Posted on 08/07/2003 9:54:10 AM PDT by polemikos
Boston, Aug. 07 (CWNews.com) - A CBS network news report, claiming that the Holy See orchestrated a cover-up of sexual abuse by Catholic priests, is based on a gross misinterpretation of a 1962 Vatican document.
In a sensationalist report aired on August 6, CBS Evening News claimed to have discovered a secret document proving that the Vatican had approved-- and even demanded-- a longstanding policy of covering up clerics' sexual misdeeds.
The document cited by CBS does nothing of the sort.
In fact the network's story misrepresented the Vatican document so thoroughly that it is difficult to attribute the inaccuracy to honest error.
The CBS story is based on a secret Instruction issued to bishops in March 1962 by Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani, then the prefect of the Holy Office (now known as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith). That document sets forth the canonical procedures to be followed when a priest is charged with the ecclesiastical crime of "solicitation"-- that is, using the confessional to tempt penitents to engage in sexual activity.
[The Vatican document, in an awkward English translation, can be downloaded from the CBS News site. CBS also offers the Latin original.]
The Vatican document deals exclusively with solicitation: an offense which, by definition, occurs within the context of the Sacrament of Penance. And since that sacrament is protected by a shroud of absolute secrecy, the procedures for dealing with this ecclesiastical crime also invoke secrecy.
In short, by demanding secrecy in the treatment of these crimes, the Vatican was protecting the secrecy of the confessional. The policy outlined in that 1962 document is clearly not intended to protect predatory priests; on the contrary, the Vatican makes it clear that guilty priests should be severely punished and promptly removed from ministry.
It is important to keep in mind that the 1962 Vatican Instruction dealt exclusively with "solicitation" as that term is understood in ecclesiastical usage, under the terms of the Code of Canon Law. The policies set forth by Cardinal Ottaviani do not pertain to the sexual misdeeds of clerics, but to the efforts by priest to obtain sexual favors though the misuse of their confessional role.
It is also important to note that because solicitation takes place inside the confessional, only the accused priest and the penitent could possibly have direct evidence as to whether or not the crime took place. If the solicitation led to actual sexual activity, that misconduct could be the subject of an entirely separate investigation, not bound by the same rules of secrecy.
The crime of "solicitation" has always been viewed by the Catholic Church as an extremely serious offense, calling for the strongest available penalties. Cardinal Ottaviani stresses that any confessor who solicits sexual favors from his penitents should be suspended from ministry and stripped of all priestly privileges. These penalties apply to all cases of solicitation, whether they involve minor children or adults of either sex. The 1962 document is not concerned with all instances of solicitation; it does not concentrate on the solicitation of children.
The CBS report claimed:
The confidential Vatican document, obtained by CBS News, lays out a church policy that calls for absolute secrecy when it comes to sexual abuse by priests-- anyone who speaks out could be thrown out of the church.That is inaccurate.
Yes. Well, he raised the alarm in a report to the bishops, which they threw in the trash.
And if so, how come he's sort of waffling on this?
This document has to do with the confessional.
1962 document orders secrecy in sex cases
Many bishops unaware obscure missive was in their archives
By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
May 8, 2003
Rome
A 1962 Vatican document ordering secrecy in cases of sexual misconduct by priests is not, according to canon lawyers, a "smoking gun" providing evidence of a cover-up of sex abuse orchestrated by Rome.
Civil attorneys handling lawsuits against the Catholic church have pointed to the document as evidence of obstruction of justice.
For one thing, canon lawyers say, the document was so obscure that few bishops had ever heard of it. For another, they say, secrecy in canonical procedures should not be confused with refusal to cooperate with civil authorities. The 1962 document would not have tied the hands of a bishop, or anyone else, who wanted to report a crime by a priest to the police.
The 39-page document, titled in Latin Crimen Sollicitationis, was issued in March 1962 by the Holy Office (today the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith). It established a procedure for canonical cases in which priests were accused of abusing the confessional to sexually proposition penitents. Four concluding paragraphs extend the procedure to the crimen pessimum, or "worst crime," meaning homosexual acts contrary to a priest's celibate commitment. The document was not designed to address sexual abuse of minors, but would include many such violations.
Paragraph 11 of the document stipulates that such cases are covered by the "secret of the Holy Office," today known as pontifical secrecy, the strictest form of secrecy in church law. Excommunication is prescribed for anyone who violates this secrecy.
The document was itself to be kept secret. Instructions on Page One direct that it be stored in the secret archives of each diocese, and that it not be published or commented upon. Msgr. Thomas Green, canon law expert at The Catholic University of America, told NCR Aug. 4 that unlike most church legislation, Crimen Sollicitationis was never published in the official Vatican bulletin Acta Apostolicae Sedis.
The document recently came to light because it was referenced in a footnote to a May 18, 2002, letter from Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, head of the Vatican's doctrinal congregation, to the bishops of the world regarding new procedures for sex abuse cases.
Boston attorney Carmen L. Durso sent a copy of the document July 28 to U.S. Attorney Michael J. Sullivan, arguing that it may prove the Catholic church has been obstructing justice.
"This document may provide the link in the thinking of all of those who hid the truth for so many years," Durso said, as quoted by the July 29 Worcester Telegram and Gazette. "The constant admonitions that information regarding accusations against priests are to be deemed 'a secret of the Holy Office' may explain, but most certainly do not justify, their actions," Durso told the federal attorney.
Oblate Fr. Francis Morrisey of St. Paul University in Ottawa, Canada, told NCR Aug. 4 that he doubts the document had such an effect, because few bishops knew Crimen Sollicitationis even existed.
"The document was so secret that it couldn't even be mentioned," Morrisey said. "I'm inclined to believe that most bishops were unaware of its existence and contents until a situation arose, and so it never crossed their mind to take cover under this text."
Crimen Sollicitationis dealt with canonical cases against a priest that could lead to removal from ministry or expulsion from the priesthood. Its imposition of secrecy thus concerned the church's internal disciplinary process. It did not, according to canonical experts, prevent a bishop or anyone else from reporting a crime against a minor to the civil authorities.
"Of course, a bishop couldn't use this document to cover up denunciation of an act of sexual abuse," Morrisey said. "The document simply wasn't made for that purpose."
Green said the document was issued by the Holy Office because it had responsibility for dealing with "serious violations of the sacrament of penance."
Canon lawyers told NCR that secrecy in canonical cases serves three purposes. First, it is designed to allow witnesses and other parties to speak freely, knowing that their responses will be confidential. Second, it allows the accused party to protect his good name until guilt is established. Third, it allows victims to come forward without exposing themselves to publicity. The high degree of secrecy in Crimen Sollicitationis was also related to the fact that it dealt with the confessional.
Those motives for confidentiality, experts say, must be distinguished from a widespread "mentality" that sought to protect the church from scandal by not reporting sexual abuse by priests to the police. As a matter of canon law, the obligation of secrecy in canonical cases does not prohibit a bishop or other church officials from reporting crimes to the proper authorities.
Conflicts may arise, however, if civil authorities seek access to the secret acts of canonical procedures.
That Crimen Sollicitationis was not designed to "cover up" sex abuse, canonists say, is clear in paragraph 15, which obligates anyone with knowledge of a priest abusing the confessional for that purpose to come forward, under pain of excommunication for failing to do so. This penalty is stipulated, the document says, "lest [the offense] remain occult and unpunished and always with inestimable detriment to souls."
Canon lawyers also note that pontifical secrecy is hardly reserved to sexual abuse. Under a Feb. 4, 1974, instruction Secreta Continere, pontifical secrecy covers: 1) Documents for which pontifical secrecy is expressly indicated; 2) Affairs dealt with by the Secretariat of State under pontifical secrecy; 3) Doctrinal denunciations and publications of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, as well as its investigations; 4) Extrajudicial denunciations of crimes against the faith or against morals, and crimes against the sacrament of penance, as well as the procedures leading to these denunciations; 5) Acts by Vatican representatives relative to matters covered by the pontifical secret; 6) Creation of cardinals; 7) Nomination of bishops, apostolic administrators and other ordinaries with episcopal power, and the procedures related to these appointments; 8) Nomination of superiors and other major officials of the Roman curia; 9) Codes and coded correspondence; 10) Affairs and practices of the pope, of the chief cardinal or archbishop of a dicastery and of pontifical representatives.
John L. Allen Jr. is NCR’s Vatican correspondent. His e-mail address is jallen@natcath.org.
It had to be said. CBS can try to hoodwink all of the people all of the time, if they want to. It's rather curiously ironic that they seem to be unfamiliar with the fact that some spiritually sensitive Catholics in a state of grace can read souls and can tell when someone is lying. We're not fooled by their power games. As is often the case in the realm of the Big Lie, Satan and his minions end up biting their own tails.
If the secular liberal media were interested in exposing sex crimes, we would be hearing about the non-Catholic sodomites who have raped and molested minors. They would investigate NAMBLA and the subculture of underage prostitutes. In fact, if they were so interested, CBS would have pursued the rape allegations against their boy, Bill Clinton. CBS is as guilty of covering up sex crimes. So are the Democrats. The truth is they want sodomy and perversion to be promoted within the Church (for whatever peculiar reason along with the rest of their weird anti-Christian ideological agenda). Apparently, they are only interested in covering sex crimes that can be linked with the Catholic Church. Same old story. The Church is the target of manipulation by hostile elements from OUTSIDE of the Church.
How many (non-Catholic-linked) stories did CBS run last year about teenage prostitutes and young women in the pornography industry who end their lives by suicide? How many times do they run the names and photos of the movers and shakers in LA's and NY's sleazy pornography industry? With about as much vigilance as they delivered for the Clinton rape allegations. This is high-weirdness hypocrisy at its liberal worst.
The first thing that comes to mind about Fr. Doyle is that he is a compassionate priest in that he has traveled all over to comfort and meet with the sexual victims of priests - out of concern and love and at a time when victims were being ignored by some of the bishops.
A couple of years ago I read Fr. Doyle's 1985 report on the abuse of youngsters in the Church. As I recall, a lot of it was based on opinions mixed in with facts as there were not a lot of hard numbers to go by at that time. Two other men wrote the report as well, a lawyer (Moulton?) who defended Rudy Kos (I think) and another priest who was the head of the St. Luke Institute were a ton of the abusing priests were treated and released (another "servants of the paraclete" place). This priest denied a homosexual component to the abuse and classified them as pedophiles who are mostly always heterosexual. This priest later died of AIDS.
I guess it depends on who you believe, but the bishops ended up jettisoning the report supposedly because they didn't like the recommendations (very specific boards being set up with people not necessarily affiliated with the diocese) but the one thing that was very dodgy was that Fr. Doyle, a very good canon lawyer, was sent to be a chaplain at a military base and his career was pretty much cut off at the pass.
I've read some speeches that Fr. Doyle has given to the VOTF people as he appears fairly frequently at their functions. Sadly, he has become another disgruntled priest and it seems like he would prefer a democratic form of We Are Church.
I am shocked, shocked that CBS was not fair and balanced in its "journalism."
Ha Ha Ha...You are surely patient.
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