UNITED STATES
National Catholic Register
Joan Frawley Desmond
MENLO PARK, Calif. — Amid calls for the decentralization of the Roman Curia by some Church leaders and theologians, Cardinal William Levada, the prefect emeritus of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), underscored the CDF’s crucial role as the arbiter of faith and morals for the universal Church.
Cardinal Levada also suggested that the CDF was especially qualified to oversee the prosecution of clergy abuse cases, a responsibility given to the congregation by Pope St. John Paul II in his 2001 document Sacramentorum Sanctitatis Tutela, issued motu proprio (on the pope’s own initiative).
Over the past month, media outlets have reported on proposals within the Vatican to shift the prosecution of abuse cases to another dicastery. These reports have not been publicly confirmed, and Cardinal Levada did not address them directly. Rather, he reflected on the CDF’s unique expertise in dealing with these often-complicated cases over the past 16 years.
Cardinal Levada, 80, the former archbishop of San Francisco who retired as prefect of the CDF in 2012, offered his comments during a wide-ranging Register interview on Jan. 9 at his residence on the grounds of St. Patrick’s Seminary in Menlo Park, California. The conversation touched on his decades of service to the Church as a theologian, bishop and prefect of the CDF, and he also discussed the legacy of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI.
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