation is underway,” a spokesman for the cardinal told Religion News Service. “I have no further comment.”

In the northern city of Padua, a 48-year-old priest, Fr. Andrea Contin, is facing defrocking as well as judicial proceedings amid accusations he had up to 30 lovers, some of whom he took to a swingers’ resort in France. Contin was removed from his parish of San Lazzaro after three women came forward with complaints against him last December. Bishop Claudio Cipolla of Padua cut short a visit to Latin America to deal with the scandal. “I am incredulous and pained by the accusations,” Cipolla told a news conference last month. “This is unacceptable behavior for a priest, a Christian and even for a man.”

One woman, who claims to have been Contin’s lover for more than three years, claimed the priest carried sex toys and bondage equipment, prostituted his lovers on wife-swapping websites and also invited other priests from the area to sex parties. “Even if, at the end of this affair, there are no legal consequences, we have a duty by canon law to take disciplinary action,” said Cipolla.

He also revealed Pope Francis had telephoned him personally at the end of January to offer his support and urge him to stay “strong.” Since his election the pope has taken a tough line on ethical behavior in the church though he has also recognized the reality of human imperfection and personal flaws. In recent weeks he has spoken out many times against “temptation,” and last week he told a gathering of clergy at the Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome that faith could not progress without the challenge of temptation. “Temptation is always present in our lives. Moreover, without temptation you cannot progress in faith,” he said.

Alberto Melloni, professor of church history at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, said there is nothing unusual about scandals in the priesthood. “There is no sin that a cleric doesn’t commit. Scandals to me seem quite normal,” he told RNS. “And I think the illusion of stopping scandals through better selection of personnel is not very promising and has not yielded great results. ”

Francis has frequently called for a more rigorous screening process for seminarians, and he has taken direct action when scandals erupt in Italy. A case in point: When reports of “playboy priests” surfaced in the Italian diocese of Albenga-Imperia in the northern region of Liguria in late 2014, the pope sent a special envoy to investigate claims that clerics had posted nude photos of themselves on gay websites, sexually harassed the faithful and stolen church funds. Two years later the pope replaced the leader of the diocese, Bishop Mario Oliveri.

Austen Ivereigh, commentator and author of “The Great Reformer: Francis and the Making of a Radical Pope,” said the pope distinguished between sinfulness and corruption and was intent on “rooting out” corruption inside the church. “The remedy for those who succumb to temptation is forgiveness and a fresh start,” Ivereigh told RNS. “The problem is when priests turn their backs on the people, lead hidden lives and end up justifying their conduct. That’s corruption. “And it’s only possible in the priesthood because of clericalism. That’s why the pope is so intent on rooting it out.”

Pope Reduces Sanctions Against Some Paedophile Priests

A Report by the Associated Press in The Catholic Herald

Pope Francis has quietly reduced sanctions against a handful of paedophile priests, applying his vision of a merciful Church even to its worst offenders in ways that survivors of abuse and the Pope’s own advisers question. One case has come back to haunt him: An Italian priest who received the Pope’s clemency was later convicted by an Italian criminal court for his sex crimes against children as young as 12. Fr Mauro Inzoli is now facing a second church trial after new evidence emerged against him, The Associated Press has learned. The Inzoli case is one of several in which Francis overruled the advice of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) and reduced a sentence that called for the priest to be laicised, two canon lawyers and a Church official told AP. Instead, the priests were sentenced to penalties including a lifetime of penance and prayer and removal from public ministry.

In some cases, the priests or their high-ranking friends appealed to Francis for clemency by citing the Pope’s own words about mercy in their petitions, the Church official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the proceedings are confidential. “With all this emphasis on mercy … he is creating the environment for such initiatives,” the Church official said, adding that clemency petitions were rarely granted by Pope Benedict XVI, who launched a tough crackdown during his 2005-2013 papacy and laicised some 800 priests who raped and molested children.

At the same time, Francis also ordered three longtime staffers at the CDF dismissed, two of whom worked for the discipline section that handles sex abuse cases, the lawyers and Church official said. One is the head of the section and will be replaced before leaving on March 31. Vatican spokesman Greg Burke dispelled rumors that sex-abuse cases would no longer be handled by the congregation, saying the strengthened office would handle all cases submitted. Burke said Francis’ emphasis on mercy applied to “even those who are guilty of heinous crimes.” He said priests who abuse are permanently removed from ministry, but are not necessarily dismissed from the clerical state, the Church term for laicisation. “The Holy Father understands that many victims and survivors can find any sign of mercy in this area difficult,” Burke said. “But he knows that the Gospel message of mercy is ultimately a source of powerful healing and of grace.”

Francis has repeatedly proclaimed “zero tolerance” for abusive priests and in December wrote to the world’s bishops committing to take “all necessary measures” to protect them. But he also recently said he believed sex abusers suffer from a “disease” – a medical term used by defence lawyers to seek mitigating factors in canonical sentences.

Marie Collins, an Irish abuse survivor and founding member of Francis’ sex-abuse advisory commission, expressed dismay prior to her recent resignation from the Commission, that the congregation’s recommended penalties were being weakened and said abusers are never so sick that they don’t know what they’re doing. “All who abuse have made a conscious decision to do so,” Collins told AP. “Even those who are pedophiles, experts will tell you, are still responsible for their actions. They can resist their inclinations.”

Victim advocates have long questioned Francis’ commitment to continuing Benedict’s tough line, given he had no experience dealing with abusive priests or their victims in his native Argentina. While Francis counts Boston’s Cardinal Sean O’Malley as his top adviser on abuse, he has also surrounded himself with cardinal advisers who botched handling abuse cases in their archdioceses. “They are not having zero tolerance,” said Rocio Figueroa, a former Vatican official and ex-member of the Peru-based Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, a conservative Catholic lay society rocked by sex scandals. The Vatican recently handed down sanctions against the group’s founder, Luis Fernando Figari, after determining that he sexually, psychologically and physically abused his recruits. His victims, however, are enraged that it took the Vatican six years to decide that the founder should be isolated, but not expelled, from the community.

“It’s really shameful,” said Pedro Salinas, who blew the whistle in 2015 on abuse within the organisation. The sanctions against Figari, Salinas said, amount to a “golden exile, where he can live comfortably with all his needs taken care of.” The Church official stressed that to his knowledge, none of the reduced sentences had put children at risk. Many canon lawyers and Church authorities argue that laicising pedophiles can put society at greater risk because the Church no longer exerts any control over them. They argue that keeping the men in restricted ministry, away from children, at least enables superiors to exert some degree of supervision.

But Collins said the Church must also take into account the message that reduced canonical sentences sends to both survivors and abusers. “While mercy is important, justice for all parties is equally important,” Collins said in an email. “If there is seen to be any weakness about proper penalties, then it might well send the wrong message to those who would abuse.”

It can also come back to embarrass the Church. Take for example the case of Inzoli, a well-connected Italian priest who was found guilty by the Vatican in 2012 of abusing young boys and ordered to be laicised. Inzoli appealed and in 2014 Francis reduced the penalty to a lifetime of prayer, prohibiting him from celebrating Mass in public or being near children, barring him from his diocese and ordering five years of psychotherapy. In a statement announcing Francis’ decision to reduce the sentence, Crema Bishop Oscar Cantoni said “no misery is so profound, no sin so terrible that mercy cannot be applied.” In November, an Italian criminal judge showed little mercy in convicting Inzoli of abusing five children, aged 12-16, and sentencing him to four years, nine months in prison. The judge said Inzoli had a number of other victims but their cases fell outside the statute of limitations. Burke disclosed to AP that the Vatican recently initiated a new canonical trial against Inzoli based on “new elements” that had come to light. He declined to elaborate.

Amid questions about how the battle against abuse was faring, Francis recently named O’Malley, who heads his sex-abuse advisory commission, as a member of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. But it’s not clear what influence he can wield from his home base in Boston. Francis scrapped the commission’s proposed tribunal for bishops who botch abuse cases following legal objections from the congregation. The commission’s other major initiative – a guideline template to help dioceses develop policies to fight abuse and safeguard children – is gathering dust. The Vatican never sent the template to bishops’ conferences, as the commission had sought, or even linked it to its main abuse-resource website.

THE BUCK STOPS WITH THE POPE

Vatican Abuse Commission Expresses Frustration to Australian Royal Commission

By Kieran Tapsell – Writing for the National Catholic Reporter

(Kieran Tapsell is the author of Potiphar’s Wife: The Vatican’s Secret and Child Sexual Abuse, and a submission to the Royal Commission: Canon Law: A Systemic Factor in Child Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church. He gave evidence about canon law as part of a panel Feb. 9, 2016.)

On March 1, Marie Collins, the only abuse survivor on Pope Francis’ Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, resigned because “what was happening behind closed doors was in conflict with what was being said to the public.”

On Feb. 23, three other members of the Pontifical Commission, Baroness Sheila Hollins of Great Britain, Bill Kilgallon from New Zealand and Kathleen McCormack from Australia gave evidence in a panel to the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, and expressed their frustration with the Vatican. Their views were personal, and did not necessarily reflect the opinion of the Pontifical Commission as a whole.

Justice Peter McLellan, the chair of the Royal Commission, told the panel that the work they were doing was of “fundamental importance to individual countries” because the work of the Royal Commission indicates that real change in the culture and practices of the church in Australia will only occur if “it’s coming from Rome.”

After several hours of questioning in which the panel spoke about resistance in Rome to the work of the Pontifical Commission and its lack of resources, McLellan observed: “The picture you all paint, from an outsider’s point of view, is of a world organization which is struggling to come to terms with the safety of children and its responsibilities in that area.”

A surprising feature of the evidence from the panel was the lack of attention to the reform of canon law, both in relation to cooperation with the civil authorities and to the church’s disciplinary system. An Italian professor of canon law who couldn’t speak English was appointed to the Pontifical Commission, but he resigned. Baroness Hollins told the Royal Commission: “I don’t know the full reasons, but we were told that he had decided he couldn’t make the contribution that was needed.” An American canon lawyer in Rome gave some assistance, but then had to return to the United States. There is no canon lawyer on the now 15-member Commission.

Since 1996, the Catholic Bishops’ Conferences of Ireland, Great Britain, the United States, and Australia have wanted mandatory reporting under canon law, but have been continually rebuffed by the Vatican. In 2002, the United States bishops put a proposal to the Vatican that included mandatory reporting, but, like the Irish bishops in 1997, were told it did not comply with canon law. Eventually a compromise was reached whereby bishops were instructed to obey civil reporting laws, and that instruction was extended to the rest of the world in 2010. The Vatican seemed more concerned about bishops going to jail for breaching reporting laws than about the protection of children who were unfortunate enough to be living in states with inadequate civil reporting laws.

In 2014, the United Nations Committees on the Rights of the Child and against Torture queried the Vatican’s representatives as to why the Vatican did not impose mandatory reporting under canon law. Pope Francis’ casuistic response in September 2014 was that mandatory reporting would interfere with the independence of sovereign states. Canon law interferes with the sovereignty of independent nations as much as the rules of golf. Mandatory reporting under canon law would only interfere with that sovereignty if a country prohibited the reporting of child sexual abuse to the police. No such country exists.

In February 2016, Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley, the president of the Pontifical Commission stated that “even beyond these civil requirements, we all have a moral and ethical responsibility to report suspected abuse to the civil authorities.” This was a welcome announcement suggesting that the Commission might convince Pope Francis to change his mind about mandatory reporting. However, on Dec. 6, 2016, the Pontifical Commission published its guidelines for national protocols on child sexual abuse. O’Malley’s statement was not included.

When asked about mandatory reporting, Kilgallon answered along the lines given by then-Vatican spokesman Jesuit Fr. Federico Lombardi on May 16, 2011: the church cannot impose mandatory reporting because some countries have repressive regimes. The irony of Lombardi’s response is that in 2010, when he announced the direction for bishops to obey civil laws on reporting, there was no suggestion of an exception for repressive regimes.

Opponents of mandatory reporting under canon law seem to be unaware of the church’s history. In 1842, the Holy Office under Pope Gregory XVI issued a direction that the universal requirement for penitents to denounce priests who solicited sex in the confessional henceforth did not apply in the lands of “schismatics, heretics and Mohammedans,” the repressive regimes of the day. It’s really very simple. Kilgallon agreed that an exception to mandatory reporting could be made for such countries, but that was only his personal opinion.

On Feb. 22, Br. Ambrose Payne from the De La Salle Brothers told the Royal Commission that Pope Francis’ rhetoric about “zero tolerance” of child sexual abuse did not match the reality imposed by canon law. Canon law requires a religious brother to receive a “canonical warning” before he can be dismissed. Payne said it was “a bit late” to require warnings after the abuse had occurred. The abuser has to offend again after a canonical warning has been given before he can be dismissed.

Similar problems arise with the disciplinary canons dealing with priests. Not a word has changed in Canon 1341 that requires a bishop to try and cure the priest before he is put on a canonical trial. Not a word has changed in Canon 1321, which two Vatican appeal courts interpreted as meaning that a priest cannot be dismissed for paedophilia because he is a paedophile. Not a word has come from the Vatican indicating that these canons are being interpreted differently from the past.

Zero tolerance in a professional context almost invariably means dismissal, but Pope Francis’ claim that the church has a “zero tolerance” policy is not borne out by the figures he presented to the United Nations: only one quarter of all priests found to have sexually abused children have been dismissed. That’s a 75 percent tolerance, not zero.

The buck for canon law stops at the popes, and Pope Francis can change it with the stroke of a pen. The lack of consistency between his rhetoric and his reluctance to reform canon law on child sexual abuse could turn out to be the major blot on his papacy. When Collins resigns and Kathleen McCormack describes her work at the Pontifical Commission as “like water on a rock, we’ve just got to keep at it,” there is not much room for optimism.

MARIE COLLINS – LONE SURVIVOR ON VATICAN ABUSE COMMISSION RESIGNS IN FRUSTRATION

By Joshua J. McElwee  Mar. 1, 2017

(Joshua J. McElwee is a US National Catholic Reporter. Email: jmcelwee@ncronline.org.)

(Paraphrased by Brian Mark Hennessy)

The only active member of Pope Francis’ new commission on clergy sexual abuse who is an abuse survivor has resigned from the group due to frustration with Vatican officials’ reluctance to cooperate with its work to protect children. Marie Collins, an Irishwoman who has served on the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors since March 2014, announced her resignation in a press statement Wednesday. In a separate exclusive statement for the National Catholic Reporter, explaining her choice, Collins says that she decided to leave the commission after losing hope that Vatican officials would cooperate with its work following a failure to implement a series of recommendations.

Collins says her decision to resign was immediately precipitated by one Vatican office’s refusal to comply with a request from the commission, approved by Pope Francis, that all letters sent to the Vatican by abuse survivors should receive a response. “I find it impossible to listen to public statements about the deep concern in the church for the care of those whose lives have been blighted by abuse, yet to watch privately, as a Congregation in the Vatican refuses to even acknowledge their letters!” Collins writes in the statement. “When I accepted my appointment to the Commission in 2014, I said publicly that if I found what was happening behind closed doors was in conflict with what was being said to the public, I would not remain,” she states. “This point has come. I feel I have no choice but to resign if I am to retain my integrity.”

In her March 1st statement for the National Catholic Reporter, Collins also expressed frustration that a sample template of guidelines for safeguarding children developed by the commission has not yet been published. She says that a Vatican office had created its own sample template and refused to join efforts with the Commission to reach an agreed text. Collins also mentions that the Commission’s request, approved by the Pope, that the Vatican create a new Tribunal to judge bishops who act inappropriately in sexual abuse cases was not acted upon. While that Tribunal was announced by O’Malley in June 2015, it was never created. In place of the proposed Tribunal, Francis signed a new universal law for the Church in June 2016 specifying that a bishop’s negligence in response to clergy sexual abuse could lead to his removal from office. The law, given the name “Come una madre amorevole” – (“As a loving Mother”), also empowers four separate Vatican Curia offices to investigate such bishops and initiate processes of their removal.

Collins is the third of Francis’ 17 original appointees to the commission to leave its work. The only other abuse survivor on the commission, Englishman Peter Saunders, was placed on leave from the group in February 2016, because of friction between Saunders and other members of the commission. Claudio Papale, an official at the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, resigned from the Commission in May 2016. His resignation was not initially made public. Upon inquiry from NCR at the time, a Commission spokesperson said Papale had resigned for personal reasons.

In a statement on Wednesday, the Commission said it had “deep appreciation” for Collins’ work. In her own press statement Collins said she would continue to work with the group in helping with training projects for priests and bishops. Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley, the head of the Commission, said in a statement that he had expressed to Collins “our most sincere thanks for the extraordinary contributions she has made as a founding member. With the members of the Commission I am deeply grateful for Marie’s willingness to continue to work with us in the education of church leaders, including the upcoming programs for new bishops and for the dicasteries of the Holy See,” said O’Malley. “Our prayers will remain with Marie and with all victims and survivors of sexual abuse.”

Dominican Fr. Thomas Doyle, an expert on the church’s response to clergy sexual abuse, said in an interview that he thought Collins’ resignation would cause the Commission to lose trustworthiness among survivors and advocates who have pushed for decades for the Church to better protect vulnerable people. “Its credibility is going to take a nose-dive,” said Doyle. “If they don’t have a survivor on that Commission, it’s akin to the Board of Directors of the American Medical Association being made up of bureaucrats and no doctors. Here you have an issue that really has to have input from survivors,” he said. “Quite frankly, the clerical world does not understand what this is all about.” Doyle continued that he thinks the Commission needs to be given the power to rewrite its mandate in order to be more effective. “They are a consultative Commission,” he said. “They have no power. There has to be some mechanism where they can get by the Curia an get things done”.

Krysten Winter-Green, a member of the abuse Commission, said in an interview that she finds it difficult to conceptualise a Commission of this nature without the benefit of the voice of survivors or victims. “I think it will take some time to really look at the composition of this Commission and forge a path ahead,” said Winter-Green, who is a native New Zealander, living in the U.S. and providing consulting services for religious congregations. She echoed Collins’ frustration with the reluctance of Vatican offices to work with the abuse Commission. “I think there’s been a lack of cooperation, I would say, by some Congregations in the Curia,” she said. “I really do not know where it comes from, but I do know that it does a grave disservice to survivors and victims and it doesn’t really promote the healing and care that the Commission is about. If this commission is going to really accomplish what His Holiness wants it to accomplish, then I think we need to take a very, very serious look at where we are presently and where we see this Commission going in the future,” said Winter-Green. Asked what she might say to an abuse survivor who thinks it is not appropriate for a Vatican commission on abuse to not have a member who is a survivor, Winter-Green responded: “I would have to agree. I would strongly encourage survivor participation. In fact, I would go so far as to say I would insist on survivor participation.”

THE SWINGS OF THE VATICAN COMPASS

BY BRIAN MARK HENNESSY

The resignation of former Victims of sexual abuse from the Pontifical Commission, discussed in the above article by Joshua J. McElwee, are discouraging. From time to time it is difficult to establish clearly what direction the Catholic Church, under the leadership of Pope Francis, is heading. The Vatican compass swings wildly almost day to day in different directions – and we wonder where and when it will settle once again on its course – and what that ‘sometimes elusive’ course might be. We wonder too, who is to blame for the turgid progress of the cause of Victims of abuse. Is Pope Francis too weak? Is this or that Cardinal trying to continually undermine him? Why is there no clear and absolute direction?

It is of further note that, surprisingly to the understanding of most lay-persons, the nature of the governance of the Catholic Church and the responsibilities of the Pope, individual Bishops and Religious Leaders of the Traditional Orders is most unlike that of Civil Governments and Business Institutions with which the majority are familiar. In the latter, you have a top to bottom hierarchical structure by which laws and policies are handed down with legally binding, crystal clear, word for word and unchanged clarity. The Catholic Church is not constituted like that – and the Pope, even when regaled with the triple crown and the Keys of Saint Peter, is far removed from a status anything like that of a “constitutional monarch”.

By way of explanation and example, on the 20 July 2011, the Irish Dáil passed a motion on the “Cloyne Diocese Child Abuse Report” which, among other things, deplored “the Vatican’s intervention which contributed to the undermining of the child protection framework and guidelines of the Irish State and the Irish Conference of Bishops”. What had the Vatican done to cause such outlandish offence we may ask? Simply, the Vatican had declared that one Irish Bishop, who had decided not to follow either the Dail’s processes and nor those of the Conference of Bishops, was within his rights to decline to do so.

The response of the Vatican to the charge by the Dail was that it should be “borne in mind that the social organization of the Catholic Church throughout the world, is a communion of many particular Churches – for example, Dioceses and their equivalents, such as Territorial Prelatures, Apostolic Vicariates and, Military Ordinariates – (to which we can add Religious Orders). The Church, it was stated, is not like that of a modern State with a central government – nor is it comparable to that of a federal State. In the Church, the individual Bishops are neither representatives nor delegates of the Roman Pontiff, but of Christ Himself, albeit, as Catholic Bishops, they are to act in communion with the Bishop of Rome and the other Bishops throughout the world. This, the Vatican stated, is the principle of “episcopal collegiality”, as described by the Second Vatican Council. Hence, while the diocesan Bishop is to act in conformity with universal canonical legislation, it is the Bishop himself who is primarily responsible for penal discipline within his own Diocese and jurisdiction. In the Catholic Church, this particular relationship among the various Dioceses within the one Church is expressed by the term “ecclesial communion” and it has been particularly evident since the Second Vatican Council, which placed special emphasis on the proper responsibility of each Bishop”.

The response continued, “Without having to refer either to the Holy See or to the Episcopal Conference, and provided the Bishop respects the requirements of the universal law of the Church and the just laws of the State, each individual Bishop has the right and the obligation to take whatever initiative he deems necessary in order to promote charity and justice in his Diocese. In this context, with due respect for the prerogatives and responsibilities of individual Bishops, the Holy See has the sole (and, therefore, limited) responsibility of ensuring the unity of faith, sacraments and governance in the Church, and the processes of maintaining and strengthening of the ecclesial communion. Only when this unity and ecclesial communion is compromised, is the Roman Pontiff enabled to act directly, or through the offices of the Roman Curia, to seek to rectify matters”’.

In other words, what was stated to the Irish Dail is that, within the unusual context of the Catholic Church, the local Bishop reigns supreme – for the most part. The Pope is, theoretically, just another Bishop – like any other Bishop – and his diocese is Rome. Despite his election as Pontiff of the Catholic Church, he is not an absolute ruler, nor even a benevolent despot, but his remit is that of the Shepherd of his Flock and a caring Teacher- who sometimes has to resort to carrying a light in the darkness to guide – and who, extraordinarily, at other times, needs to persuade and gently goad his helpers in the right direction. This unusual “constitution” of the Church probably explains the Pope’s inability (and sometimes his apparent reluctance or even his failure) to make or demand the rapid changes for which the outside world has an expectation. In the context of the Church today which, demonstrably, has polarised extremes of view (eg: the Cardinal Burkes to the right and, perhaps, for the sake of the argument, the Cardinal O’Malleys to the left) Pope Francis himself, as Bishop of Rome, both cannot and should not himself be adjudicating, as a matter of routine, in another Bishop’s local diocesan matters. As the Pope’s title, “Primus inter Pares” proclaims, amongst both Patriarchs and his fellow Bishops, he is merely the “First amongst Equals”. Thus, behold the often-confused signals and the snail-like speed of change that, most surprisingly even to avid “Vatican Watchers”, can be anything other than “influenced” by any Pope in the Catholic Church – should he even chose to intervene. Call it a “dog’s dinner” if you wish, but it is not about to change.

Having said that, despite all the setbacks such as the resignation of Marie Collins that we perceive at a distance, there is one thing that Pope Francis can do – and has been doing with steadfast determination – and that is to sow the seeds of change that will bear fruit in the long term – perhaps the very long term. The evidence for this are the continual and sometimes dramatic changes Francis has made in the senior appointments to the Curia, his shrewdness in the establishment of a very select group of Cardinal advisors and his wisdom in the appointments of new and progressive bishops that he foresees will ensure that his own successor will continue on the same path of his current work of reform – slow as that process appears to be. At the Vatican it is not so much personal success in the short term, but the success of the “long game” that pre-occupies every Pope. That is the direction – the true North – in which the Vatican Compass needs always to be fixed. This scenario means also, of course, that some hopeful Hierarchs will be overlooked or sidelined in the process. Yes – clerics can be ambitious too – and that needs to be managed also. Accordingly, some have been put out to pasture by Pope Francis already – with nothing much more to do than ruminate on what might have been – if only.

It is of interest, in this overall context, that Cardinal Sean O’Malley, Archbishop of Boston, was recently appointed by Pope Francis to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Boston’s Cardinal O’Malley, a Franciscan, already sits on the council of cardinal advisers who assist Pope Francis in the reform of the Roman Curia. This new appointment of O’Malley to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the dicastery of the Curia that sits in pole position at the Vatican, is not “instead of”, but “in addition to” leading the Commission for the Protection of Minors. Undoubtedly, this new, additional responsibility of Cardinal O’Malley’s will be seen by some as a sign of the adamant resolve of the Pope in the fight against clerical sexual abuse and the deadly prevalent disease of clericalism. It most probably is. Unbeknown to the casual observer, therefore, Pope Francis may have already reset the Vatican Compass on the course of a new and steadfast future. He has publicly warned the Curia recently not to work against his will by rearguard actions and threatened to make radical changes in the staffing of Curial posts in the case of those who obstruct him. Possibly, Francis sees O’Malley as the “spearhead” of this reformation of the CDF. O’Malley may also be the stuff that an ageing Pope may wish to see in pole position, either as King Maker or as Papal Candidate, when a Conclave is summoned to replace himself as Pope. However, only in the future will the laboriously slow revolutions of the Vatican wheels reveal to us the destination, devoid of all tangential deviation, to which the genial, but determined, Pope Francis has long since set a course.