About a week ago, I had heard about the BBC/Panorama special on the supposed secret document enabling clerical sexual predators – it aired over the weekend. There are some responses out there from bishops and so on, – here is the statement from Archbishop Vincent Nichols, Chairman of the Catholic Office for the Protection of Children and Vulnerable Adults, which is not quite detailed enough on the content of the two documents in question themselves, and has the added disadvantage of being incredibly defensive (understandable in the face of such an apparently irresponsible hack job) and failing to admit that, er…yes, the Church hierarchy has been guilty of cover-ups, even if these documents have nothing at all to do with that historical reality.
Rocco’s take – institutional representatives of the Church really need to cooperate and give interviews for these types of programs, when possible and when asked, or else it leave their side untold. He also notes, in the attempt to score Ratzinger/Benedict as complicit in sexual abuse issues…er…Maciel?
More helpful is Canonist Ed Peter’s analysis, both from this past weekend and from a year ago when a British press reported on the 2001 document. (on the latter link, scroll down to 4/27)
Peters notes, first of all, that the hype about this 2001 letter being "secret" is ridiculous, since it was published in Acta Apostolicae Sedis at the time and was the subject of news stories in 2002.
His take, from 2005:
Second, the CDF letter had as one important aim to settle certain procedural questions among canonists as to which canonical crimes are “reserved” to CDF per 1983 CIC 1362, that is, which ecclesiastical offenses are considered serious enough that Rome itself could adjudicate the case instead of allowing the normal canons on penal jurisdiction to operate (e.g., 1983 CIC 1408, 1412). These canons were on the books long before the clergy sexual abuse crisis erupted, but their interpretation had been disputed. CDF’s letter cleared up much of the confusion.
Third, in extending jurisdiction over these cases to 10 years past the alleged victim’s 18th birthday, CDF actually increased the amount of time that Church officials (whether diocesan or Roman) had to prosecute these offenses. Before CDF’s letter, canonical prosecutions were complicated by unduly short statutes of limitations—the very same problem, by the way, that state prosecutions encountered in many pedophilia cases. CDF was hardly obstructing justice; it was trying to make justice more available.
Fourth, keep in mind that most ecclesiastical crimes are not crimes under civil law, and that the Church obviously legislates for the majority of cases she encounters. For most canonical offenses, then, secrecy in criminal matters (1983 CIC 1455, 1717) accomplishes several goods: 1) protecting the integrity of the investigation; 2) shielding victims from untimely or unwanted exposure; 3) protecting accused, especially the wrongly accused, from devastating publicity; and so on. Need I say that numerous civil authorities conduct secret investigations for exactly the same kinds of reasons? More importantly, though, nothing whatsoever in CDF’s letter prevents or discourages victims (or their parents) from going to the police, private attorneys, or even the press with their stories. CDF, it seems, has a lot to learn about how to obstruct justice.
Finally here’s something rather important on this score: Teresa Benedetto over at Papa Ratzinger Forum has created a thread dedicated to this issue, and starts of the thread with long post that includes the entire text of the Apostolic Letter from John Paul II in 2001 for which the CDF letter from Ratzinger served as a clarification and practical note.
She also links to John Allen’s 2003 NCR article on Crimen Sollicitationis, the 1962 document.
Crimen Sollicitationis dealt with canonical cases against a priest that could lead to removal from ministry or expulsion from the priesthood. Its imposition of secrecy thus concerned the church’s internal disciplinary process. It did not, according to canonical experts, prevent a bishop or anyone else from reporting a crime against a minor to the civil authorities.
"Of course, a bishop couldn’t use this document to cover up denunciation of an act of sexual abuse," Morrisey said. "The document simply wasn’t made for that purpose."
Green said the document was issued by the Holy Office because it had responsibility for dealing with "serious violations of the sacrament of penance."
Canon lawyers told NCR that secrecy in canonical cases serves three purposes. First, it is designed to allow witnesses and other parties to speak freely, knowing that their responses will be confidential. Second, it allows the accused party to protect his good name until guilt is established. Third, it allows victims to come forward without exposing themselves to publicity. The high degree of secrecy in Crimen Sollicitationis was also related to the fact that it dealt with the confessional.
Those motives for confidentiality, experts say, must be distinguished from a widespread "mentality" that sought to protect the church from scandal by not reporting sexual abuse by priests to the police. As a matter of canon law, the obligation of secrecy in canonical cases does not prohibit a bishop or other church officials from reporting crimes to the proper authorities.
Conflicts may arise, however, if civil authorities seek access to the secret acts of canonical procedures.
That Crimen Sollicitationis was not designed to "cover up" sex abuse, canonists say, is clear in paragraph 15, which obligates anyone with knowledge of a priest abusing the confessional for that purpose to come forward, under pain of excommunication for failing to do so. This penalty is stipulated, the document says, "lest [the offense] remain occult and unpunished and always with inestimable detriment to souls."
Canon lawyers also note that pontifical secrecy is hardly reserved to sexual abuse. Under a Feb. 4, 1974, instruction Secreta Continere, pontifical secrecy covers: 1) Documents for which pontifical secrecy is expressly indicated; 2) Affairs dealt with by the Secretariat of State under pontifical secrecy; 3) Doctrinal denunciations and publications of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, as well as its investigations; 4) Extrajudicial denunciations of crimes against the faith or against morals, and crimes against the sacrament of penance, as well as the procedures leading to these denunciations; 5) Acts by Vatican representatives relative to matters covered by the pontifical secret; 6) Creation of cardinals; 7) Nomination of bishops, apostolic administrators and other ordinaries with episcopal power, and the procedures related to these appointments; 8) Nomination of superiors and other major officials of the Roman curia; 9) Codes and coded correspondence; 10) Affairs and practices of the pope, of the chief cardinal or archbishop of a dicastery and of pontifical representatives.
I think it is worth pulling that sentence out from Allen’s piece –
Those motives for confidentiality, experts say, must be distinguished from a widespread "mentality" that sought to protect the church from scandal by not reporting sexual abuse by priests to the police. As a matter of canon law, the obligation of secrecy in canonical cases does not prohibit a bishop or other church officials from reporting crimes to the proper authorities.
In all of the discussion re/the Dallas norms, many of us said over and over…really and truly, no "new" norms were necessary. All that was necessary was that bishops in question (as well as the brother priests and others who were aware of sexual abuse going on ) follow what was on the books already. (Not to speak of basic Christian morality, but that’s another matter).
The cover-up has not been rooted in the legal system of the Church, although the knowledgeable have certainly used it to their advantage. The cover-up is rooted in a culture of secrecy, mutual blackmail, and, to a lesser extent, fear of "harming" the Church – although that, of course is incredibly nonsensical if you even take it one or two steps down the logic chain. But that was at work. (is?)
So…related, you might want to check out the trailer for the documentary film Deliver Us From Evil, which concerns clerical sexual abuse, focused on the case of Oliver O’Grady, who abused boys and girls in the Diocese of Stockton. The trailer is sensationalistic, again, implicating "the highest levels of the Catholic Church" while flashing images of Benedict and Swiss Guards blocking adult abuse victims from access to the Vatican, but waht is most valuable about the film is the footage of the video depositions of Mahony, who was Bishop of Stockton, admitted that he knew O’Grady’s problem, but kept him in parishes anyway. It is damning. One wonders how this and other related points will be handled in the biography of Cardinal Mahony, to be written by Dr. Michael Downey of St. John’s Seminary.
Downey described Cardinal Mahony as "the most significant and influential moderate voice in the American Catholic hierarchy. So many people all across the country, and in different parts of the world, look to him as a paragon of the middle way and of moderation, an embodiment of the Common Ground so dear to the heart of his brother bishop and good friend Cardinal Bernardin."
Related: There was somewhat of a skirmish late last week and over the weekend regarding a couple of articles published in the Stamford (CT) Advocate about the case of Fr. Fay and his rather overt homosexuality. Editor Joe Pisani (who used to write a column for Our Sunday Visitor, by the way) writes in his column on the articles and diocese of Bridgeport’s response:
During the scandal that erupted over the Rev. Jude Fay, who is accused of stealing $1.4 million from St. John’s Church in Darien to finance a luxurious lifestyle for himself and his reputed boyfriend, Advocate editor Angela Carella started receiving calls from people who wanted to talk about what they considered a serious moral issue.
Some felt that even though the diocese had dealt with the financial improprieties, not enough was done to address the fact that Fay had ostensibly violated his vows as a priest.
Carella began working on a story that examined the concerns of these parishioners, some of whom had written to Bishop William Lori and to the papal nuncio, the Vatican’s representative in the United States. She also interviewed church experts on celibacy, and in the pursuit of a balanced and fair account, she contacted the diocese and we tried to schedule an interview with Bishop Lori. We were asked to submit our questions in advance, and complied by sending the following list a day before the interview:
1. In light of the Father Fay scandal, we have reason to believe a growing number of parishioners are concerned whether the diocese is effectively dealing with priests who violate their vows of celibacy. How do you deal with such complaints?
2. Is there a process? How does it work?
(What would happen if a parishioner went to the diocese with a complaint about a priest’s behavior? Who is in charge of such complaints? Would the diocese require that the parishioner have proof? If the diocese did think that a priest was sexually active, what would it do?
(How many such complaints does the diocese receive? Are the complaints generally dismissed as rumor, or does someone speak to the priest whose behavior is questioned?)
3. How vigorously does the diocese pursue complaints against priests who violate their vows of celibacy?
4. What should have been the role of parishioners in exposing any indiscretions of Father Fay?
5. In what ways has the diocese tried to implement the Vatican’s Instruction on Priestly Formation, which says the church "may not admit to the seminary and Holy Orders those who practice homosexuality, show profoundly deep-rooted homosexual tendencies or support the so-called gay culture"?
This, of course, was to be an interview and not an inquisition, which means to say the bishop was free to answer any or all of the questions. He chose to answer none.
In a pre-emptive correspondence to parishes, diocesan spokesman Joseph McAleer characterized the questions as "condemnatory" and urged a letter-writing campaign. To our thinking, they were straightforward questions that any journalist or parishioner would, and should, ask.
The interview was subsequently canceled, and the diocese said it would instead provide a statement from Bishop Lori, which appears here.
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