Pope hit by fresh allegations of paedophile priests cover-up
Hetty ter Haar
Pope failed to defrock paedophile priest in 1985
Tom Kington in Rome
Saturday April 10 2010
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/apr/10/pope-paedophile-priests-cover-up
Pope Benedict XVI was hit by fresh allegations yesterday that he
failed to crack down on sexually abusive Catholic priests before
becoming pontiff.
A letter written in 1985, when the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was
the head of the Vatican's doctrinal unit, resists a request for the
defrocking of an American priest with a record of molesting children,
for the "good of the universal Church".
The letter, published by Associated Press, also notes the "detriment
that granting the dispensation can provoke within the community of
Christ's faithful, particularly considering the young age". The
priest, Father Stephen Kiesle, was 38 at the time.
Father Federico Lombardi, a Vatican spokesman, confirmed the
cardinal's signature on the letter, but added: "The press office
doesn't believe it is necessary to respond to every single document
taken out of context regarding particular legal situations."
But the letter does switch the spotlight back to Benedict as a wave of
sex abuse scandals involving priests, as well as alleged cover-ups by
their bishops, sweeps Europe and the US. The Vatican has previously
denied reports suggesting Benedict failed to tackle cases of abuse in
Munich and Wisconsin before he became pope. Kiesle was sentenced in
1978 to three years' probation after pleading no contest to charges of
lewd conduct for tying up and molesting two young boys in a San
Francisco rectory.
In 1981 he asked to leave the priesthood, a request backed by his
diocese, which forwarded the papers to Rome. In 1982, Oakland bishop
John Cummins urged Ratzinger, as head of the Vatican's congregation
for the doctrine of the faith, to grant the request.
But the case was still pending in 1985 when Ratzinger wrote to Cummins
that although the argument for defrocking Kiesle was of "grave
significance", it was necessary "to submit incidents of this sort to
very careful consideration, which necessitates a longer period of
time".
Another priest, George Mockel, wrote to Cummins: "My own reading of
this letter is that basically they are going to sit on it until Steve
gets quite a bit older," reported AP.
Kiesle was finally removed in 1987, but in the meantime had carried
out volunteer work with children through the church. He was arrested
and charged in 2002 with 13 counts of child molestation from the
1970s, but all but two were thrown out after the US supreme court
struck down as unconstitutional a California law extending the statute
of limitations. He was later sentenced to six years in jail in 2004
for molesting a young girl in 1995. He is now 63 and a registered sex
offender.
"The then cardinal Ratzinger did not cover up the case, but as is
clearly shown by the letter, he indicated the need to study the case
with greater attention," said the Vatican's assistant spokesman Ciro
Benedettini.
In an editorial published yesterday on the website of Vatican radio,
Lombardi said the pope had become the victim of "unfounded
insinuations and criticisms", and recalled the offer made by Benedict
to meet abuse victims in a letter to Irish Catholics last month.
The experience the church has gained in battling abuse in its ranks
"could be useful to other institutions and society as a whole," he
added. "It seems that the media has not considered this aspect
sufficiently."
guardian.co.uk Copyright (c) Guardian News and Media Limited. 2010
Cornelius Hamelberg
http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=Pope+to+meet+victims&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=Pope+to+meet+victims
Today, the headlines blare,”Pope hit by fresh allegations of
paedophile priests cover-up “. Let’s hope - and let those who pray
for the Holy Catholic Church reform , pray that it will never come to
the point when we will be reading the Church’s triumphal enemy
headlines braying,” Pope on the ropes” – or any more of such scandals
clouding the Catholic Church – which is still a powerful moral,
spiritual and political force in the world.
Robert, my catholic friend from Minnesota refers me to the websites
below for some of the discussions and more informed answers/
responses that we are looking for and likely to find there:
http://www.google.se/#hl=sv&q=BROWN+(+CATHOLIC+WEBSITE
http://www.google.se/#hl=sv&q=+Dan+BROWN+(+CATHOLIC
Catholics seek reassuring answers that the cookie is not about to
crumble – and my question is, how can an edifice which, fortified by
the inerrancy of the Papacy which has stood erect during its two
thousand year history be bowed by the errancy of human nature (“the
flesh is weak”) subject as it is to the doctrines and dogmas based on
“original sin”`? We are to suppose that in the conflict between mortal
flesh and the Holy Spirit or at least between human error and the
inerrancy of Catholic doctrine (the forgiveness of sins, and the
remission of sins) – that in the long run and very ultimately, the
later will always win - and prevail even over criminal procedures
or processes and that it is the latter that corrects the former’s
error and ensures that the Church itself “the body of Christ” - and
the Papal successor to the first Peter (“the Rock”) – does not go
astray. These are my own speculations but I must ask Robert when next
I see him to retrieve my “Introduction to Christianity” by Cardinal
Ratzinger: the greater basis of my own personal knowledge about
Catholicism, long before Cardinal Ratzinger was elected Pope – and I
was certain that he and not Cardinal Francis Arinze was going to be
elected, after following more of Ratzinger’s theological ruminations
which made him – over many years, the man of the moment, in the Roman
Catholic Church
http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q="Introduction+to+Christianity"+-+Ratzinger&aq
One was sure that Ratzinger was going to get it solely on the strength
of his theological brilliance now that Communism had fallen – and that
the third world choice Cardinal Francis Arinze (now Ratzinger’s right
hand man) would not get it, because it was not the right time for him
and because the political implications & consequences would be too
great to bear – and some feared that it could even cause a holy schism
in the Vatican.
http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=+Cardinal++Francis+Arinze
Africans (of course) quite naturally were most vociferous in their
support for Arinze and (of course) it’s reasonable to suppose that
among those whose adulation of Arimze knew no bounds, the Igbos were
first and foremost, since he is their tribesman. (Smile). But the
Catholic Church is beyond stripes and tribes or even the colours,
geographic regions and nationalities of those poor boys (and girls?)
who have been the victims of priestly paedophilia and that’s why
voices are raised against this perfidy, from all corners of the world
in which the Church has been preaching the Gospel. The Gospel as a
moral force. In my opinion, It’s not the morality of the gospel that
has lost out, it is not the gospel but man that has transgressed in
the eyes of the Catholic Church.
The image of the Church as a moral and spiritual force in the world
has to be redeemed after this lapse - which mind you is not a
doctrinal lapse but again, just a falling and a failing of the
original mortal flesh into the pit of temptation.
Speculation ( along with mortal indignation) is rife that perhaps
it’s Africa’s turn to have a shot at being in the hot seat called the
Papacy – after all we have a Black man in the White House and there
are even some in the USA- Africa Forum who think that the time is
nigh or even ripe for some moral re-armament and that this is likely
to come from some New Blood , e.g. from Nigeria – where Christianity
is fighting its own survival battles on the home turf.
In the meantime, I believe that we all agree with the spirit and high
moral definition of this thrust:
http://www.private-eye.co.uk/covers.php?showme=1259&
On Apr 10, 9:34 am, Hetty ter Haar <oldave...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> Pope hit by fresh allegations of paedophile priests cover-up
>
> Pope failed to defrock paedophile priest in 1985
>
> Tom Kington in Rome
> Saturday April 10 2010
> The Guardian
>
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/apr/10/pope-paedophile-priests-c...
Cornelius Hamelberg
distraught of the general world public. These comments which came in
about six hours ago, are by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach - the author of
“Kosher Sex” and here too contending with human nature he is hopeful,
practical, commonsensical and certainly not pontifical :
http://www.jewishjournal.com/rabbi_shmuley/item/a_fallible_pope_an_imperfect_church_20100411/
April 11, 2010 | 10:17 pm
A Fallible Pope, an Imperfect Church
Posted by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach
The only institution worse at PR than Israel is the Catholic Church.
Never in my life have I seen such a formidable world power handle a
crisis more catastrophically than how the Vatican is handling the
current scandal of pedophile priests. And the sad thing is that the
weakening of the Church in general, and this pope in particular, is
bad all round. The Church does incalculable good throughout the world
with innumerable orphanages, schools, and hospitals. And for Jewish-
Catholic relations Benedict has been a godsend (pardon the pun).
For most of its two thousand years the Catholic Church has been anti-
Semitic, responsible for horrific atrocities against Jews and others
who branded heretics. But in the latter half of the twentieth century
the Church repented of its past due to the courage and spiritual
integrity of three special men: John XXIII, the greatest of all modern
Popes, John Paul II, a leader of extraordinary humanity and humility,
and Joseph Ratzinger, the cerebral Cardinal largely responsible for
the theological underpinnings that served as John Paul’s foundation in
reaching out to the Jews. In the five short years of his pontificate
Ratzinger, now Benedict XVI, has visited Synagogues in Germany, New
York, and Rome, not to mention his much-heralded visit to Israel last
year.
Which begs the question why the Church would itself undermine this
impressive record first with Cardinal Sodano, dean of the College of
Cardinals, comparing the attacks on Benedict to that of Pius XII. Pius
was the highly impious, amoral pontiff, who signed a Concordat with
Hitler in 1933 and never once directly condemned Nazi anti-Semitism or
the holocaust. In October, 1943, he watched literally as the Jews of
Rome were rounded up to be sent to Auschwitz and did not publicly
protest.
But rather than unnecessarily alienating the Jews by comparing the
attacks on the Church over pedophilia to anti-Semitism, as the Pope’s
personal preacher Raniero Cantalamessa did in the Pope’s presence, it
would be wise for the Church to learn the following from their Jewish
friends: don’t be afraid to be fallible and human.
The principle difference between the Catholicism and Judaism is the
former’s emphasis on the perfection of Jesus and the infallibility of
the Pope versus the latter’s insistence that no human is divine and no
Biblical figure is perfect. While people are not prepared to forgive
the infractions of the perfect, they are extremely understanding of
the failings of humans when they apologize sincerely for their
failures and take full responsibility for their actions.
Later this month I am scheduled to meet the Pope through Gary Krupp,
with whom I have sparred over Pius’s legacy but who has since become a
friend. I wish I could impress upon the well-intentioned leader of the
Catholic Church the need to come clean with the public. Face the
people and tell them how you never wished for any children to be
harmed and it breaks your heart to see how your inaction and
obstruction may have led to more kids being violated. But you made the
colossal error of moving slowly and cautiously because you feared what
public exposure and the defrocking of criminal Priests would do to the
reputation of the Church. You erred hugely in putting the needs of an
institution ahead of the safety of the individuals that institution is
meant to protect. Explain how you further erred by accepting the
prevailing psychiatric opinion of the time that pedophiles could be
reformed through counseling and you thought that after extreme therapy
these Priests were cured. Admit you screwed up and ask forgiveness for
your failures. Human beings forgive the flaws of other human beings.
But they don’t forgive gods. Pledge the remainder of your days to
helping heal the victims, making reasonable restitution, and declare
unequivocally that henceforth the Church will hand over all priests
guilty of molestation to the authorities for prosecution.
As the author of Kosher Sex, a pivot in the intersection between faith
and sexuality, I would counsel the Church to announce a conclave
examining the effects, if any, of clerical vows of celibacy on
pedophilia in the clergy. Some would argue there is no connection. But
few would deny that an announcement of this magnitude by the Pope
would demonstrate the seriousness with which he is addressing the
issue and his preparedness to take unprecedented action to heal the
Church.
But the Pope is not the only one who needs to apologize. Many in the
media have gone beyond all reason in their attacks. Maureen Dowd, who
is Catholic, offered the unbelievable comparison of the Church’s
refusal to ordain women or place them in positions of leadership with
Saudi Arabia’s human rights abuses of women. Are you kidding? The
Saudis, in 2002, allowed 15 High School girls to burn to death rather
than run out of their smoldering school without a head covering.
Amnesty International accuses the Saudis of subjecting women to
“arbitrary arrest… torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment
or punishment; and the use of the death penalty” for religious
infractions, like meeting with men in public. Yakin Erturk, the United
Nations special representative on violence against women, visited
Saudi Arabia and reported ‘the domestic abuse [women] systematically
encounter with little prospect of redress.’ She added that the
Muttawa, the Saudi religious police, are “responsible for serious
human rights abuses in harassing, threatening and arresting women who
‘deviate from accepted norms.” And then there are the continued
reports of female genital mutilation that is practiced in northern
Saudi Arabia.
And I thought it’s only we Jews who can be so self-hating.
The Western world suffers from an epidemic of materialism, divorce,
broken families, and celebrity obsession, the most effective antidote
for which is more spirituality and a stronger religious presence. The
Catholic Church might be terrible at crisis management and the pope
may not be perfect. But what might emerge from this dark episode is a
more transparent, more accessible, and more sensitive Church which, in
its humanity, might just begin to connect with the eighty percent of
lapsed Catholics who pay only lip-service to the Church throughout the
Western world.
Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, founder of This World: The Values Network, has
just published ‘The Blessing of Enough.’ Folllow him on Twitter
@Rabbishmuley
On 10 Apr, 09:34, Hetty ter Haar <oldave...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> Pope hit by fresh allegations of paedophile priests cover-up
>
> Pope failed to defrock paedophile priest in 1985
>
> Tom Kington in Rome
> Saturday April 10 2010
> The Guardian
>
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/apr/10/pope-paedophile-priests-c...