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 Father Brendan Smyth |
Cardinal Sean Brady, Primate of all Ireland, presided over an investigation into the activities of the paedophile priest Father Brendan Smyth in 1975 at which the abused children aged 10 and 14 were made to swear an oath of secrecy and not report their abuse to the civil authorities. Fr. Smyth was banned from hearing confessions in the diocese but was moved to other dioceses where he went on to abuse a total of 74 children for another two decades until he was finally brought to book in 1994.
Today, on the national radio, the spokesman for the Catholic Church, Monsignor Dooley, a former professor of Canon Law, argued that Priests are in the same privileged position as lawyers who are not required to report their suspicions that their clients may have committed a crime. A priest is bound by the secrecy of the confessional, he argued, despite the fact that the investigation over which Cardinal Brady presided was not conducted under the seal of the confessional.
But surely, even if you accept that rather dubious point, it is a criminal conspiracy to cover up a crime and to bind others to do so – for which a lawyer, too, would be liable to prosecution? Cardinal Brady, meanwhile, falls back on the old defence that it is unfair to judge people on their actions of 35 years ago by the standards of today – again forgetting that it was the Catholic Church who enforced the standards of 35 years ago, and that it was as much a crime to commit paedophilia and to cover up such crimes 35 years ago as it is today.
Needless to say, no criminal proceedings against Cardinal Brady are impending or expected. Monsignor Dooley argues that it was the Gardai who were at fault for not bringing a prosecution against Father Smyth earlier, despite the fact that it was Cardinal Brady who ensured that vital evidence was withheld from them.
What is even more amazing is that Cardinal Brady feels there is no reason why he should resign even though he has previously said he would resign if it could be shown that his actions or inactions led to more children being abused. Clearly, he feels he can rely on the precedent set by his leader, Pope Benedict, who presided over the cover-up of child abuse during his time as Archbishop of Munich.
Mary Raftery, writing in the Irish Times, argues that the fundamental problem is not the vow of celibacy, but the vow of obedience, and that Path the cardinal must follow is clear
When clerics are shown to have blatantly breached the principles they preach, they must accept the consequences and resign
THERE IS a phenomenon known as a religious conscience. It is an entirely different animal to the consciences which you and I as ordinary people are expected to have and to heed. Both types tell us – at least in theory – what is right and what is wrong. But the religious conscience marches to a different drum.
Its beat fills the ears of most bishops, priests and brothers, and it drowns out other sounds. It tells them that the most important determinants of what is right and what is wrong are the vows or promises which they made on ordination. Follow these, they are told, and you will inherit the kingdom of God.
All very fine, you might say. Surely no vow or promise could include an instruction to cover up the sexual abuse of a child by anyone? Nor be interpreted to prohibit the reporting of a crime to the police?
But strange as it might seem, it is in fact these vows – or at least one of them – which is a key reason why the Catholic Church has at its highest levels become so entangled in the deceitful web it has made to hide and protect the criminals in its midst.
What lies at the heart of the church’s failures is not, as many people assume, the vow of celibacy – it is, rather, that of obedience.
And obedience is writ large over the latest scandal to hit the church. Cardinal Seán Brady is at pains in his statement yesterday to emphasise that his involvement in the meetings at which victims of serial child rapist Brendan Smyth were asked to swear an oath of secrecy was “at the direction of bishop McKiernan”, his then boss as bishop of Kilmore.
—–snip
That this concept of obedience has had such a fundamentally corrupting influence on every level of church governance is a reality that priests, nuns and bishops have been slow to realise. But it is now on the point of imploding as a central tenet of a church whose supreme leader, Pope Benedict, has himself become implicated in the cover-up of child sex abuse when he was archbishop of Munich.
As far as Cardinal Brady is concerned, the path he must follow is clear. The Nuremberg “only following orders” defence did not work in 1945, and it should not be permitted to work now. Society has a right to expect that individuals should take responsibility for their own actions.
Ireland has moved on a long way in the past 35 years, but many legacies of the ancien regime remain. For instance the Catholic Church still manages 90% of the primary schools in the country and controls the appointment of Principals and teachers despite the fact that all salaries are paid for by the state out of taxpayers money.
In many parts of the country it is impossible to send your child to a non-religious school. This imprinting of the young is central to the power base of the church which means that the church has maintained management control long after virtually all teachers have become secular, lay, and (oh the horror) non-practising in many instances.
And under the current craven government of Brian Cowen, nothing very much is going to happen about that state of affairs any time soon.
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1. Dear Brothers and Sisters of the Church in Ireland, it is with great concern that I write to you as Pastor of the universal Church. Like yourselves, I have been deeply disturbed by the information which has come to light regarding the abuse of children and vulnerable young people by members of the Church in Ireland, particularly by priests and religious. I can only share in the dismay and the sense of betrayal that so many of you have experienced on learning of these sinful and criminal acts and the way Church authorities in Ireland dealt with them.
6. To the victims of abuse and their families. You have suffered grievously and I am truly sorry. I know that nothing can undo the wrong you have endured. Your trust has been betrayed and your dignity has been violated. Many of you found that, when you were courageous enough to speak of what happened to you, no one would listen. Those of you who were abused in residential institutions must have felt that there was no escape from your sufferings. It is understandable that you find it hard to forgive or be reconciled with the Church. In her name, I openly express the shame and remorse that we all feel.
7. To priests and religious who have abused children. You betrayed the trust that was placed in you by innocent young people and their parents, and you must answer for it before Almighty God and before properly constituted tribunals. You have forfeited the esteem of the people of Ireland and brought shame and dishonour upon your confreres. Those of you who are priests violated the sanctity of the sacrament of Holy Orders in which Christ makes himself present in us and in our actions. Together with the immense harm done to victims, great damage has been done to the Church and to the public perception of the priesthood and religious life.
… At the same time, God’s justice summons us to give an account of our actions and to conceal nothing. Openly acknowledge your guilt, submit yourselves to the demands of justice, but do not despair of God’s mercy.
11. To my brother bishops. It cannot be denied that some of you and your predecessors failed, at times grievously, to apply the long-established norms of canon law to the crime of child abuse. Serious mistakes were made in responding to allegations. I recognize how difficult it was to grasp the extent and complexity of the problem, to obtain reliable information and to make the right decisions in the light of conflicting expert advice. Nevertheless, it must be admitted that grave errors of judgement were made and failures of leadership occurred. All this has seriously undermined your credibility and effectiveness. I appreciate the efforts you have made to remedy past mistakes and to guarantee that they do not happen again. Besides fully implementing the norms of canon law in addressing cases of child abuse, continue to cooperate with the civil authorities in their area of competence.
● Irish Times – Mixed reaction to pope’s letter
(The Guardian) Dec. 25, 2009 – Dublin Bishops Eamonn Walsh and Ray Field offered an apology to child-abuse victims as they announced their resignation during Christmas mass.
Earlier two other bishops, Donal Murray of Limerick and Jim Moriarty of Kildare, resigned following the publication on 26 November of a three-year investigation into why so many abusive Dublin priests escaped justice for so long.
A fifth resignation, he was a personal secretary to three popes, including Pope Paul I …
Vatican accepts resignation of Irish Catholic bishop John Magee
Perpetuating evil, absolution in a confession is conditional so not to perpetrate the same serious crimes in the future. It’s never meant to absolve mortal sins so one can participate in Holy Communion and continue on an evil path. There is a serious flaw in the morals of the Vatican hierarchy for propagating otherwise …
VATICAN CITY – A priest who confesses sexual abuse in the sacrament of penance should be absolved and should generally not be encouraged by the confessor to disclose his acts publicly or to his superiors, a Vatican official said.
Other Vatican officials, who spoke on background, said a distinction should be drawn between what a confessor requires of a penitent as a condition for absolution, and what the confessor may strongly encourage the penitent to do.
In the case of priestly sexual abuse, for example, a confessor may want to recommend that a priest discuss the situation with superiors in order to avoid the occasion of future sins, they said. Publicly admitting the sin might even be required of a penitent if it would clear the name of another person unjustly accused of the same act, they said.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."his 2001 instructions were quite different. He instructed bishops to follow only Canon law, in other words, ignore or more, the civil authorities. (Because their’s was a greater power, they owed nothing to the civil authorities anywhere)
what’s a 8 letter word for bastards?
Oh, of course. Bastards.
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The New York Times has published most documents in the sexual abuse case against Lawrence C. Murphy of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. It’s a matter of reading through the correspondence over the years, especially from 1995 up to the death of Murphy on August 21, 1998.
After the sexual abuse came to light, Father Murphy was relieved of his duties and received no new pastoral assignment after 1974. After a new investigation in the 90s, Bishop Weakland sought a penal case within his jurisdiction against Murphy to remove him from the priesthood (p. 29). The Vatican was needed to place a waiver on Canon law to bring the case to trial, because the term to prosecute is 5 years after the act.
Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone of the Congregation of the Faith handled the correspondence of the case (pp. 57-72) and granted the waiver to start a penal procedure. Murphy appealed the ruling (p. 54) but was not recognized as valid. He died of natural causes due to illness. His family never accepted the alleged sexual abuse cases and contravened requests from the bishop on funeral arrangements (p. 78). IMO Cardinal Ratzinger was never involved in the case, and the Vatican ruled on a procedure of Canon law which was granted in favor of the bishop to prosecute.
(VATICAN CITY) March 24, 2010 (Doc. page 86) – The tragic case of Lawrence Murphy, a priest of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, involved particularly vulnerable victims who suffered terribly from wkat he did. By sexually abusing children who were hearing-impaired, Father Murphy violated the law and, more importantly, the sacred trust that his victims had placed in him.
During the mid-1970s, some of Father Murphy’s victims reported his abuse to civil authorities, who investigated him at that time; however, according to news reports, that investigation was dropped. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was not informed of the matter until some twenty years later.
It has been suggested that a relationship exists between the application of Crimen sollicitationis and the non-reporting of child abuse to civil authorities in this case. In fact, there is no such relationship. Indeed, contrary to some statements that have circulated in the press, neither Crimen nor the Code of Canon Law ever prohibited the reporting of child abuse to law enforcement authorities.
… The Congregation was informed of the matter because it involved solicitation in the confessional, which is a violation of the Sacrament of Penance.
Vatican’s Instruction on the manner of proceeding in cases of (confessional) solicitation – 1962 (pdf)
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Really? That’s insane! And we weep for the blurring of church and state here…
Yep, we’re coming from a very different place, but also seem to be heading in a different direction. There is widespread public support for a diminution of the Church’s role in education now.
Church leadership is displaying? good! they should be no where NEAR children/schools. (or politics)
their celibacy vows leave them absolutely unqualified to be near pubescent children, particularly. They’re not able to model healthy sexual mores to people so young, who are bordering on reaching the age of maturity-sufficient-for-procreation and the clergy are biased to lure more young men into the waning ranks of the priesthood, at BEST.
Or lure them into worse traps on the worst end of things 🙁
best experience with a Priest was a Maronite, truly in tune with the feminine Devine, unlike the vast majority of Roman Catholic Priests who seemed at least off, if not really freakin’ creepy.
This diary is a cross post from the European Tribune where it attracted 130 comments and a lot of passionate discussion with not a flame war in sight! I was so exhausted by that discussion (and other non-blogging things going on) that I quite forgot to cross post here until now. If you are interested in the topic, you might like to follow the discussion there. My thanks, as usual, to Oui’s indefatigable and pertinent posting both here and elsewhere!
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– “…After having attentively studied the results of the investigation, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, under the guidance of the new prefect, Cardinal William Joseph Levada , decided – bearing in mind Fr. Maciel’s advanced age and his delicate health – to forgo a canonical hearing and to invite the father to a reserved life of penitence and prayer, relinquishing any form of public ministry. The Holy Father approved these decisions.”
Father Marciel Marciel followed the direction of the Church. He lived the remainder of his life as a penitent. He died on January 30, 2008 at the age of 87. However, the Religious community and lay movement he founded continued their many apostolic endeavors. Both have produced some wonderful work in and for the Church. Certainly its lay members, its priests and all who recognize the good which they have all done – and, hopefully will continue to do – were shocked by these new reports.
Here they are. The influential, deceased founder of the Legionaries of Christ and Regnum Christi, Fr. Marcial Maciel, a consecrated celibate priest, is alleged to have had a mistress, fathered at least one child and lived a double life. I will use the summary set forth in the recent article on “American Papist” written by Thomas Peters. It appears to be the most comprehensive, up to date and substantive. It is based upon numerous reports including sources within the community itself:
“1) Maciel fathered a child who is now in her early 20’s;
“2) Maciel offered some money illicitly to his own family;
“3) The current head, Alvaro Corcuera, entertaining his own suspicions, demanded that the case be reopened several years ago;
“4) The health of the Legion depends on denouncing him as founder and moving on.
“I have heard more details in addition (a second child, etc), but in this situation, I tend to think we’ve already learned enough to make an evaluation. Anything further is simply prurient interest.”
RJ Neuhaus March 2002 – This reflection is occasioned by an attack on Father Marcial Maciel Degollado, the eighty-two-year-old and much revered founder of the Legionaries of Christ, one of the more vibrant and successful renewal movements in contemporary Catholicism. The attack, alleging sexual offenses with seminarians some forty years earlier, first appeared in a 1997 story in the Hartford Courant, a Connecticut paper, and the story has recently been repeated in the National Catholic Reporter, a left-wing tabloid. The story was coauthored by Jason Berry, a freelance writer in New Orleans, who briefly gained national attention with a 1992 book, Lead Us Not Into Temptation: Catholic Priests and the Sexual Abuse of Children, and by Gerald Renner, who was until recently religion writer for the Connecticut paper.
NCR stories about Fr. Marcial Maciel
NOTE: The bishop heads a diocese and is responsible for all priests. A congregation of religious men and women has it’s own hierarchy (e.g. Jesuits) and ultimately fall under jurisdiction of the Vatican in Rome. That’s a difference how a case like Fr. Marcial is handled.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."