All the Pope's Men (32 page)

June 1, 2002
Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera of Mexico City, in an interview with
30 Giorni,
echoed Rodriguez’s comments on the American crisis. “Not only in the United States but also in other parts of the world, one can see underway an orchestrated plan for striking at the prestige of the Church. Not a few journalists have confirmed for me the existence of this organized campaign," he said. “Cardinal Rodriguez expresses well the common sentiment of many of us, cardinals and bishops, in Latin America, in the context of what appears to us to be a generalized and ungenerous attack on the U.S. Church." Rivera Carrera said that he is a “great friend" of Cardinal Bernard Law and that as a Latin American he feels a special responsibility to defend the U.S. Church when under fire. Rivera Carrera added that up to now there has been no “documented denunciation" alleging priestly sexual abuse of minors in Mexico. “Certainly the men of the Church have their defects, their sins, like everyone," Rivera Carrera said. “If necessary, and after a regular process, they must suffer the eventual canonical censures and the civil penalties that they deserve. But this does not authorize anyone to put into effect a generalized program of ferocious persecution against the U.S. Church. Reviewing church history, one can see that many persecutions started precisely with the moral delegitimization of its members and of its hierarchy, with the aim of disqualifying the Church and dismantling its prestige. This is what happened in the early centuries of Christian history, with Nero for example. This is what happened in the past century with the persecutions in Mexico, in Spain, in Nazi Germany, and in Communist countries. It is this that seems to be happening today in the United States." Asked to respond to American journalists such as E. J. Dionne of the
Washington Post
and Tom Fox of the
National Catholic Reporter
who had written that Rodriguez could no longer be considered a papal candidate because of his comments, Rivera Carrera said: “Archbishop Rodriguez Maradiaga, as a cardinal, is always
papabile,
as are naturally all the members of the Sacred College. . . . Fortunately, in a conclave, which I hope will not happen for a long time, only the cardinals will participate, and not those gentlemen whose overly aggressive opinion in this regard I firmly believe will not be taken into consideration."

June 1, 2002
Civiltà Cattolica
carried an unsigned editorial complaining of “morbid and scandalous curiosity" in the American media with respect to the priest sex abuse crisis. Noting the large number of satellite trucks American TV networks parked outside the Vatican during the April 23–24 summit meeting, the article warned of an “anti-Catholic" and “antipapal" spirit in the United States. “For many newspapers and television stations," Civiltà Cattolica said, “it seemed too good to be true to be able to slap the ‘monster’ of the day on the front page, this time identified in the Catholic clergy." The article said it was not seeking to minimize the problem, which it called a “tragedy" for the Church in the United States. But it asked why the American Church is subject to a “cross fire of suspicions, violent accusations, recriminations, and demands for million-dollar settlements, as if the phenomenon of pedophilia was restricted to the Catholic clergy."

June 8, 2002
Cardinal Jan Schotte of Belgium, head of the Synod of Bishops, told the National Catholic Reporter ahead of the U.S. bishops’ meeting in Dallas that he was concerned about their response to the crisis. Schotte’s main fear was that under the weight of intense media criticism, lawsuits, and public pressure, the bishops might adopt ad-hoc solutions, thereby “forgetting general principles." Those principles, Schotte said, were laid out by Ghirlanda in his
Civiltà Cattolica
article of May 18. Schotte expressed reservations about calls for quasi-automatic cooperation with the police and the courts. He said that in Belgium the bishops had successfully resisted demands to turn over their records about priests accused of misconduct, on the grounds that these are confidential Church documents. (A Belgian Church spokesperson later said, however, that Schotte had been confused, because in five cases in Belgium involving priests accused of sexual abuse of a minor, the Church had to turn over its files each time. What Schotte may have been thinking, the spokesperson said, is that the Church resisted demands to pay damages to victims of sexual abuse on the grounds that the bishop is not a parish priest’s “employer.")

June 14, 2002 The U.S. bishops in Dallas adopted a Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People and a set of Essential Norms for Diocesan/Eparchial Policies Dealing with Allegations of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Priests or Deacons. The norms envision bishops removing priests from ministry on the basis of their administrative authority. That penalty would apply for even one act of sexual abuse of a minor, the so-called zero tolerance standard. The
National Catholic Reporter
posted a news article the same day quoting Vatican officials with reservations about the policy. “ ‘One strike and you’re out’ assumes that it’s a complete swing," one official said. “But let’s face it, there are cases in which someone makes an accusation and later retracts it. Are you going to defrock every priest against whom there is even one allegation?" Another said, “They’re being forced into a conclusion rather than sorting things out in a dispassionate way. The Church is about reconciliation. Its highest priority can’t be driving out the pedophiles." One canon lawyer who works with several Vatican offices said that he picked up a “cautiousness," a “reserve," in the Curia about the policies under consideration by the U.S. bishops. “There is a real sense that all this may not pass muster," the canon lawyer said. Another Vatican official said one frustration is the apparent desire of the American bishops to create new policies and procedures rather than follow the steps outlined in canon law for imposing discipline upon a priest who commits sexual abuse. “The bishops may say it’s too complicated," the official said. “But how many of them have actually tried it? My guess would be it’s a small number."

July 1, 2002
Cardinal Juan Sandoval Íñiguez, sixty-nine, of Guadalajara, Mexico, addressed the American crisis with
30 Giorni.
“First of all, I want to say that every crime committed against children is abhorrent, and an ecclesiastic who stains himself with this sin must be ready, after a regular procedure, to suffer the canonical penalties, and if necessary the civil penalties, that he deserves," Sandoval said. “What is happening in the United States, however, apart from very rare cases, regards not pedophilia but homosexuality. I have to say it is surprising that present-day society, which is pleased enough with homosexuality to organize ‘gay pride’ events in all the great cities of the world, becomes enraged against priests accused of this vice.

“Priests must be saints. That’s what the Lord wants and what his Church desires. In fact, it’s what everyone wants, even those who don’t believe. Thus today’s world does not apply to priests the same Christian mercy and human understanding it concedes to others. However, it’s necessary to remember that there have always been scandals in the Church, and there always will be, and not just regarding the sixth commandment. The men of the Church also have original sin. The Lord Jesus himself was betrayed, denied, and abandoned by his apostles. . . . I agree fully with what has been said by these two brother cardinals [Rodriguez and Rivera Carrera]. It’s a matter of a persecution unleashed by the powerful of the world. The motives? The powerful don’t like what the Church affirms and testifies to regarding the defense of life and of the family. For the powerful of the world, the positions of the Church against the financial strangulation of the countries of the Third World and in favor of the millions and millions of robbed and exploited poor don’t go down well. The powerful also won’t tolerate the balanced position of the Church regarding the dramatic situation in the Holy Land."

July 19, 2002
In my Word from Rome column, I quoted unidentified Vatican officials who had suggested that Jewish bias against the Catholic Church may play a role in American media coverage of the scandals. “In part, the hypothesis reflects the pro-Palestinian slant of much European public opinion, which has long vilified America’s ‘Jewish lobby.’ In part, it reflects the strained Catholic/Jewish relationship in the wake of the beatification of Pius IX, the acrimonious debate over Pius XII and his alleged ‘silence’ during the Holocaust, and the collapse of a Jewish-Catholic scholarly commission empanelled by the Vatican to investigate its World War II archives. In such an atmosphere, it’s easy for some around the Vatican to imagine that influential Jews in the American press might want to wound the church," I wrote.

July 28, 2002
Before a crowd of some 1 million young people gathered at Toronto’s Downsview Park for the concluding Mass of World Youth Day, John Paul II again addressed the sexual abuse scandals. The relevant passage from his homily was: “If you love Jesus, love the Church! Do not be discouraged by the sins and failings of some of her members. The harm done by some priests and religious to the young and vulnerable fills us all with a deep sense of sadness and shame. But think of the vast majority of dedicated and generous priests and religious whose only wish is to serve and do good! There are many priests, seminarians and consecrated persons here today; be close to them and support them! And if, in the depths of your hearts, you feel the same call to the priesthood or consecrated life, do not be afraid to follow Christ on the royal road of the Cross! At difficult moments in the Church’s life, the pursuit of holiness becomes even more urgent." When the Pope pronounced the word
but,
signaling a shift from contrition to defense of the Church, he drew it out for emphasis, eliciting strong cheers from the crowd.

September 1, 2002
In an interview with
30 Giorni,
Cardinal Miguel Obando Bravo of Nicaragua spoke on the American crisis. “It’s as if the Church in the United States is being rocked by a hurricane," Obando Bravo said. “The winds have knocked down the spotted apples, but have also caused the good fruit to come up early. My brothers in the episcopate in the United States are singled out as those who covered up the presumed malfeasance of priests accused of the crime of sexual abuse. Their situation can be understood by reference to exemplary cases recounted in the Bible itself. Let’s take the example of Potiphar’s wife as told in chapter 39 of Genesis, when Joseph is imprisoned by the Egyptians because he’s unjustly accused by the woman of having seduced her. The reasons that drive Potiphar’s wife to lie are pleasure, spite, and unrequited love. I don’t want to deny the drama of the authentic victims of sexual abuse, and in this case the ecclesiastics who are marred with these horrible crimes must suffer the appropriate canonical censures, and, if it’s the case, must also confront civil justice. But one can’t hide the fact that in some cases we’re dealing with presumed victims who want to gain large payoffs on the basis of calumnious accusations.

“It seems to me that in this moment the Church in the United States is living through a heroic moment, of bloodless martyrdom. Of persecution. The Church swims against the current when it comes to the protection of life, sexual morality, conjugal morality, and bioethics. These are all fields in which the magisterium of the Church is not popular in certain environments. This does not mean that the Church is wrong in these areas. Rather it means that in its proclamation in these areas the Church is up against huge economic interests that see in it a mortal enemy. The cardinal of Washington, [D.C.,] Theodore McCarrick, recently offered an analysis of why the theme of the sexual abuse by priests has occupied the front pages of the newspapers for so long and has had such a notable impact in society. For McCarrick, there are two reasons, one good and one bad. He explained that the good one is, ‘that the people expect much of priests.’ The bad one is, ‘there are many, in our society, and among them some powerful people, who see in the Catholic Church an enemy in questions connected to life, such as abortion, euthanasia, and assisted suicide. They think that by attacking the Church they reduce its credibility, and in this way the words of the bishops will be ignored,’" Obando Bravo said.

“Cardinal Law is a pastor who certainly participates in the pain of the victims of sexual abuse. We in Nicaragua know him very well. We know well his generosity. It’s also thanks to his help that we were able to build the cathedral in Managua where we can glorify the Creator. And when Hurricane Mitch devastated our lands, he came personally to visit the affected families and contributed amply to feeding the population and rebuilding in the damaged zones. Those who attack him today don’t recognize the value of his commitment, the weight of his burden, and the coherence of his life. Despite everything, I believe that the Catholics of Boston know that however much a nugget of gold may be buried in mud, when the mud is washed away, the gold continues to shine."

October 14, 2002
As news outlets had anticipated, the Vatican indicated that changes would be necessary before Rome could approve the U.S. bishops’ norms on sexual abuse adopted in Dallas. The rejection came in a letter from Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, to Bishop Wilton Gregory, president of the U.S. bishops’ conference. Re’s letter expressed “full solidarity with the bishops of the United States in their firm condemnation of sexual misdeeds against minors." It went on, however, to cite “confusion and ambiguity" in the norms, to assert that the Dallas texts “contain provisions which in some aspects are difficult to reconcile with the universal law of the Church," and “vague or imprecise" terminology that is “difficult to interpret." In an October 18 news briefing, Gregory listed the three key issues: the role and powers of lay review boards, the definition of sexual abuse, and due process guarantees for accused priests. A unique mixed commission, composed of four representatives from the Vatican and four American bishops, was formed to hammer out a resolution of the issues before the full meeting of the U.S. bishops in Washington, D.C., November 11–14. The men chosen to represent the Vatican on the commission were Herranz, Bertone, Castrillón Hoyos, and Monterisi. U.S. prelates chosen were: Chicago Cardinal Francis George; San Francisco Archbishop William Levada; Rockford, Illinois, Bishop Thomas Doran; and Bridgeport, Connecticut, Bishop William Lori. Gregory said in his comments to the press that Re had proposed the commission and he had accepted.