By Rosie DiManno
Toronto Star
March 29, 2010
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/786810--dimanno-a-church-sex-scandal-where-the-truth-ha-been-crucified
VATICAN CITY -- The doctrinarian-in-chief, disciplinarian of even picayune transgressions when it came to canon law, has no excuse for ignoring the mortal sins of the priests.
Before he succeeded to the white beanie, Pope Benedict XVI, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, headed the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which received information about virtually every priest in the world who'd been accused of sexual abuse.
If, as his defenders claim, Benedict was so distressed by the extent of the problem and the Church's historical tendency to shelter predators from exposure that he altered practice so that direct action would be taken in a majority of cases, this epiphany came rather late in his administrative career.
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| Pope Benedict XVI greets pilgrims in St. Peter's Square on March 28, 2010. Photo by Vincenzo Pinto |
The instances in which this pope did nothing, and prevented others from doing something, are now coming to light as the Catholic Church reels well, it never actually reels from a new round of allegations, confirmations and scathing investigations across Europe and the United States.
Just over a week ago, Benedict formally apologized to the victims of sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland. His pastoral letter, read aloud at mass, expressed "shame and remorse" for the "sinful and criminal acts" committed by members of the clergy there.
"You have suffered grievously and I am truly sorry," the Pope wrote. "Your trust has been betrayed and your dignity has been violated."
He also criticized Ireland's bishops for "grave errors of judgment and failures of leadership," yet did not indicate that resignations would be demanded.
A few days later, however, Benedict accepted the resignation of John Magee, bishop of a diocese in southern Ireland, who took responsibility for mishandling complaints of sexual abuse by priests under his authority.
This came two years after a church panel investigation into abuse allegations determined Magee failed to respond to complaints against two priests in the '70s. The Irish government also released two damning reports last year that confirmed the systematic abuse of tens of thousands of children over several decades, with a widespread coverup to muzzle the scandal.
Benedict was not at the doctrinal desk when those cases were originally flagged, so he gets a pass. But he was certainly in charge when the public revelations surfaced and did not act.
He was also The Man when a diocese in Wisconsin turned to the Vatican for advice on how to proceed in the matter of a priest accused of molesting up to 200 boys at a school for the deaf from 1950 to 1974.
When those victims sought justice in the mid-'90s, the Wisconsin archbishop tried to have the priest defrocked, warning that lawyers were preparing to sue for damages. He wrote Cardinal Ratzinger twice, got no answer, and then, months later, was instructed by Ratzinger's second-in-command at the doctrinal office to begin a secret canonical trial, which could have led to the priest's dismissal.
But, according to documents unearthed by The New York Times, that process was halted after the priest personally appealed to Ratzinger, protesting he should not be put on trial because he had already repented and his health was poor.
"I simply want to live out the time that I have left in the dignity of my priesthood," the father wrote, as quoted by the Times. "I ask your kind assistance in this matter."
He was never tried under canonical law or by state prosecutors, moved instead by the archbishop to a diocese elsewhere, where he worked with children in parishes and schools for another 24 years.
This was the deplorable pattern, the modus operandi, of the Church when faced with predatory priests. Sin and repentance which is at the heart of Christianity was preferable to crime and punishment. But sin is a temporal matter and crime the purview of secular laws, which the Church has always acknowledged. It's become quite evident, as more of these scandals come belatedly to light, that the Church was more concerned about protecting its reputation than bringing offenders to heel or consoling their victims.
This past week, the moral lapse of Church leaders reached right into the Pope's personal resum้, with the widening of a sex abuse shocker that has emerged in Germany.
In this latest instance, it's implied that Benedict, while archbishop of Munich and Freising in 1980, approved the reassignment of a known pedophile priest, Rev. Peter Hullerman, to his diocese, where the father continued pastoral duties only a few days after beginning, grudgingly, group therapy.
Hullerman was transferred from his parish in Essen despite having molested several boys and a warning by a psychiatrist who had examined him that the alcoholic priest should not be allowed to work with children. Accusations by youths and their parents followed Hullerman wherever he went. Yet Hullerman continued working with altar boys.
He was convicted of sexual abuse by a criminal court in 1986, seven years after his arrival in Ratzinger's diocese, was given an 18-month suspended sentence and five years' probation, but resumed regular parish work a year later.
The Vatican issued a statement on Friday reaffirming the future Pope Benedict "had no knowledge" of the decision to allow Hullerman to resume pastoral duties.
Benedict's deputy at the time has assumed "full responsibility" for that decision.
This is convenient, always having deputies and subordinates who will take the bullet.
In Catholic dogma, a pope is held infallible obliquely exempt from the possibility of error when he speaks ex cathedra; that is, when exercising his office. He cannot err in matters of doctrine and faith.
But when the subject is sexual scandal by predatory priests, upon this rock seems to mean upon this anvil, where victims are bludgeoned and truth is crucified.
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