Posted on 04/11/2005 10:35:09 AM PDT by donbosco74
By RACHEL ZOLL : AP Religion Writer Apr 11, 2005 : 12:24 pm ET
VATICAN CITY -- Cardinal Bernard Law celebrated Mass in mourning for Pope John Paul II in St. Peter's Basilica on Monday, ignoring protests from victims that his handling of the sex abuse scandal in the U.S. Catholic Church should disqualify him from the honor.
Police broke up a small but symbolic protest staged by two victims of sex abuse at the hands of American clergy, escorting one of them off St. Peter's Square as she was preparing to distribute fliers.
Several uniformed officers walked Barbara Blaine, founder of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, behind barricades set up at the entrance to the square. The officers did not explain why they escorted Blaine off the piazza, and she had no immediate comment.
Blaine and another leader of the group brought their campaign for reform to the center of Roman Catholicism, demanding that Vatican officials bar Law from celebrating the important Mass mourning John Paul.
They arrived in Rome just hours before Monday's service at St. Peter's Basilica to condemn what they called the Vatican's "hurtful decision" to choose Law for the honor. The Mass went ahead without disruption.
"In these incredible days, the pope continues to teach us what it means ... to be a follower of Christ," Law said, reading his homily slowly in Italian. "Our faith has been reinforced."
He also said Italian, Polish and other pilgrims were inspiring in their huge tribute of love and devotion to John Paul. Nearly 3 million mourners flooded Rome for his funeral last week.
Law resigned as archbishop of Boston in December 2002 after unsealed court records revealed he had moved predatory clergy among parishes without alerting parents that their children were at risk. More than 550 people have filed abuse claims in Boston in recent years, and the archdiocese has paid more than $85 million in settlements.
American cardinals generally have declined to comment on Law's celebrating one of the nine daily Masses for John Paul, a period of mourning called [Novendiales]. But some have said the Vatican likely chose him because he leads an important church, not to give him a personal honor.
St. Mary Major is one of four basilicas under direct Vatican jurisdiction.
Still, the assignment gives Law a position of influence. In their homilies, cardinals can highlight what they consider key concerns for the church. Observers will be analyzing the remarks for clues as to how the cardinals will vote when they begin meeting April 18 to choose a new pope.
Blaine said earlier Monday that the group was not opposed to Law's participation in the conclave, but that his public role in the papal transition was hurtful.
"We are the sons and daughters of the Catholic family who were raped, sodomized and sexually molested by priests," Blaine said, holding a photograph of herself as a child around the time she said a priest began molesting her.
"At this time, we should be able to focus on the Holy Father's death, instead of Cardinal Law's prominence."
A spokeswoman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops declined comment. Law also has declined to comment through an aide at the Basilica of St. Mary Major in Rome, where the pope had appointed him archpriest last year. Law has apologized for his failures.
The Survivors Network, which claims hundreds of members, has spent more than a decade pressing U.S. bishops to acknowledge the scope of molestation in the church. They have picketed parishes, alerted the public to accused priests living in their communities and pressed authorities to prosecute bishops who failed to report abuse.
Asked if the protest was wrong at a time when the church is grieving, Blaine said bluntly: "The Vatican's decision to have Law celebrate the Mass was inappropriate."
Some Catholics say the group is too strident and has close ties with lawyers making millions of dollars from suing the church.
But the Survivors Network says the overwhelming majority of its members have never sued and are too traumatized to do so. They say they adopted their tactics after bishops promised for years to take action against guilty clergy, then never did.
Some Boston Catholics said Law's role in mourning the pope was another a sign that church officials did not understand the betrayal parishioners felt over his wrongdoing.
The abuse crisis erupted in 2002 with the case of one accused priest in Boston, then spread nationwide, compelling American bishops to enact sweeping reforms of their discipline policy for guilty priests.
According to studies the bishops commissioned to restore trust in their leadership, more than 11,000 abuse claims have been made against U.S. clergy since 1950. The total payout to victims has climbed to at least $840 million.
The Vatican, meanwhile, released video Monday to give outsiders a peek at the conclave where a new pope will be selected by the 115 cardinals who are under age 80 and thus eligible to vote.
The Vatican compiled the videotape to help explain the centuries-old election as cardinals, silenced by a pledge not to talk to the media, met again Monday to plan the conclave.
The video offers a tour of the Domus Sanctae Marthae, the hotel-residence for the cardinals during the conclave. It includes shots of the frescoed Sistine Chapel, where the voting occurs, and the path cardinals will take to get there -- a first since they previously had been sequestered in the Apostolic Palace for the duration of the conclave.
It also shows the bronze-rimmed urns where the cardinals will place their votes. Previously, cardinals placed their ballots in a chalice. The video ends with a view of the stove, dusty and full of ashes, where the ballots will be burned.
Black smoke wafting from the Sistine Chapel's chimney signals no pope has been elected, and white smoke signals a new pope.
The videotape was aired as cardinals arrived in the rain at the Vatican for their seventh meeting to map out details of the conclave. Silenced by an unprecedented pledge not to talk before a pope is chosen, they waved to reporters as they headed into their meeting.
Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls announced that the grotto beneath St. Peter's Basilica, where John Paul was laid to rest Friday, would reopen to the public Wednesday at 7 a.m.
Vatican security was preparing the Sistine Chapel, taking undisclosed measures to thwart would-be hackers or electronic eavesdroppers from listening in on the cardinals' private deliberations and getting early word of who the next pope might be.
The names of those emerging as possible papal successors include contenders from Latin America, such as Cardinal Claudio Hummes of Brazil and Cardinal Oscar Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga of Honduras, and a Vatican official from Africa: Cardinal Francis Arinze of Nigeria.
Europeans mentioned include Belgian Cardinal Godfried Danneels, Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn of Austria and German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. Italian "papabili" include Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi and Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re.
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Associated Press reporters Vanessa Gera and Maria Sanminiatelli in Rome contributed to this report.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1380090/posts
I thought those posts insufficiently discussed this news, because there is a lot more to the story. Maybe this article will help fill in some gaps.
I did not know two was a group. A lot of press for two ambulance chasers.
A sentiment echoed yesterday by Raymond Arroyo and Father Neuhaus on EWTN.
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Law should be in chains. If you'd seen his videotaped deposition in the sex abuse cases, you would know his memory was just a shade better than Hillary's.
I heard about Law performing a celebrated mass. This is the same man that covered up all the pedophile priests by shifting them to different churches while knowing that these priests would keep molesting others. Yet, Law was recalled to Rome by the pope to protect Law from all the civil lawsuits filed against him and the Catholic Church.
It's boilerplate doctrine, settled at the first Council of Nicaea, that the character of the priest doesn't affect the validity of his functions.
>>I heard about Law performing a celebrated mass.<<
Not sure what you are trying to say here: did you mean "concelebrated?" Or are you talking about the novendiales series in Rome?
>>This is the same man that covered up all the pedophile priests by shifting them to different churches while knowing that these priests would keep molesting others.<<
This is ONE OF THE SAME MEN. He made quite a name for himself in Boston, though.
>>Yet, Law was recalled to Rome by the pope to protect Law from all the civil lawsuits filed against him and the Catholic Church.<<
Law was recalled to Rome for undisclosed reasons, too, it would seem. Why was he provided with such a prestigious post? Why was he awarded a generous salary and a cushy apartment while his abandoned Boston has to close down parishes to pay off the lawsuits?
Yet, Law was recalled to Rome by the pope to protect Law from all the civil lawsuits filed against him and the Catholic Church.
Actually, he is the chaplin at a convent here in the US somewhere on the east coast. We was never recalled to the Vatican and his resignation was only accepted after two attempts.
The man did wrong. He knows it and at this point so does everyone else. We can only assume he is doing his Penance. It wasn't appropriate for him to say one of the Masses during the Novena, but who knows, they could have been pulling names out of a hat.
Are you suggesting that the validity of his sacraments is questionable because of the enormity of his public and notorious scandal?
If so, what about the "validity" of his appointment to pastor the Basilica of St. Mary Major? Where do you draw the line? Does the crime have to be public and notorious, or could it be like the one Judas Iscariot committed in his heart when he left the upper room to go and betray Our Lord? If a silent mortal sin is sufficient to nullify the sacraments of priests, then who would ever know if they are receiving a "valid" sacrament?
We could go on and on with that one. For example, the bishop moves a priest guilty of pederasty ("pedophilia" is a media-confected misnomer) to a new place where he can persist in his crimes, then the pope moves the bishop away thus enabling his deviance to continue, and meanwhile, the pope who enabled the bishop to perpetrate corruption dies and is popularly acclaimed "a saint." Which level of crime is greater, the first, the second, or the third? Are all three actions equally "invalid" by dint of the associated notorious scandal? Does the society that makes acclamations of sainthood under such clouds of title lose its "validity" as a society??
On the other hand, if your comment was intended to draw attention to the separation of the power of the minister from the guilt (and just consequence) due to his crime, that's a whole other topic. Is every deviant prelate (or priest) above public scrutiny when his superior scuttles him away and reappoints him as if to excuse his defection?
Is every such case at least worthy of our disinterest, such that we would continue in our manifest error?
I thought it ill-considered at the time -- seriously stupid for Catholic journalists presenting themselves to the world as Vaticanisti. "The Vatican's decision"? Who would that be? The pope is dead. All curial appointment are expired. No one at the Vatican is making decisions except about matters where they have an exclusive prerogative. Cardinal Ratzinger's funeral Mass was celebrated in Latin, presumably because it was his Mass and he wanted it that way. Similarly, Cardinal Law is Archpriest of his basilica and until there's a new pope, he answers to no one. Should he have stepped aside in the interest of humility and good taste? Sure, but if he had humility and good taste he wouldn't have accepted the position at St. Mary Major in the first place.
The Archpriest of a Roman basilica doesn't get a generous salary. It's a retirement post. And though it's prestigious by comparison to the way most priests live, it isn't by comparison to his last job. Even if people outside the Vatican don't get it, those on the inside understand that Law's no longer a player. From being the metropolitan archbishop of one of the richest and most influential dioceses in the world, he's been reduced to a glorified parish pastor. He's come down in the world, even if the world doesn't see it.
Yes, he does have a swell apartment. I suspect I've seen it (while it was inhabited by a prelate who's since passed away), and it's better than he deserves.
>>"The Vatican's decision to have Law celebrate the Mass was inappropriate."<<
I'm sorry, but that's just lame talk. He is celebrating the mess because he is the Archpriest of St. Mary Major, and as such, his appointment to that post was an action that carried with it the known fact that he would be the one to conduct the liturgical rites when this event comes up. There are other things for him to do there, too. Are those things also "inappropriate?"
This is just one dot on the radar screen.
Appointments have consequences. Rule changes effect years of fallout. Tampering with liturgical traditions sets a course for sometimes uncharted territory. Tampering with dogma destroys the Faith.
The inappropriate thing was to give Law ANY position of authority or influence. He should have been sent off to a remote and secure monastery to do penance in SILENCE for the rest of his days, if the salvation of his soul (and the preservation of the Faith) was of any concern.
In retrospect, this whole affair carries with it the pallid odium of "grave" effect.
How much more of its ilk will we be subject to, is the question.
We ought to forgive and forget, huh? Would you like to have your son or daughter left alone with him or with a priest under his authority? How many problems do we want coming out of the same factory before we shut it down? It's time to let it go: on and on?
He created a mess in that cesspool known as the Archdiocese of Boston. If Bernard had any sense he would have yielded to another Cardinal to celebrate the Mass but we all know that he doesn't.
I just was to reply to part of your argument. Even if a priest has a mortal sin on his soul, the Sacraments he preforms are still valid. Now, doing so creats another mortal sin for the priest but not for the people who recieve the Sacraments from the priests.
Even if the priest was not validly ordained (and thus not a priest) but gave the appearance to most people of being so, the Sacraments would not be valid Sacraments but God would still give the same graces to the laypeople because His graces are not constrained by Sacraments. So you don't have to worry about if your Confession or Wedding was valid, etc.
As Catholic Christians, we are obligated to forgive. Granted, that can be incredibly difficult, but speaking from experience, prayer helps a lot. I'll keep you in my prayers.
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