Amid Church Abuse Scandal, an Office That Failed to Act (Ratzinger)

NYT ^ | July 1, 2010 | LAURIE GOODSTEIN and DAVID M. HALBFINGER

[TSgt]

In its long struggle to grapple with sexual abuse, the Vatican often cites as a major turning point the decision in 2001 to give the office led by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger the authority to cut through a morass of bureaucracy and handle abuse cases directly.

The decision, in an apostolic letter from Pope John Paul II, earned Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, a reputation as the Vatican insider who most clearly recognized the threat the spreading sexual abuse scandals posed to the Roman Catholic Church.

But church documents and interviews with canon lawyers and bishops cast that 2001 decision and the future pope’s track record in a new and less flattering light.

[Mrs. Don-o]

That's Elias Dohnal. My typo, sorry.

[Petrosius]

The way you describe structure and responsibility it makes sound like someone needs to get the house in order.

What has always been needed is bishops who are willing to do their job. The supervision of priests cannot be the responsibility of the Vatican. (See Jethro's advice to Moses in Exodus 18.) The responsibility of Rome is to light a fire under the current bishops and use better judgement on the selection of new. The multitude of problems in the church for the past 50 (and they go way beyond the priest abuse problem) has not been because of a lack of documents, shortcomings in structure, problems with canon law, etc. It has always been a problem of personnel. Put good people in as bishops and you will not need more documents, changes in structure or revision of canon law.

[marajade]

You know even instituting a document log in a database in re: complaints and subject manner might even help.

It seems there is a problem with authority and structure and scope of responsibility.

Maybe hiring someone other than an ordained priest might be helpful.

[TSgt]

The graph is about all known cases.

This graph is from the John Jay report which covered only known U.S. cases from 1950 to 2002. It does not cover global abuse and is far from complete or accurate.

[Houghton M.]

I did not make it personal. I criticized the article. I criticized the poster for lack of critical reading skills when he analyzed the article as evenhanded. That is a disagreement over the merits of the article.

[vladimir998]

You wrote:

“This graph is from the John Jay report which covered only known U.S. cases from 1950 to 2002.”

You do realize that Wisconsin - where the Fr. Murphy case took place - is in the U.S.A., right?

“It does not cover global abuse and is far from complete or accurate.”

Nope - it is very accurate - for the case you claimed it didn’t cover.

[Religion Moderator]

I criticized the poster for lack of critical reading skills when he analyzed the article as evenhanded.

It you had said it that way, it would not have been making it personal because you would be expressing your own mind and not reading his.

But the way you actually said it (below) is reading his mind and therefore, making it personal.

Since you aren’t an evenhanded person when it comes to Catholic stuff, you think biased innunendo is “evenhanded.”

You don’t have a clue.

The former is robust debate but the latter is flame bait.

[Houghton M.]

This is what I wrote: “Since you aren’t an evenhanded person when it comes to Catholic stuff, you think biased innunendo is “evenhanded.” You don’t have a clue.

This is my assessment of what Tsgt did with this article. He called it evenhanded. I said it was based on innuendo and not evenhanded. Based not on mindreading but on Tsgt’s record of posting these topics, I offered an explanation of why he might consider evenhanded what is not evenhanded.

That is not mindreading. That is fully within the FR rules for honest debate. I have been falsely accused of making it personal and mindreading. Tsgt has a record. We are free to have and express an opinion of a poster’s record. Part of critical, rational analysis in FR debate is to take into account the known and written biases of FR posters and the things they post. A given FR poster may not agree with my assessment of his record, but mindreading is not involved. Tsgt is equally free to express his or her opinion about my analysis based on my record.

Instead, I was accused of not discussing the merits when my first comment explicitly did discuss the merits and then Tsgt, instead of discussing the merits of my discussion of the merits, denounced me to you.

[Houghton M.]

This is not mindreading. “You don’t have a clue” is a strong statement of lack of knowledge. It is based on Tsgt’s record on these issues.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

Thanks for this article. Let me guess. At least a dozen posts decrying "that old devil (read Jewish) New York Times?"

While the NYT can be disgustingly liberal, it is still one of the last publications that sometimes prints uncomfortable truths.

[vladimir998]

You picked some real wackjobs to support. They’re even excommunicating people not in their Church:

http://uogcc.org.ua/en/actual/article/?article=3042

[vladimir998]

I have to agree with Houghton. When someone clearly shows that they have no clue it is not mind reading to say, “You have no clue...”

I also know the Mod wouldn’t agree with that no matter how logically obvious it is. I mean that as no attack on him (or her). It’s just a fact. Or is that mind reading? :)

[Cardhu]

You picked some real wackjobs to support

I support wackjobs, moi? LOL

[Religion Moderator]

This is the Religion Forum. Special guidelines apply here because the issues are much more inflammatory among Freepers than on the News/Activism forum, etc.

On this Religion Forum, telling another poster that he doesn't have a clue is not allowed because it is mind reading. It is flame baiting.

It would not have been "making it personal" if you had said "Evidently, you have no clue" because that would be expressing your mind, not reading his.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

Thank you for these informative posts and for a very even-handed accurate article.

The only thing offered from FRoman Catholics on this thread is personal criticisms and whining about the NYT.

This is a GREAT article and should be read and bookmarked by anyone who cares about the truth.

[the_conscience]

The visiting bishops had reached the boiling point. After flailing about for 20 years, with little guidance from Rome, as stories about pedophile priests embroiled the church in lawsuits, shame and scandal, they had flown in to Rome from Australia, Canada, England and Wales, Ireland, New Zealand, Scotland, South Africa, the United States and the West Indies.

Many came out of frustration: the Vatican had too often thwarted bishops’ attempts to oust pedophile priests in their jurisdictions. Yet they had high hopes that they would make the case for reform. Nearly every major Vatican office was represented in the gathering, held in the same Vatican hotel that was built to house cardinals electing a new pope.

“The message we wanted to get across was: if individuals are to hide behind church law and use that law to impede the ability of bishops to discipline priests, then we have to have a new way of moving forward,” said Eamonn Walsh, auxiliary bishop of Dublin, one of 17 bishops who attended from overseas. (He was one of several Irish bishops who offered the pope their resignations last year because of the abuse scandal, but his has not been accepted.)

Yet many at the meeting grew dismayed as, over four long days in early April 2000, they heard senior Vatican officials dismiss clergy sexual abuse as a problem confined to the English-speaking world, and emphasize the need to protect the rights of accused priests over ensuring the safety of children, according to interviews with 10 church officials who attended the meeting.

Nuff said.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

When a "religious" organization believes it is led by "another Christ," that organization is bound to end up in apostasy and ruin.

"And then if any man shall say to you, Lo, here is Christ; or, lo, he is there; believe him not:

For false Christs and false prophets shall rise, and shall shew signs and wonders, to seduce, if it were possible, even the elect." -- Mark 13:21-22

[Dr. Eckleburg]

I’m not all together clear about that “evidently” clause. Because if that is the case, then I could write to another FReeper...

“Evidently you are a racist member of the Ku Klux Klan who kidnaps children and suffers from water retention.”

[Ransomed]

“The only thing offered from FRoman Catholics on this thread is personal criticisms and whining about the NYT.”

This is just wrong. Anyone can just read the thread and see that description of this thread is wrong.

“This is a GREAT article and should be read and bookmarked by anyone who cares about the truth.”

I think it is funny on a conservative website that such praise is heaped on an article that contains such liberal gems as:

” Cardinal Ratzinger was publicly disciplining priests in Brazil and Peru for preaching that the church should work to empower the poor and oppressed, which the cardinal saw as a Marxist-inspired distortion of church doctrine. Later, he also reined in a Dutch theologian who thought lay people should be able to perform priestly functions, and an American who taught that Catholics could dissent from church teachings about abortion, birth control, divorce and homosexuality.”

Mean ol’ Ratzinger fighting socialism and homosexualists...

It is not an evenhanded article, it doesn’t even mention the John Jay report or why the steep decrease in instances of abuse coincide with then Cardinal Ratzinger’s heading of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. In fact, it gives the opposite impression, that only after the public scandal did anything start to get done to combat the scandal. That doesn’t seem too evenhanded to me, to not even address that point.

Freegards

[the_conscience]

Demigods always seem to act in a similar fashion. Reading this article brought to mind the demigods of the Secularists. Obama, Pelosi, Reid, and the Democrats employ the same bureaucratic methods to deny justice for their own self-preservation.