Posted on 04/25/2002 2:19:22 PM PDT by Notwithstanding
1) The sexual abuse of minors is rightly considered a crime by society and is an appalling sin in the eyes of God, above all when it is perpetrated by priests and religious whose vocation is to help persons to lead holy lives before God and men.
2) There is a need to convey to the victims and their families a profound sense of solidarity and to provide appropriate assistance in recovering faith and receiving pastoral care.
3) Even if the cases of true pedophilia on the part of priests and religious are few, all the participants recognized the gravity of the problem. In the meeting, the quantitative terms of the problem were discussed, since the statistics are not very clear in this regard. Attention was drawn to the fact that almost all the cases involved adolescents and therefore were not cases of true pedophilia.
4) Together with the fact that a link between celibacy and pedophilia cannot be scientifically maintained, the meeting reaffirmed the value of priestly celibacy as a gift of God to the Church.
5) Given the doctrinal issues underlying the deplorable behavior in question, certain lines of response have been proposed:
a) the Pastors of the Church need clearly to promote the correct moral teaching of the Church and publicly to reprimand individuals who spread dissent and groups which advance ambiguous approaches to pastoral care;
b) a new and serious Apostolic Visitation of seminaries and other institutes of formation must be made without delay, with particular emphasis on the need for fidelity to the Church’s teaching, especially in the area of morality, and the need for a deeper study of the criteria of suitability of candidates to the priesthood.
c) it would be fitting for the Bishops of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to ask the faithful to join them in observing a national day of prayer and penance, in reparation for the offenses perpetrated and in prayer to God for the conversion of sinners and the reconciliation of victims.
6) All the participants have seen this time as a call to a greater fidelity to the mystery of the Church. Consequently they see the present time as a moment of grace. While recognizing that practical criteria of conduct are indispensable and urgently needed, we cannot underestimate, in the words of the Holy Father, "the power of Christian conversion, that radical decision to turn away from sin and back to God, which reaches the depths of a person’s soul and can work extraordinary change". At the same time, as His Holiness also stated, "People need to know that there is no place in the priesthood and religious life for those who would harm the young. They must know that Bishops and priests are totally committed to the fullness of Catholic truth on matters of sexual morality, a truth as essential to the renewal of the priesthood and the episcopate as it is to the renewal of marriage and family life".
With all due respect to the Catholic Church, for whom I have tremendous respect......
........this statement is total and utter bovine excrement.
In addition, the fact that they felt compelled to sneak this little "disclaimer" in speaks volumes.
As Soothing Dave pointed out, this is the American cardinals talking to the (whole body of the) American bishops. They don't have the authority to "command" their brother bishops to do anything.
The Pope has that authority, but he'd rather the American cardinals propose his program themselves than look like the heavy. To use an analogy ... suppose you have a bunch of disobedient children partying and tearing the house down. You take the oldest one aside and explain clearly that either the party stops and the mess is cleaned up, immediately, or he's toast. He then goes in to the rest of the bad kids and says, "Uh, what I propose is this ..."
Turn the molesters over for prosecution. Let them undergo their Christian conversion in a prison cell.
Maybe the communique is strong language in Vatican terms, but this is not the time for Vatican subtlety, or weaseling like "and therefore were not cases of true pedophilia." We needed "the voice of one crying in the wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord." We got the voice of one crying in the bureaucracy, cover my arse.
The Pope's duty is to protect the flock from the wolves in shepherd's clothing. I hope he will do it.
The point is that the situation being addressed is complex overall and the specific policies that will be developed from the Pope's statements need to be thought out very carefully. The press would have us believe otherwise; but, the press is by and large comprised of anti-catholic idiots.
Remember, it was the press that led the feeding frenzy about child abuse in the 80's --- a frenzy which, in combination with overly ambitious prosecutors such as Janet Reno, resulted in the unjust conviction of numberous individuals (there will be a special on one of Janet's more egregreous travesties of justice this evening).
It strikes me as more of a gift from the priests giving up sex.
a) the Pastors of the Church need clearly to promote the correct moral teaching of the Church and publicly to reprimand individuals who spread dissent and groups which advance ambiguous approaches to pastoral care;
What the heck are they getting at here?
This piece strikes me as a committee written exercise in opaque burearcratese. Sorry to be so negative.
Way too little and way too late. And why on earth would an injured party want to receive more "pastoral care" from a corrupt source. I don't get it.
I call it "Vaticanese". You have to know how to interpret it. For example, the following:
a) the Pastors of the Church need clearly to promote the correct moral teaching of the Church and publicly to reprimand individuals who spread dissent and groups which advance ambiguous approaches to pastoral care;
translated into American English, comes out roughly like this:
Bishops need to stop being wishy-washy about sexual sin. In particular, priests & religious ["religious"=laypeople under vows, like nuns & monks] who are teaching that homosexual acts can sometimes be something other than grave sin need to be slapped down, hard, and by local bishops, not just by Rome. Also, bishops, if you have any "gay" organizations in your dioceses, or "parents and friends of gays" organizations, which are not four-square behind Catholic teaching that all sexual activity outside of marital intercourse open to life is mortal sin, you need to make it clear that they aren't speaking for the Church, and you don't support them.
Ma'am, with all due respect, read what Philip Lawler wrote in the article linked right below your post. He understands Vatican politics better than you do (no offense intended), and better than I do.
He, rightly, IMO, says that the bishops got spanked. This is a very contrite, tails-between-our-legs, the-guy-to-blame-is-the-one-in-the-mirror statement.
Who wants to heat up the irons?
Alan Keyes has been hitting this subject very forcefully of late. I wonder what he'll have to say about this.
Bye bye to Dignity and bye bye to other open dissenters.
Hasn't this been standing "official" policy of the Roman Catholic Church for years? Will simply iterating it have any greater effect upon purging the scandals? In today's climate I couldn't see anything working short of unceremoniously kicking the offenders out. (And the same goes for discipline within Protestant or Orthodox churches.)
This is not necessarily a bad thing for the Vatican to point out. The Vatican is saying "hey, liberal press who have been hounding us unmercifully, guess what, the bulk of the problem is the homosexuality you've been so fond of."
Although, I am skeptical that the more notorious seminaries (as depicted in "Goodbye Good Men" will be able to stay under the official radar. I do think though, that overall we will see dioceses that were previously flamboyantly flaunting the rules of the faith become not quite so flamboyant, and the dioceses under the control of orthodox Bishops will become even more so strict on the regulation of active gay priests and other problem priests.
But failing direct intervention on the part of the Vatican, I don't think this will end all of the problems associated with this recent scandal throughout the Catholic Church's presence in America.
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