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I sincerely apologize for my incorrect assumption. You did read Veritas in Caritate; I was out of line; and what I said was seriously wrong.

I'm quite taken aback. Please forgive me.

I can only say that since you've read the document, it's got to be possible to sort out the other two sources of difficulty, namely:

to what extent you simply have a straight-out disagreement --- which is always worthwhile and respectable, and
to what extent you've run into common problem areas which might have led to misunderstanding.

I'm not trying to be to obscure here; I'm just trying to find out where the specific disagreements are coming from on the Veritas document.

The main areas of misunderstanding --- in my experience--- come from the assumption

that the word "society" means "the state"
that "global" solutions mean that localism and liberty are not applicable (talking about subsidiarity here), and
that what is asked of "the Church" is the same as what is asked of "civil society" (which, again, is not necessarily "the state.")

In my opinion, these are the areas where clarification would be needed.

On the other hand, concerning Crimen and the Pope's 2001 letter, I see a clear misunderstanding. Nobody was forbidden, let alone "threatened with excommunication," for speaking publicly about being sexually assaulted by priests. That is absolutely flat wrong.

It has at all times been the responsibility of those involved (victims and witnesses of crime) to bring charges and prosecute the perpetrator (we're speaking of civil and criminal trial), and it has always been the responsibility of the (local) bishop, IN ADDITION TO THIS, to apply ecclesiastical penalties (canonical investigation and trial).

These are separate issues. Crimen applies to canon law, not secular law; and your stated opinion that this applies, in any way, to civil or criminal proceedings is simply incorrect.

Let me show you how this works. When there’s a credible allegation against a priest, three things have to happen, and fast:

the victim needs to bring criminal charges against the abuser,
the bishop must cancel all the accused man's priestly assignments, and
the bishop must forbid him, in any case (assignment or no assignment) to function as a priest (this is what we call "the loss of priestly faculties.")

Please keep in mind that this is what the bishop must do, locally. (It's exactly what mine, Bishop Richard Stika of Knoxville, did immediately when he was given credible information this past April that a priest had abused a teenager back in the 1970's.) It is not the job of the Vatican, it is not done in Rome, it is not the responsibility of the Pope, it is not related at all to Crimen Sollicitationis, and it is entirely different from laicization (which is done in Rome). And by the way, it is not called "defrocking."

"Laicization," which the part that does happen in Rome (since 2001) and which means being dismissed from the clerical state, has little relevance to the abuse cases. Laicization simply means the man is dispensed from his vows, such as the vow of celibacy and the vow of obedience to his bishop, and has permission to live "as a layman."

When you think about it, you realize that laicization means less restriction (no vow of celibacy) and less supervision (no vow of obedience.) The vast majority of laicizations are not connected to crimes of any sort, they're requested by the priest himself because he doesn't want to have the responsibilities of the priesthood anymore.

I hope I'm making myself clear here. In abuse cases, laicization is not actually what you want.What you want is for the bishop to cooperate with the cops, put an end to the alleged abuser's assignment and his faculties, and insist that he stop violating his vows of celibacy and obedience. You don't just release him from his vows.

It's this confusion between the bishop's duty, and "the Vatican's" duty, which has enabled news outlets like the New York Times to make wrongly-directed charges against the Pope concerning, for instance, the Milwaukee case.

Let me repeat: cancellation of all assignments, and suspension of all priestly faculties, is something that happens locally. It is not the same as laicization, it does not happen in Rome, it does not involve the Pope, and it is the responsibility of the Bishop.

Bishops are responsible for the many ghastly and shocking instances of negligence, cover-up, transfer and reassignment ("pass the trash"), etc. that happened especially in the 1970's and '80's. It is shocking and appalling, in some cases criminal, and in some cases (God knows) damnable.

No confusion. When a bishop asks the Vatican for help with a pederast priest (which means releasing that bishop from the restrictions put upon him by the Vatican, including going to the police) and when that bishop is met over and over with stonewalling, dismissal and a refusal to act, then it becomes clear a crime has occurred which includes aiding and abetting a criminal, conspiracy and covering up a crime.

Worse, it's possible to wonder if the Vatican permitted these criminals to continue sexually abusing children because basically the Vatican doesn't think this is really a problem. Merely the prerogative of an "another Christ."

Because the Vatican is so clearly guilty here and has so little legal standing in these cases, it comes out with the outlandish (and pretty darn hilarious) defense that churches and parishes and bishops are all independent and autonomous of Rome. lol.

If only.

I'm just trying to find out where the specific disagreements are coming from on the Veritas document.

We can eat a seven-course dinner of steak and baked potatoes and blueberry pie, but it only takes a pinch of arsenic added to the Bearnaise sauce to kill us. Truly, the devil is in the details. Lenin couldn't have written it better.

In the case of Ratzinger's "global authority" encyclical, it's a lot more than a pinch. Amid all the sweet longing for daffodils and world peace, there is at its heart, corruption and enslavement to a one-world power.

Wonder who Ratzinger hopes that will be?

67. In the face of the unrelenting growth of global interdependence, there is a strongly felt need, even in the midst of a global recession, for a reform of the United Nations Organization, and likewise of economic institutions and international finance, so that the concept of the family of nations can acquire real teeth. One also senses the urgent need to find innovative ways of implementing the principle of the responsibility to protect and of giving poorer nations an effective voice in shared decision-making. This seems necessary in order to arrive at a political, juridical and economic order which can increase and give direction to international cooperation for the development of all peoples in solidarity. To manage the global economy; to revive economies hit by the crisis; to avoid any deterioration of the present crisis and the greater imbalances that would result; to bring about integral and timely disarmament, food security and peace; to guarantee the protection of the environment and to regulate migration: for all this, there is urgent need of a true world political authority, as my predecessor Blessed John XXIII indicated some years ago. Such an authority would need to be regulated by law, to observe consistently the principles of subsidiarity and solidarity, to seek to establish the common good, and to make a commitment to securing authentic integral human development inspired by the values of charity in truth. Furthermore, such an authority would need to be universally recognized and to be vested with the effective power to ensure security for all, regard for justice, and respect for rights. Obviously it would have to have the authority to ensure compliance with its decisions from all parties, and also with the coordinated measures adopted in various international forums. Without this, despite the great progress accomplished in various sectors, international law would risk being conditioned by the balance of power among the strongest nations. The integral development of peoples and international cooperation require the establishment of a greater degree of international ordering, marked by subsidiarity, for the management of globalization. They also require the construction of a social order that at last conforms to the moral order, to the interconnection between moral and social spheres, and to the link between politics and the economic and civil spheres, as envisaged by the Charter of the United Nations.

And now begins the equivocation, the backtracking, the further explanation which denies the black and white written words read with our own lying eyes.

Frankly, I'm weary of this game. It's pretty pathetic when "conservatives" fall for this line straight out of the Communist Manifesto...

"...In short, the Communists everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things. In all these movements, they bring to the front, as the leading question in each, the property question, no matter what its degree of development at the time.
Finally, they labour everywhere for the union and agreement of the democratic parties of all countries." -- Karl Marx