Also in the Word from Rome, and very much worth reading, is Allen’s report on disciplinary actions against a religious order founder:

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued the decree May 27 in the case of 73-year-old Italian Fr. Gino Burresi, founder of a religious order called the Congregation of the Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The contents of the decree, which drew little public notice, were announced by the Italian bishops’ conference on July 19. It specifies that:

• Burresi’s faculties to hear confessions are revoked;
• He is definitively prohibited from providing spiritual direction;
• He is barred from preaching, as well as from celebrating the sacraments and sacramentals in public;
• He is barred from giving interviews, publishing and taking part in broadcasts that have anything to do with faith, morals, or supernatural phenomena.

The decree, in effect, amounts to removal from public ministry. The only thing left is private celebration of the Mass.

The original Vatican decree, which was not released publicly, but a copy of which was obtained by NCR, was signed by Archbishop William Levada, the new prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, as well as Archbishop Angelo Amato, the secretary. It stipulates that in an audience given by Benedict XVI to Amato on May 27, the pope confirmed the decree in forma specifica, meaning that he made its conclusions his own, and that no appeal is possible.

Read it all, including an investigating commission’s awareness of the dynamics of these situations:

In its conclusion, the report urged the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to take administrative action against Burresi despite the statute of limitations. One concern, the report suggested, was that if no action resulted, Burresi’s followers would interpret the investigation as evidence of unfair hostility against him.