Card. Castrillon-Hoyos Out At Latin Mass - Breaking

cmr ^ | April 21, 2010

[NYer]

The Traditional Latin Mass planned for April 24th honoring Pope Benedict on his five-year anniversary was scheduled to have Cardinal Dario Castrillon-Hoyos as the celebrant. Not any more.

As you probably know, a significant controversy has erupted over a letter sent by the Cardinal expressing gratitude to a Bishop for not turning over a sexually offending priest to civil authorities. The hue and cry that has erupted from this revelation is significant. As a result, the Cardinal is out as the celebrant at the planned Traditional Latin Mass for the 24th of April.

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- In consultation with His Eminence, Dario Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos, The Paulus Institute has agreed to seek another celebrant for the Pontifical Solemn High Mass taking place on April 24th. This action will help maintain the solemnity, reverence and beauty of the Mass.

The Paulus Institute was formed for the propagation of sacred liturgy. The Traditional Latin Mass planned for April 24th honoring Pope Benedict on his five-year inauguration anniversary is a liturgical event much bigger than the individual celebrant. Cardinal Castrillon was approached to celebrate the Mass early in what has been a three-year effort because of his special experience in celebrating this form of Mass and his efforts under Pope John-Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI in encouraging the traditional form of the Mass, full liturgy and sacraments.

We are in the process of seeking another Bishop to celebrate a Pontifical Solemn Mass on Saturday and are confident that one will agree. However, in any event, a beautiful, dignified Traditional Latin Mass will be celebrated at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception on Saturday at 1PM and will be the first time in nearly a half century this has occurred. All Catholic faithful are encouraged to attend.

The Paulus Institute regards all sexual abuse as tragic and a heinous sin and supports Pope Benedict's fight to rid this disease from the Church. It stands on the side of every victim of clerical sexual abuse and earnestly desires to bind up the wounds done to their human dignity, to vindicate their civil and canonical rights, and to help them in the restoration in Christ of all they have lost.

To that end, The Paulus Institute supports the directives by the Supreme Roman Pontiff and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops that all bishops should report crimes of sexual abuse to the police in accordance with the requirements of civil law. However, the Paulus Institute is not competent, nor does it have the facts, to form an opinion about the about recent media reports concerning Cardinal Castrillon.

The Paulus Institute requests respect for the human dignity and civil rights of all who participate in this sacred liturgy and observance for the tranquility and good order of the celebration.

This is probably a wise move for both the Cardinal and those involved with the traditional mass. This would be bad PR for everybody involved, The Pope, the Cardinal, and the TLM community.

Thanks to David L Alexander for the info!

[NYer]

Ping!

[DarthVader]

Good move.

[k omalley]

I'm glad they are still planning to have it as I have airline tickets and am leaving Friday for Washington, DC.

[Brian Kopp DPM]

Card. Castrillon praised that French bishop. Why? Something missing from the reporting?

CATEGORY: Clerical Sexual Abuse of Children, The Drill — Fr. John Zuhlsdorf @ 10:30 am

Something has been bothering me in the now viral news story about the letter His Eminence Dario Card. Castrillon Hoyos wrote to the French Bishop Pierre Pican.

You know the facts of the situation.

A French priest Fr. Rene Bissey was a child abuser.  The Bishop of Bayeux-Lisieux learned about this in 1996.  The Vicar General apparently knew about this from a victim’s mother.  At first they had the priest in some neutral assignment and then later gave him a parish.  Fr. Bissey was arrested in 1999, convicted and sentenced to 18 years in prison.  Bishop Pican was also put on trial for seemingly covering up the crimes.  This is also important because this is the first time since the Revolution that a French bishop has been before a civil tribunal.  Bp. Pican was sentenced to three months in prison.

On March 30 the French website Golias published a 2001 letter from Card. Castrillon, then Prefect of the Congregation for Clergy, to Bishop Pican in which the Cardinal wrote:

I congratulate you for not denouncing a priest to the civil administration. You have acted well and I am pleased to have a colleague in the episcopate who, in the eyes of history and of all other bishops in the world, preferred prison to denouncing his son and priest.

The Holy See pretty much threw Card. Castrillon under the bus for that.  Then last week during a conference in Murcia, Spain, Card. Castrillon said that his 2001 letter to Bp. Pican was authorized by late Pope John Paul II and the Cardinal praised Bishop Pican as a model for all bishops because he would not denounce the priest.

This certainly looks very bad.  The mainstream press and even the Holy See seems to be piling on.

But I kept scratching my head over the case, because something just didn’t seem right.

First, Card. Castrillon was the Prefect for Clergy not for Bishops.  I couldn’t get my head around how someone like Card. Castrillon would go so far as to write to that bishop and praise that bishop – who preferred to go to jail rather than denounce a priest who had really committed such terrible crimes.  Was the Cardinal merely being a zealous advocate in favor of priests because he was Prefect for Clergy?   

I had the nagging sense that some element missing. 

Now I read in Columbia Passport:

According to La Verdad, a regional Spaniard journal, the French bishop did not denounce the priest because he knew it by the first instance under the Sacrament of Confession. According to the Canon Law of the Catholic Church, a priest cannot denounce the matter that is given to him under the gravity of Confession. It includes crimes.

If the bishop was held to silence under the Seal, that could explain how he didn’t think he was able to denounce Fr. Bessey to civil authorities and later gave him an assignment. 

When a priest or bishop is bound by the Seal he cannot reveal the contents of the confession to anyone by either word or action. He cannot act on the content of the confession.  If there was nothing else apparent and known openly in Fr. Bessey’s record that would argue against his receiving an assignment, to refuse to give him an assignment would have raised questions about why, whether there was something wrong with him that people didn’t know about.  It could have been perceived as a moral dilemma for the bishop.

It strikes me that this could in some way explain why Card. Castrillon would have penned such a letter.  Furthermore, knowing that the issue was complex, he sought the advice of the Pope before sending it.  At issue was a defense of the Seal of confession.  The French bishop was not being praised for protecting a priest, a criminal priest, but rather for upholding the Seal of confession.

I muse about this because hitherto I had not seen in news stories on this issue any mention that the French bishop had first learned of the priest’s criminal behavior under the Seal of confession.

Questions remain.

If the Vicar General knew, and told the bishop, then the bishop had an independent source of information.  Even in the case it is under normal circumstances still better for priests not to act on the content of a confession, but this was not a normal circumstance.

Why did the bishop consent to hear the confession of one of his priests?  This is a perfect example of why a superior should not receive the confessions of those immediately under his authority: the superior runs the risk of having his hands bound and not being able to act.

The bishop also could have found some other assignment than a parish for the priest, but that would not have solved the problem of having in the ranks of the presbyterate a criminal child molester.

In any event, perhaps I had merely missed the mention of the Seal in earlier reporting – in fact I haven’t followed this too closely because of other work.  Maybe some of you saw it earlier.

But I think it is an important dimension to this story which needs to be clarified.

Discussion of the "boundaries" of the Seal comes into play.

UPDATE 1607 GMT:

I found a Washington Post story here which mentions the issue of confession.

COMMENTS (4)

• • • • • •

[NYer]

It should be a beautiful and memorable liturgy. Please share it with all of us when you return.

[Steelfish]

They keep getting scalps- the rabid newsmedia smells blood in the water and they will encircle the right-wing bishops and cardinals. Just watch and see.

[NYer]

Ping!

[Pyro7480]

Catholic ping!

[markomalley]

Good catch. Fr Z is always on top of it!

[ArrogantBustard]

Wow.

There's always "more to the story".

I think the Church should take the position of telling the secular world to pound sand. "The Church does not jump through hoops for her enemies".

[outpostinmass2]

The Archdiocese of Boston essentially told its flock to pound sand, why not tell the rest of the world.

[ArrogantBustard]

The Archdiocese of Boston essentially told its flock to pound sand, why not tell the rest of the world.

There's a huge world of difference between the bishop telling his flock to pound sand, and the bishop telling the secular world to pound sand.

By virtue of his office, the Bishop owes his flock good, honest leadership. Keeping them properly informed and protecting them from certain categories of malefactors is part of the job.

To the secular world, which in many ways is the enemy of the Church, the bishop's only job is to preach the Gospel. Jumping though hoops for it, or (worse) taking advice from it, is stupid.

[Mrs. Don-o]

If you have the time, could you explain to me (in simple language) what the obligation of a confessor is if a penitent confesses something which is dangerous, a crime, and likely to lead to more dangers to others, and more crimes?

For instance, if a penitent confesses murders, or obsessive murdeous fantasies (with acts, e.g. getting ammo), or pedophilia, or the like?

Can the confessor say, "I can't grant you absolution until you turn yourself in to the police"?

If the confessor can't go to the police himself, is there some other way he can protect the innocent? (Can he tell Mrs. Parishioner Jones and say, "No, you shouldn't let little Jimmy go on a fishing trip with Mr. N"? Is there some way he can drop the dime on the guy without sacramental violation?)

Ears perked.

[outpostinmass2]

How about reporting a crime so that these criminals can be prosecuted to stop any further victimization? Is the church responsible for informing the public and non-catholics or secular then? The Bishop owes society to put criminals behind bars as does anyone who witnesses or has information of a crime.

[ArrogantBustard]

By virtue of his office, the Bishop owes his flock good, honest leadership. Keeping them properly informed and protecting them from certain categories of malefactors is part of the job.

[outpostinmass2]

How about reporting a crime so that these criminals can be prosecuted to stop any further victimization? Is the church responsible for informing the public and non-catholics or secular then? The Bishop owes society to put criminals behind bars as does anyone who witnesses or has information of a crime.

[ArrogantBustard]

I believe that I have answered your questions.

[nina0113]

But how does the priest know it’s Mr. N in the confessional? Unless he really and truly KNOWS, rather than just suspects, even if he was willing to violate the Seal, he’d be slandering Mr. N by telling Mrs. Parishioner Jones not to let him take her boy fishing.

[McGavin999]

Good, it’s time to clean out the stables. They should be reported and defrocked as soon as it’s known to them.