By Stacy Meichtry
Wall Street Journal
November 8, 2010
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703514904575602542674322742.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
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| Clergy arrive ahead of a Mass Pope Benedict XVI celebrated in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, on Saturday. |
ROME—Pope Benedict XVI called a world-wide meeting of cardinals to discuss the Vatican's response to sexually abusive priests, underscoring how the crisis is likely to loom large in the election of the next pope.
Pope Benedict will convene the meeting of "prayer and reflection" for the cardinals on Nov. 19, one day before he elevates 24 new cardinals in a Vatican ceremony known as a consistory, the Vatican said Monday.
The meeting is a chance for the pontiff to call greater attention to the sexual-abuse crisis among cardinals, who vote in papal elections known as conclaves. Cardinals rarely meet in Rome en masse because many of them oversee local churches around the globe.
Over the years, Pope Benedict has used consistories to confront cardinals with what he considers the biggest challenges facing the church, such as efforts to bring splinter Catholic groups back into the Catholic fold. "This is where all the most important, most relevant issues are discussed," said Gianni Cardinale, a longtime Vatican watcher who writes for Avvenire, the official newspaper of the Italian Bishops Conference.
It is unclear how many of the 120 cardinals who would be eligible to vote in the next conclave consider the crisis a top priority. The spread of hundreds of sex-abuse allegations across Europe, including the pope's homeland of Germany, has cut into the church's credibility in former Catholic strongholds like Ireland. Cardinals voting in the next conclave will face a multitude of challenges, however, ranging from priest shortages in the Americas and Europe to the fall in church attendance in Europe.
One top church official who is expected to attend the Nov. 19 meeting said he expected the crisis to be among the factors influencing how cardinals vote, but added that there would be "no single issue" driving the election. In an address to bishops on Monday, Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, the head of the Italian bishops conference, zeroed in on the crisis, saying the church had betrayed its flock by making "sins of omission" in handling sexual-abuses cases.
The Nov. 19 meeting will feature an address on the "response of the church to cases of sexual abuse" by Cardinal William Levada, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican office in charge of disciplining abusive priests. Earlier this year, Cardinal Levada's office issued tougher rules for stripping abusive priests of their ministry. The pope, meanwhile, has held several meetings with victims and accepted the resignations of bishops who admitted to committing abuse or covering it up.
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith continues to face scrutiny, however, from victims of sex abuse and other critics who fault his office for refusing to force bishops to report sex abuse to civil authorities. "It's easy and tempting to assume [the meeting] is a positive sign. But that's irresponsible," said Barbara Blaine, president of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. "We'll only know if this is a good development when we see action resulting from this meeting."
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| Pope Benedict XVI disembarks at Ciampino Airport Sunday after visiting Spain. |
The Vatican didn't disclose further details on the nature of Cardinal Levada's talk on sex-abuse. Cardinals are also expected to discuss "freedom of religion in the world," the Catholic liturgy, and the effort to carve a niche within the Church for Anglicans seeking to convert to Catholicism, the Vatican said, without elaborating.
On Monday, the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales said five Church of England bishops were converting to Catholicism. The Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, who heads the Church of England, said he had accepted the resignations of two of the bishops "with regret."
"We wish them well in this next stage of their service to the Church and I am grateful to them for their faithful and devoted pastoral labors," he said, without addressing the other three bishops.
Write to Stacy Meichtry at stacy.meichtry@wsj.com
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