Posted on 03/13/2010 2:15:25 PM PST by Salvation
Count on the London Times to offer the most sensational coverage of a news story involving the Catholic Church. The headline on today's report by Richard Owen screams:
Pope knew priest was paedophile but allowed him to continue with ministry
That's grossly misleading, downright irresponsible. The reporter runs ahead of his evidence-- standard procedure for a Times journalist-- but even Richard Owen does not allege anything to justify the headline.
Here's what we know: While the Pope was Archbishop of Munich, a priest there was accused of sexual abuse. He was pulled out of ministry and sent off for counseling. Then-Cardinal Ratzinger was involved in the decision to remove the priest from his parish assignment-- got that? remove him. [Editor's note: The preceding sentences are not accurate. Actually the facts provide an even stronger defense of the Pontiff. See the update below. ] He also approved a decision to house the priest in a rectory while he was undergoing counseling. We don't know, at this point, whether the priest could have been sent to a residential facility, to take him out of circulation entirely. That might have been a more prudent move. We don't know whether he was kept under close observation. But we do know that he was not involved in active ministry.
Then the vicar general of the Munich archdiocese made the decision to let the accused priest help out at a parish. That vicar general, Msgr. Gerhard Gruber, says that he made that decision on his own, without consulting the cardinal. The future Pope never knew about it, he testifies. Several years later, long after Cardinal Ratzinger had moved to a new assignment at the Vatican, the priest was again accused of sexual abuse.
A grievous mistake was made in this case; that much is clear now, and the vicar general has sorrowfully taken responsibility for the error. Could you say that the future Pontiff should have been more vigilant? Perhaps. But to suggest that he made the decision to put a pedophile back in circulation is an outrageous distortion of the facts. The AP story carries a very different headline:
Pope's former diocese admits error over priest
That's not so eye-catching. But the headline fits the facts.
Update
After learning more about this case, I realize that the analysis above is not quite accurate, and the effort to implicate the Pope is even more far-fetched than I had received. The accused was not a priest of the Munich archdiocese, but a priest from the Diocese of Essen, who had been sent to a facility in Munich for counseling. So the then-Cardinal Ratzinger was not responsible for his treatment; his only connection with the case was his decision to let the priest stay in a rectory in the Munich archdiocese while he was undergoing treatment there. There is no evidence that the Pope was aware the accused priest was an accused pedophile; he was evidently informed only that the priest had been guilty of sexual improprieties, and probably concluded that he was engaged in homosexual activities with young men.
I think the fighting always gets especially ugly in Lent and as Easter approaches.
Peter Viereck wrote long ago - “Catholic baiting is the anti-Semitism of the left.”
With the Church's history of anti-semitism I don't doubt you'd be an expert in this area.
“Wow the seminarys are turning into male brothels and now this?”
The plural of seminary is seminaries. Maybe you should try using the spell check.
As for your statement above, you know full well it is not true. The Catholic Church in the US has gone to great lengths to screen out all persons with any possible sexual issues.
Your anti-Catholicism is showing in this post as well as the one you posted following it. Maybe you need to reflect on the greatest commandments as spoken by Jesus, that is to love the Lord our God and to love our neighbors as ourselves.
Leftists lie.
All the time.
About everything.
Frogs leap.
Skunks stink.
Leftists lie.
It's what they do.
So here they go again ... why anybody with half a brain would even be tempted to believe them eludes me.
It's a commandment, not a suggestion, and it doesn't offer "ignorance" as an excuse.
I'll keep that in mind next time I "bear false witness". Thanx for the Sola Scriptura lesson. :-)
Didn't know it was against the law to be anti-Catholicism. Sorry. Just too much I can't swallow. Be that as it may thank you for your enthusiastic participation in Sola Scriptura as well. :-)
Post number 23 is a false witness.
Thank you for your opinion.
even tho sometimes the art of exaggeration to make a point
escapes you.
#23 was also an assertion of fact. #23, however, has the disadvantage of being a false assertion.
The author of #23 should either prove his assertion, or he should retract his assertion.
The person making an affirmative assertion bears the burden of proof.
Please do not attempt to mind-read.
1) It is forbidden on this forum
2) Your attempt was a failure, anyway.
3) The false assertion offered in #23 tells us more about the person who made it, than it does about the “seminarys” (sic).
well it is certainly frowned on as far as POSTING ON FR goes, and you'd think a poster with a 1998 sign up date would know that.
rare we get one that out and out declares himself an anti-Catholic, usually they attempt some sort of facade at the least.
See 32. Be that as it may I'll withdraw "brothel" and give you buildings containing a few "foot tappers". Sounds much better, sorry.
This one has a long history. There are a handful of such ... I pity them.
I generally eschew the ....ignorant ; )
Try and be more accurate. I did not say I was anti-Catholic. My beloved parents are devout Catholics. I said I was anti-Catholicism.
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