After decades of disinterest, suddenly two Canon 1405 cases?

In the Light of the Law ^ | April 23, 2008 | Edward N. Peters, JD, JCD

[NYer]

POST ONE: Pope Benedict XVI is believed to be mulling over the possibility of expelling a bishop, Fernando Lugo, from the clerical state. That would certainly be a first under the 1983 Code (the Jacques Gaillot case in 1995 was not a precedent; Gaillot was removed from office, but not from the clerical state), and I'm pretty sure it never happened under the 1917 Code.

Lugo, though suspended and removed from ecclesiastical office, remains a cleric, but his election under a reformist banner to Paraguay's presidency upped the ante. Clergy are forbidden to assume civil governing offices (see 1983 CIC 285.3 and my negative conclusions about "Permission given to priest to run for political office", 2007 CLSA Advisory Opinions 60-62) and bishops in political office are at odds with, oh, about a dozen other norms.

Canon 290,3 says that removal from the clerical state can be granted (or imposed, if it comes to that) on deacons for "grave cause" or presbyters for "most grave cause". But the canon doesn't even mention dismissal of a bishop from the clerical state. It's as if no one could imagine it ever happening.

Lugo has reportedly offered to "resign" but it is unclear exactly what he meant by that, or he could face a penal process with the pope as judge per 1983 CIC 1405, 1. Ironically the pope could hear this matter as a case of judging "those who hold the highest civil office of a state" or he could hear it as a case of judging "bishops in penal matters." But regardless of which kind of case he considers, removal of a bishop from the clerical state, and not just from office, is an extremely serious action, something that hasn't happened for centuries.

Okay, so, maybe it's time it did.

Update, same day: A number of readers have asked about the import of the letter of Giovanni Battista Re asserting, among other things, that the removal of a bishop from the clerical state is impossible. This letter, standing alone, is insufficient to prove that point, however, if only because it was written in response to Bp. Lugo's petition for voluntary removal from the clerical state; Re's letter would not preclude the pope from imposing dismissal, in poena or otherwise.

As for folks confusing the clerical state, which can be lost, with the indelible character of holy orders, which can't be lost, consulite auctores probatos.

Hey, who wants to see a concise video report on this case that gets almost every technical term correct? Check out http://www.h2onews.org/_page_videoview.php?id_news=609&lang=en.

+++

POST TWO: How utterly ironic.

I had intended the above title, about the "two Canon 1405 cases" to refer to two possible applications of Canon 1405 in the one case of Bp. Fernando Lugo. But now I see another news item that would involve, of all things, Canon 1405 for a second, completely separate, time.

I refer to Richard Sipe's denunciation of, among others, Theodore Cdl. McCarrick (ret. Washington) on the grounds of sexual misconduct. I know next to nothing about Sipe, but his statement leaves little room for nuance: "I know the names of at least four priests who have had sexual encounters with Cardinal McCarrick. I have documents and letters that record the first hand testimony and eye witness accounts of McCarrick, then archbishop of Newark, New Jersey actually having sex with a priest, and at other times subjecting a priest to unwanted sexual advances."

The same Canon 1405 I referenced above reserves solely to the Roman Pontiff the right to judge all cases involving cardinals and, in penal matters, bishops. Under either heading, let alone both, the only person authorized to investigate, and if warranted judge, Sipes' allegations, is the pope. No ecclesiastical authority may move on this matter without the consent of the Roman Pontiff.

I do think, however, that in conscience, (though not by canon law given the abrogation of 1917 CIC 1935.2), Sipe is bound to send to the Holy See all the information he has about these matters, and not wait to be asked for it.

[baa39]

You mean Matthew Fox? I had forgotten he was a Dominican, but if I recall it took quite a bit of pressure from the Vatican for the order to finally take action against his heretical practices.

I met Fr. Fox before his excommunication, I was studying at the same college where he had his “Creation-Centered Spirituality” program. This is also the college where one of the 9/11 terrorists was registered for an English language program and never showed up for classes. Weird place for a seemingly innocuous, small, private Catholic college run by nuns.

The campus had a uniquely strange feeling because of the co-existence of these three programs, with many of these people living in close proximity in the dorms: (1) regular college kids, (2) middle-aged hippies in the Fox program (whom the college kids laughed at), (3) Mostly Saudis (who came to class in limousines) and Germans with a smattering of Latin Americans in the ESL program.

That was also my first up close and personal experience with Saudis, they were the slimiest, rudest, most arrogant people I ever met, and assumed they were entitled to sleep with any American girl.

Well, I’m digressing quite a bit from the topic here.....

[livius]

What a bizarre place that campus must have been!

I knew people who taught Saudis in other colleges in California, btw, and their observation was that Saudis just assumed that cheating was the normal way of passing a test. They paid other people to take their tests, they bought tests, you name it. Fortunately, they were so stupid (and probably arrogant, as well) that they often paid people who didn’t look even remotely like them, even to the densest proctor, or copied the mistakes off the tests they had bought. Busted!

As for Matthew Fox, I do recall that getting rid of him was quite a drawn-out process.

[baa39]

I’ve heard that same type of description of Saudis and Egyptians, from people who worked with them. Not only that they are completely bereft of morals as we would define them, but pretty stupid. Not sure why this keeps coming up with these two groups and not other Arab nationalities.

One more thing made life on that college campus even stranger. We were not far from U.C. Berkeley, which had an urgent shortage of student housing. Our dorms had extra space, so it was rented to a group of Berkeley kids. Of course, we being a small, private Catholic college, they considered themselves superior to us in every way, you could almost hear them thinking we were clinging to our guns and religion....