Originally aired 07/03/2002
The Catholic Church scandal is negatively impacting church attendance in South Park, Priest Maxi travels to Rome to confront religious leaders about a solution.
Posted on 11/13/2002 9:33:44 AM PST by NYer
WASHINGTON (AP) _ The nation's Roman Catholic bishops adopted revisions to their sex abuse policy Wednesday that aim to protect the rights of accused priests while keeping molesters away from children. The bishops voted 246-7 with six abstentions to approve the new plan, which stipulates that priests should be removed from public ministry _ saying Mass, teaching in Catholic schools, wearing a Roman collar _ after ``even one act of sexual abuse of a minor.''
The policy is virtually assured of becoming church law, binding on all U.S. bishops, after a final Vatican review. Negotiators from the Holy See and United States reworked the policy to satisfy Vatican concerns that the Americans weren't doing enough to ensure due process for priests. The bishops, anxious to get past a year of scandal, insist the plan shows they are deeply committed to reform. Victims say it is a major step backward from the original policy.
Chicago Cardinal Francis George, who worked on the revisions, said they balance compassion for victims with fairness to priests. ``We are sometimes asked to choose between the accuser and the accused,'' he said during the debate before the vote. ``We cannot choose one or the other. We have to choose both. We have to love both.''
But victims were not satisfied. They said the plan continues the church's history of sheltering sexual predators and abandoning the people they prey on. ``The gulf between bishops and the victims and lay people in the church has grown wider by the vote today,'' said Barbara Blaine, president of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests. ``Today there's a broader burden on the victims.''
The policy allows bishops to conduct a confidential, preliminary inquiry when a molestation claim is made to determine whether it is plausible. If it is, the priest is to be put on leave and go before a clerical tribunal. Bishops are compelled to obey local civil laws when it comes to reporting abuse claims, but no more than that. The church leaders, however, pledged to report all claims involving children to civil authorities.
The bishops' vote follows 10 months in which at least 325 of the nation's 46,000 priests have resigned or been removed from their posts because of accusations of sex abuse, with cases dating back years or even decades.
Hundreds of lawsuits have been filed this year against dioceses all over the country, and thousands of angry Catholic parishioners have joined reform movements. At a meeting last June in Dallas, the bishops responded to the public outcry by approving their original policy to crack down on molesters. It stressed bishops' authority to pull priests out of their jobs as soon as an alleged victim made a claim. That worried Vatican officials, who said the U.S. bishops weren't following global church mandates on protecting the rights of priests. The Holy See withheld its approval of the policy _ needed to make it U.S. church law _ until the plan was reworked. The joint Vatican-American commission handled the revisions in two days of meetings.
The new policy also spells out that the church's statute of limitations requires a victim to come forward by age 28, though bishops can still ask the Vatican for a waiver in special cases. Review boards including lay people will continue to monitor abuse claims, but the policy reasserts that it is the bishops who have the authority to manage clergy.
Bishop Gerald Gettlefinger of Evansville, Ind., was among the few prelates who said he was opposed to the policy. He was upset that it does not allow bishops discretion to reinstate a priest who had only one offense and had rehabilitated. George was firm on that point. ``I think we have lost that discretionary authority,'' he said.
The crisis started with revelations last January that Boston's Cardinal Bernard Law knowingly reassigned a priest who had been accused of abuse and quickly spread to other dioceses. Law, who has taken more criticism than any other bishop this year, said he was voting for the revisions. ``We have a lot of challenges. Our work isn't done,'' he said. ``But thank God we are where we are today. We're in a much better place than we were 10 months ago.''
On the Net:
U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops: http://www.usccb.org
Survivors' Network of Those Abused by Priests: http://www.survivorsnetwork.org/
AP-ES-11-13-02 1208EST
It should be interesting to see who voted against or abstained.
The sacramental rank goes, from bottom to top: deacon, priest, bishop.
The administrative rank goes: pastor, bishop, archbishop, pope.
Cardinals are bishops or archbishops who have been given the privilege of being allowed to vote in the election of a pope.
You said it. That was my reaction, too. It reminds me of a recent South Park episode my kids had on. Maybe you've seen or heard of it. In that episode, the South Park priest was disturbed because many parents, worried about priestly child abuse, were pulling their kids from the church. So the priest decides to go to a regional meeting of clergy. It turns out he's the ONLY one who isn't abusing the congregation. Very funny....
And there are honorary titles which are given to priests - like the title of monsignor, which is usually given to a priest who has distinguished himself by long service or is the pastor of a prestigious parish.
There was a particularly disgraceful case in New Orleans back in the 1980s, in which the local DA was alerted to a case of sexual abuse. He ended up sitting on the case until the statute of limitations expired, then announced that he couldn't move forward with it because the statute of limitations had expired.
Oh, and the district attorney's name was Harry Connick Sr. Yeah, the father of THAT Harry Connick Jr.
Actually, one doesn't have to be a bishop to be a cardinal. Avery Dulles is a priest and a cardinal but not a bishop.
Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers.[ 20:28 Traditionally bishops] Be shepherds of the church of God,[ 20:28 Many manuscripts of the Lord] which he bought with his own blood.
The Bishops do not read their own book.
The main point of confusion is that very often sacramental and administrative duties combine in one person.
Sacramentally, John Paul II is a bishop.
Administratively he is (1) the pope of the entire Church; (2) the patriarch of the Latin Rite; (3) the primate of Italy; (4) the archbishop of Lazio (5) the bishop of Rome and (6) the pastor of St. Peter's Basilica.
Dulles was purposefully named a cardinal after he turned eighty, thus bestowing the purple on him without its attendant power.
Diana Rose is, I suspect, trying to get a general picture of what a cardinal is - Fr. Dulles is obviously a rare exception to a general rule.
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