UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage
As this work week ends, another outstanding piece from Jerry Slevin, commenting on the ongoing trial in the archdiocese of Philadelphia, the current political strategy of the Vatican and U.S. Catholic bishops, and the mandate to “reform” American religious women–and how these pieces fit together. This is a rich and detailed posting, and I’m grateful to Jerry for providing this information to all of us who are trying to understand how these various pieces interlock. What follows is Jerry’s posting:
The nauseating selected stories oozing out of the Philadelphia Archdiocese sexual swamp are being issued almost daily from a courtroom near Constitution Hall. The stories, only a fraction of those many uncovered so far, just keep coming, as reported regularly in detail at the Philly.com website.
An aerial view of the swamp is available at my previous posting at the Bilgrimage site, and in this Wikipedia article tracking the abuse story in the Philadelphia archdiocese and in the related links cited there.
The Vatican has faced similar deluges of negative publicity before, for example, in Ireland, Australia, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Chile, and even Boston and Los Angeles. But never before has a case apparently carried such implications for the papacy. The steady stream of clerical filth exposed at the current Philly trial has flowed through the leadership periods of three important Cardinals, with extensive papal connections, especially the last one, Cardinal Justin Rigali.
Rigali’s ties to the Vatican are and continue to be extensive. He served several popes closely in Rome and continues on major papal curial committees. Yesterday, a new and important special committee was set up in Rome under the powerful Cardinal Herranz to investigate the unprecedented recent leaks of embarrassing Vatican documents, so-called “Vatileaks,” as reported by Reuters. Cardinal Rigali, along with Pope John Paul II, in 1991 was one of the three co-consecrators of Herranz as bishop and still serves with him on a major Vatican committee. Herranz is one of two Opus Dei Cardinals and has recently served on the committee that just directed the unexpected investigation of American nuns discussed below.
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