Vatican: Letter endorsing abuse cover-up shows why Curia was reformed

Vatican City, Apr 16, 2010 / (CNA/EWTN News).-

Late Thursday afternoon, Vatican spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi released a statement about a letter from 2001 in which a cardinal appears to applaud a French bishop for his decision to not report a case of priestly sexual abuse to civil authorities. The spokesman said that cases such as this one highlight the importance of changes that were made giving the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith jurisdiction over cases of sexual abuse of minors.

A letter from September 8, 2001 has been published online by French magazine Golias, in which then-prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy, Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, offered congratulations to Bishop Pierre Pican for choosing not to report a priest who had been accused of sexual abuse to civil authorities.

The priest, Abbot Renè Bissey, was sentenced in 1998 to 18 years in prison for his abuses of minors, according to Italy's La Stampa. Bishop Pican later received a three month sentence for withholding information.

In 2001, Cardinal Hoyos wrote him a letter in which he says, "I congratulate you for not having reported a priest to the civil administration."

The cardinal adds later that he "rejoices" that he has a brother in the episcopate who would choose prison over reporting a priest under his watch.

Responding on Thursday, Fr. Lombardi said that the letter serves as confirmation of how timely the decision made in 2001 to channel all cases of sexual abuse through the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was. This move guaranteed a “rigorous and coherent management," the spokesman said.

Prior to 2001, all cases of sexual abuse involving priests went to the Congregation for the Clergy, and at that time, there was a disagreement between cardinals about whether priests who were found guilty should be prosecuted under both civil and canon law or just under Church law.

Referring to the change in jurisdiction, Fr. Lombardi explained that it happened with the approval of John Paul II's Motu Proprio in May of that year.

After assuming control of the case load, then-Cardinal Ratzinger implemented norms for dealing with cases of sexual abuse by priests, which were made public by the Vatican on April 12.

Cardinal Bertone correct in linking clerical sex abuse and homosexuality, says psychiatrist

West Conshohocken, Pa., Apr 16, 2010 /(CNA/EWTN News).-

Following Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone’s comments in Chile about a link existing between homosexuality and pedophilia in cases of clerical sexual abuse, both Church officials and secular figures clarified his statement. But Dr. Richard Fitzgibbons, a psychiatrist with experience treating sexually abusive priests, told CNA that the cardinal's statement is accurate.

At a press conference last Monday evening at the Pontifical Seminary of Santiago, Chile, the Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone said, “Many psychologists and psychiatrists have shown that there is no link between celibacy and pedophilia.” Instead, they have found a “relationship between homosexuality and pedophilia,” he added.

Many gay rights organizations reacted vehemently to Cardinal Bertone’s statement, leading Fr. Federico Lombardi, director of the Vatican Press office, to assert that “it obviously refers to the problem of abuse by priests and not in the population in general."

A statement from the French Foreign Ministry calling the linkage “unacceptable” was followed by a statement by Fr. Marcus Stock, the General Secretary of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales. “To the best of my knowledge, there is no empirical data which concludes that sexual orientation is connected to child sexual abuse,” he said.

“The consensus among researchers is that the sexual abuse of children is not a question of sexual ‘orientation,’ whether heterosexual or homosexual, but of a disordered attraction or ‘fixation,’” Fr. Stock added.

However, a U.S. psychiatrist with experience in treating priests with pedophilia disagrees that there is no link between homosexuality and sexual abuse of children. “Cardinal Bertone's comments are supported completely by the John Jay study report and by clinical experience,” Dr. Richard Fitzgibbons told CNA. “In fact, every priest whom I treated who was involved with children sexually had previously been involved in adult homosexual relationships.”

Fitzgibbons, who has been the director of Comprehensive Counseling Center in West Conshohocken, Penn. since 1988, has worked extensively with individuals suffering from same sex attraction (SSA) and priests accused of pedophilia. He also presently serves as a consultant to the Congregation for the Clergy at the Holy See.

In his 2002 “Letter to Catholic Bishops,” Fitzgibbons identified priests prone to sexual abuse as having suffered “profound emotional pain” during childhood due to loneliness, problems in their relationships with their fathers, rejection by their peers, lack of male confidence, and poor self image or body image. Fitzgibbons said that these experiences lead priests especially to direct their sadness and anger towards the Church, her teachings on sexual morality, and the Magisterium.

He also noted that priests who have engaged in sexual misconduct with minors suffer from a “denial of sin in their lives.” “They consistently refused to examine their consciences, to accept the Church's teachings on moral issues as a guide for their personal actions, or regularly avail themselves of the sacrament of reconciliation. These priests either refused to seek spiritual direction or choose (sic) a spiritual director or confessor who openly rebelled against Church teachings on sexuality,” the letter said.

When asked what sort of new information has become available since the publication of the letter, Fitzgibbons put an emphasis on narcissism. “This epidemic personality weakness in the west predisposes individuals to excessive anger, the worship of self, rebelliousness against God and His Church particularly in regard to sexual morality and sexual acting-out,” he said.

The psychiatrist also reviewed the findings of the John Jay researchers, who reported that 81percent of the victims of clerical sexual abuse were male of those makes who were abused, 51 percent of whom were age 11-14, 27 percent were aged 15-17, 16 percent between 8-10, and 6 percent were under 7 years of age, emphasized Fitzgibbons.

For priests who do suffer from SSA, “I would recommend that they become more knowledgeable about the emotional origins and healing of same-sex attractions, as well as the serious medical and psychiatric illnesses associated with homosexuality,” advised Fitzgibbons. “We have observed many priests grow in holiness and in happiness in their ministry as a result of the healing of their childhood and adolescent male insecurity, loneliness and anger and, subsequently, their same-sex attractions.”

Because of the link between homosexuality and clerical sexual abusementioned by Cardinal Bertone, men with same sex attraction have a solemn responsibility to seek help and to protect the Church from further shame and sorrow, said Fitzgibbons.

Before attacks of the world, penance is a necessary grace, Pope Benedict says

Vatican City, Apr 15, 2010 /(CNA/EWTN News).-

"We must obey God instead of men," said the Holy Father in a memorable address to members of the Pontifical Biblical Commission at Mass on Thursday. During the course of the homily he also spoke of the "attacks of the world," a phrase that was interpreted by some news reports as the recent sex abuse scandals. Pope Benedict said that Catholics must respond to attacks by doing acts of penance.

"Obedience to God has primacy," Pope Benedict XVI began his homily, which he delivered without prepared remarks. The Holy Father told members of the commission gathered in the Pauline Chapel for a Mass to mark the beginning of the Biblical Commission's full assembly on Thursday morning.

Obedience to God makes us free, he said, while the the idea of being "free, autonomous and nothing else," and supposedly free from obedience to God "is a lie."

Being free from obedience to God is an "ontological falsehood, because man doesn't exist of himself and for himself," the Pope said, adding that "it's a political and practical falsehood, because collaboration and sharing of liberties is necessary ..."

The Holy Father also warned that if the majority consensus prevails and becomes the dominant power in a society, it can also be "a consensus of evil." In this way, we can see that "so-called autonomy doesn't free man," he pointed out.

This was the ideology of the Nazi and Marxist dictatorships, he noted, saying the while we are fortunate that they no longer exist, mankind still lives with dictatorships in more subtle forms, such as in conformism. The obligation "to think like everyone thinks, act like everyone acts, and the subtle aggression against the Church, or also less subtle, demonstrate how this conformism can truly be a real dictatorship," the Pope said.

Pope Benedict went on to stress in his homily that for Christians, obedience to God means really knowing Him and wanting to follow his will, and not a question of using Him as a pretext for our own desires.

The Pope applied this practically to the Christian fear of speaking of eternal life. "We speak of the things that are useful for the world, we show that Christianity helps also to improve the world, but that its goal is eternal life and that from the goal might come the criteria of life, we don't dare say it."

We must also work on our avoidance of the word "penance," he explained, noting that the word may seem too strong to Christians in recent times, but that it is through the grace of penance that we recognize our sin, a need for renewal, change and transformation.

"Now," he emphasized, likely alluding to the media accusations against him in the past weeks, "under the attacks of the world that speak to us of our sins, we see that being able to do penance is a grace and we see how it is necessary to do penance, recognize that which is mistaken in our life."

It means opening ourselves to forgiveness, preparing ourselves for forgiveness and allowing ourselves to be transformed, said Pope Benedict XVI. "The pain of penance, that is of purification and transformation, this pain is a grace, because it is renewal, it is the work of divine mercy."

The Pope delivered his homily on the first day of the the Commission's plenary assembly, which will run for five days and be based on the theme "Inspiration and Truth in the Bible."

Cardinal Hummes calls priests to Rome to close Year for Priests

Vatican City, Apr 15, 2010 / (CNA/EWTN News).-

"Come to Rome and God will bless you," the prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy Cardinal Claudio Hummes wrote in a letter to priests inviting the world's priests to Rome for the conclusion of the Year for Priests. The cardinal asked them to come to show that they are prepared to serve and that they support the Pope in trying times.

Just two months from now, from June 9-11, the International Meeting of Priests will take place in Rome marking the end of this special year for clergy which was inaugurated on June 19, 2009.

Cardinal Hummes repeated the Pope's invitation from February and made his own call to priests from all over the world to come to Rome and join the three-day affair. "Do not, then, hesitate to respond to the heartfelt and cordial invitation of the Holy Father," he wrote.

"Come to Rome and God will bless you," he added.

The cardinal went on to propose that the presence of a multitude of priests in St. Peter's Square for the occasion, in addition to providing a chance for the Pope to "confirm" them, "will be a proactive and responsible way for priests to show themselves ready and unintimidated for the service of the humanity entrusted to them by Jesus Christ.

"Their visibility in the Square, before today's world, will be a proclamation of their being sent into the world not to condemn the world, but to save it."

The prelate underlined that, in such a context, a good turnout will take on a "special significance"

Further motivation for so many priests to be in Rome for the conclusion of the Year for Priests, he continued, is that of offering the Pope "our solidarity, our support, our confidence and our unconditional communion, in the face of frequent attacks directed towards Him ..."

Highlighting the injustice of the accusations that the Pope failed to respond to cases of sexual abuse of minors by clergy, Cardinal Hummes emphasized that "no one has done as much as Benedict XVI to condemn and combat properly such crimes.

"Therefore, the large presence of priests in the Square with Him will be a determined rejection of the injust attacks of which he is a victim."

Another major event of the Year for Priests, an International Theological Convention, took place in March in with 50 bishops and 500 priests in attendance. They discussed the subject of the ministerial priesthood, touching on such themes as the priestly identity and the vow of celibacy.

Benedict XVI: The Church is rooted in the Eucharist

Benedict XVI emphasizes Real Presence of Jesus in Eucharist

Vatican City, Apr 15, 2010 / (CNA/EWTN News).-

That "Jesus Christ continues alive and truly present in the consecrated host and the chalice" is the central point of the Catholic faith, Pope Benedict said on Thursday. He also warned against focusing the Mass on things other than the person of Jesus, especially adopting rites from other religions.

Benedict XVI focused primarily on the importance of the presence of Christ in the Mass during his address to Brazilian bishops from the North II Region, which marked the conclusion of their "ad Limina" visit to the Holy See.

The Eucharist, said the Holy Father, is "the center and permanent source of the Petrine ministry, the heart of the Christian life, source and summit of the Church's mission of evangelization."

He told the bishops, "You can thus understand the concern of the Successor of Peter for all that can obfuscate this most essential point of the Catholic faith: that today, Jesus Christ continues alive and truly present in the consecrated host and the chalice."

"Paying less attention at times to the rite of the Most Holy Sacrament constitutes a sign and a cause of the darkening of the Christian sense of mystery," he told the 14 Brazilian bishops, pointing to attention being given to other preoccupations and Jesus not being the focal point of the Mass as examples.

Addressing how people should participate in the liturgy, Pope Benedict said that a Christian's "primary attitude" during the liturgical celebration "is not doing, but listening, opening up, receiving ..."

"If the figure of Christ does not emerge from the liturgy ... it is not a Christian liturgy," added the Pope.

This is why, he added, "we find those who, in the name of enculturation, fall into syncretism, introducing rites taken from other religions or cultural particularities into the celebration of the Mass."

As Venerable John Paul II wrote, "the mystery of the Eucharist is 'too great a gift' to admit of ambiguities or reductions, above all when, 'stripped of its sacrificial meaning, it is celebrated as if it were simply a fraternal banquet.'"

"True liturgy supposes that God responds and shows us how we can adore Him," said Benedict XVI.

He emphasized that "The Church lives in His presence and its reason for being and existing is to expand His presence in the world."

In concluding, the Pope expressed his wish that following in the line of the 16th National Eucharistic Congress, to be held in Brasilia on April 19, that Jesus in the Eucharist "truly be the heart of Brazil, from which comes the strength for all Brazilian men and women to recognize themselves and help one another as brothers and sisters and as members of Christ."

In his address preceding the Holy Father's words, President of the North II Region of the Brazilian Bishops Conference Bishop Jesus Maria Cizaurre Berdonces shared a variety of concerns currently facing the area. Among the issues he raised were the environmental effects of reduction of forested areas in the Amazon, concern over urban and rural violence and hope for a sustainable development for everyone, not just that which favors large companies.

Fr. Lombardi: Bertone's linkage of pedophilia and homosexuality refers to cases in priesthood

Rome, Italy, Apr 14, 2010 / (CNA/EWTN News).-

The relationship Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone spoke of in Chile this week between pedophilia and homosexuality refers to documented cases within the Church, said Vatican spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi. The link was made evident in statistics released by attorney, Monsignor Charles J Scicluna a month ago.

In an interview with the Italian Bishops' Avvenire newspaper published on March 13, Msgr. Scicluna, reported that 10 percent of abuse cases involved children, while 90 percent involved adolescents.

Referring to cases of priests abusing adolescents, Msgr. Scicluna said that 60 percent involved males, while 30 percent corresponded to females.

At a press conference in Chile yesterday, the Vatican Secretary of State told reporters that according to "several experts," no correlation existed between the celibate life and pedophilia, rather the relationship was between homosexuality and pedophilia. The cardinal's comments brought on an avalanche of criticism from homosexual groups.

Speaking of the link made by Cardinal Bertone, Fr. Lombardi said, "It obviously refers to the problem of abuse by priests and not in the population in general."

Fr. Lombardi also mentioned that it is not considered within the competency of Church authorities to make general affirmations of a psychological or medical nature. He added that questions such as those related to pedophilia are sent on to "the studies of specialists and ongoing research."

Voice of the Good Shepherd should be heard in priests, says Pope

Vatican City, Apr 14, 2010 / (CNA/EWTN News).-

Pope Benedict XVI dedicated his weekly catechesis to the priestly duty of teaching the faith at today's General Audience. He told an estimated 35,000 people in St. Peter's Square that the duties of the priest, who acts in the person of Jesus, often put him in opposition to the popular culture.

Noting that the series of meditations in the general audiences during the Easter Season will all focus on the subject of the ordained ministry, the Pope used today's address to specifically focus on the priest's duty to teach, which is "so important for our times."

Explaining that priests act in the person of Christ and represent him, the Holy Father presented the three "munera," or duties, of teaching, sanctifying and governing. In exercising these three duties, priests carry out "the actions of the Risen Christ," the Pope taught.

The function of the priest, acting "in persona Christi," is to make the light of the word of God present in the world, he continued. And, it is not on himself that the priest is called to preach "but Jesus Christ and his revelation of the Father," the Holy Father said.

"This teaching, far from an abstract doctrine, is a living proclamation of the person of Christ, who is himself Truth, the source of our joy, peace and spiritual rebirth."

The whole life of the priest must therefore provide a testimony to truth of his message, "in harmony with the apostolic tradition and often in opposition to the spirit of the dominant culture," Benedict told the crowd.

Concluding his catechesis, the Holy Father reminded the faithful of the great task of the priest, "to be announcers of His Word, of the Truth that saves; being his voice in the world to bring that which is useful for the true good of the souls and the authentic path of faith."

The "voice of the Good Shepherd" should always be recognizable in a priest, he said.

Following the catechesis, the Holy Father sent out greetings in 10 languages, including words of comfort in Polish for the loss of their president and those who accompanied him. During the Italian greeting, he called for solidarity with the Chinese people after a 7.1 magnitude earthquake struck the city of Gyegu in the Qinghai Province and killed 400 people on Wednesday morning.