Thursday, May 26, 2011

Catholic Register Editorial: Act now on Lahey (Post 132)

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An Editorial from The Catholic Register: Act now on Lahey

Catholic Register Editorial Tuesday, 10 May 2011

When Bishop Raymond Lahey pleaded guilty to importing child pornography, admitting in court to owning 588 images and 60 videos of boys as young as eight being abused by adults, his case went from a strictly criminal proceeding to an ecclesiastical matter to be adjudicated in the Vatican.

Speedy pronouncements are not a Vatican hallmark but the case of the disgraced bishop, now locked in jail at his own request pending a sentencing hearing, calls out to be an exception. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith should act without delay to defrock Lahey and impose any other sanctions allowed under canon law.

The most consistent criticism of the Vatican throughout the clergy sexual abuse scandals is that for many years Church leaders failed to acknowledge the gravity of crimes against children and subsequently failed to protect them. As the scandals unfolded, the Church offered heartfelt apologies, meetings with victims, financial settlements, reforms to Church procedures and repeated condemnation of abuse crimes. But the Vatican is still perceived as reluctant to severely punish abuser priests and bishops who cover up these crimes. For that reason, Lahey’s case has garnered international attention.

In many eyes, his guilty plea has become a test of the Vatican’s resolve to genuinely get tough on child abuse. Within hours of Lahey’s guilty plea, a Vatican statement reasserted its abhorrence of “sexual exploitation in all its forms, especially when perpetrated against minors.” But that has been said before. It’s what comes next that matters.
A bishop has never been laicized for sexual crimes involving children. Given his admission of guilt, the gravity of his crimes and the undisputed evidence, Lahey deserves to be the first. That’s not guaranteed, however. The Vatican could assign Lahey, 70, to a life of isolation, prayer and penance and let him remain a priest. But that would be an unfortunate outcome because, even if imposed with the best intentions of compassion and mercy, the decision would be widely interpreted inside and outside the Church as proof that the Vatican still does not take seriously the scourge of child abuse.

A year ago, several months after Lahey’s arrest, canon law was amended to make it a grave offence punishable by laicization to acquire, possess or distribute child pornography. Church leaders now have an opportunity to demonstrate by their actions that they are sincere about reform and intend to deal swiftly and harshly when children are violated.

Based on Lahey’s guilty plea, he should be defrocked immediately to give justice to his victims, to encourage the priesthood, to reassure Catholics whose faith is tested by Lahey and other clerical abusers, and as a small step towards restoring the moral authority of the Church in the eyes of world opinion.


Source: http://www.catholicregister.org/editorial/act-now-on-lahey

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Bishop admits failure in priest's child pornography case (Post #131)

Excerpt from the National Catholic Reporter: Bishop admits failure in priest's child pornography case

May. 23, 2011

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- One day after newspapers across the nation featured front page articles about a U.S. bishops' sponsored study on the causes of the clergy sex abuse scandal, which blamed much of the crisis on the sexual revolution of the 1960s, another clergy abuse news story was on the front page of The Kansas City Star: A local priest had been arrested for possession of child pornography

To many, the most disturbing revelation in the story of Fr. Shawn Ratigan, 45, a priest in the Kansas City-St. Joseph diocese since 2004, was that diocesan officials knew his personal computer had been found last December to contain many photographs of young children, including at least one of a nude girl.

But they did not share the information with members of the diocese or its review board. Instead, Bishop Robert W. Finn moved the priest to a local home for religious sisters. Even after the priest attempted suicide, the diocese kept the information surrounding his transfer secret. The diocese went public about Ratigan's computer photographs last week after the priest was arrested by local police May 19 and charged with three counts of possessing child pornography.

At a May 20 session at the parish where Ratigan served as pastor for a year, Finn fielded questions from distraught parishioners. He revealed during the session that he had considered placing the priest, after learning of his troubles, at the diocesan archives so he could do work that "wouldn't put him in contact with children." According to guidelines established by the U.S. bishops in their 2002 Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, independent review boards in each diocese are to help the bishop "in his assessment of allegations of sexual abuse of minors." But a member of the review board in the Kansas City diocese told NCR the group had never been notified of the Ratigan matter.

The process followed by officials in the Kansas City case appears to mirror in some ways that followed in Philadelphia, where a Feb. 10 grand jury report cited 37 priests as continuing in ministry in that archdiocese despite what were considered to be credible allegations of abuse. Following that report, the former secretary of clergy in the archdiocese was arrested for failing to protect children from dangerous priests. Cardinal Justin Rigali also placed 21 other priests on administrative leave March 8 pending review of allegations of abuse. The head of the Philadelphia review board has said that archdiocesan officials held back pertinent information from that board regarding the cases against priests in the archdiocese.

The Kansas City case, while involving only one priest, seems to reveal a pattern long associated with the clergy sex abuse scandal: Local bishops make the final decision regarding whom to notify when priests are accused of abuse or, as in the case of Ratigan, suspected of possessing child pornography. According to a letter released from the Kansas City diocese late Friday afternoon, Finn said he first learned that a laptop computer owned by Ratigan contained "many images of female children," including one of an "unclothed child," in December. The bishop said that he described one of the images to a police officer and was told it "did not constitute child pornography."

Officers arrested Ratigan May 19. The priest is being held on $200,000 bond, with arraignment expected Monday.   [Eds note: Ratigan pleaded not guilty during his court appearance]

Sources include
http://ncronline.org/news/accountability/bishop-admits-failure-priests-child-pornography-case
http://ncronline.org/news/accountability/bishops-center-abuse-scandal-and-potential-reform
http://childprotectionnews.com/st-joseph-possesses-child-pornography-for-5-months-before-giving-to-police/fr-shawn-ratigan-3/
http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=10418
http://www.diocese-kcsj.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Finn_(bishop)
http://www.kansascity.com/2011/05/20/2890783/bishop-finns-statement.html
http://www.nccbuscc.org/ocyp/charter.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin_Francis_Rigali

Friday, May 20, 2011

Bishops at center of abuse scandal, and potential reform (Post #130)

Excerpt from National Catholic Reporter: Bishops at center of abuse scandal, and potential reform

WASHINGTON -- A sweeping new report on the clergy sex abuse scandal compares the Roman Catholic Church to police departments, with similar hierarchies, moral authority and isolated working environments. And because the church, like the police, has "historically 'policed itself,"' as the report says, some lay Catholics and victims' advocates say even a stack of damning reports will not change a church that has been historically resistant to reform.

A recent grand jury report that found dozens of accused priests still in active ministry in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, critics say, gives them little evidence for hope.

The study by New York’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice, released Wednesday, portrays the abuse scandal as largely confined to the past. More than 90 percent of nearly 10,700 allegations against Catholic priests occurred before 1990, according to the report. Researchers said the abuse of minors correlated to a jump in deviant behavior in society at large, such as premarital sex, experimental drug use and crime. "The problem of sexual abuse of minors by Catholic priests in the United States is largely historical," said Dr. Karen Terry, the principle investigator for the study, "and the bulk of the cases occurred decades ago."

The ongoing crisis in Philadelphia -- which even church bishops were at a loss to explain -- shows the scandal will continue unless bishops are held accountable for their actions, according to victims' advocates.

New, non-mandatory guidelines issued by the Vatican on Monday also give little indication such oversight is forthcoming. Only one U.S. bishop, Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston, has been forced to resign for failing to prevent the sexual abuse of children. Over the 60 years covered by the study, bishops’ response to abusive priests "changed substantively," according to the John Jay report. "For example, abusive priests were less likely to be returned to active ministry and/or more likely to be placed on administrative leave during the later years," the report states.

The report said bishops, like many Americans during the 1950-1980s, failed to understand the harm resulting from sexual abuse. Researchers, however, did not give the bishops a pass. "Although this lack of understanding was consistent with the overall lack of understanding of victimization at the time, the absence of acknowledgement of harm was a significant ethical lapse on the part of leadership in some dioceses," the report states.

Under get-tough reforms adopted by the bishops in 2002, credible accusations of abuse are supposed to be reported to civil authorities, and dioceses are to be audited annually. But neither policy is mandatory. The John Jay report found that bishops reported just 14 percent of accusations against priests to the police. And two bishops refuse to allow the audits in their dioceses.

In January, Pope Benedict XVI promoted one of the two hold-out bishops, the Most Rev. Robert Vasa from Baker, Ore. to a larger diocese, in Santa Rosa, Calif. "What kind of message does that send?" said Nicolas Cafardi, a canon law professor and former chairman of the bishops committee that drafted the abuse guidelines.

The Philadelphia grand jury report alleged that church officials kept 37 priests in active ministry, despite credible accusations of sexual abuse. The archdiocese later suspended 26 priests and has mounted an internal investigation. In a May 12 essay in Commonweal magazine, Dr. Ana Maria Catanzaro, who heads the Archdiocese of Philadelphia’s sexual-abuse review board, accused Cardinal Justin Rigali and his subordinates of failing "miserably at being open and transparent. If Philadelphia’s bishops had followed their call to live the gospel, they would have acted differently," Catanzaro said.

Sources include
http://ncronline.org/news/accountability/bishops-center-abuse-scandal-and-potential-reform
http://www.jjay.cuny.edu/
http://www.americamagazine.org/content/signs.cfm?signid=721
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/09/us/09priests.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/16/vatican-sex-abuse-letter_n_862566.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Francis_Law
http://www.usccb.org/comm/archives/2011/11-020e.shtml
http://www.commonwealmagazine.org/loose-canons
http://www.lakewyliepilot.com/2011/05/13/1123331/philly-dioceses-sex-abuse-chair.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin_Francis_Rigali

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Firing bishops and the new evangelization (Post #130)

Excerpt from the National Catholic Reporter: Firing bishops and the new evangelization

by Phyllis Zagano
It looks like the church is developing parallel universes. To the left are writers and a few bishops who think some topics shouldn't be swept under the Vatican carpet; their stories gone viral. To the right are card-carrying genuine real live Catholics whose often angry blogs support their idea of the One True Faith. Most of us are in the middle. Daily battered by a tsunami of information, we are increasingly selective of what messages we receive. So we choose.

Not a good situation for those nice folks in Rome, who invented information control. Church messages once came from the pope with seals and signatures. The Gospel was proclaimed only in Latin, explained solely by clerics. The law was sacrosanct, only available to the canonists.
It's a new world for sure. Doctrinal dust-ups grab headlines left and right: think Fr. Roy Bourgeois, Sr. Elizabeth Johnson.

Then there is Bishop William Morris.
Nearly coincidental to Australian Bishop William Morris' forced removal from the diocese he's led since 1993, Catholic bloggers gathered in Rome at the invitation of the Pontifical Council for Social Communication. The pope's direct message to the bloggers: be civil in cyberspace, even when defending Catholic belief. The pope's message to Bishop Morris (as translated by major media): get lost.

Does anyone else see a problem here?

Bishop Morris wanted to talk about what an awful lot of Catholics are thinking about: With a shrinking cadre of celibate priests, how will we provide Eucharist? Morris's 2006 pastoral letter said the church might "need to be much more open" to ordaining married and widowed men put forth by their communities, welcoming back former priests, ordaining women, and recognizing orders of the Anglican, Lutheran and Uniting Church (the latter the Australian union of Presbyterian, Methodist and Congregationalists).

Following an apostolic visitation and a secret report by Denver's Archbishop Charles Chaput, Morris ended up in the purple waste basket along with Zambian Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo, whose ordinations of married men as priests and bishops earned him both excommunication and laicization. (If you're keeping track, mostly liberal bishops get fired. Bishop abusers go off to abbeys, and bishop co-conspirators stay in place.)

What's going on? Morris only wanted to talk about what everyone else is talking about. Talking is not doing. The problem is information control. From the bleachers, it seems rather than an internal discussion led by a seminary-trained Catholic bishop, Rome wants to depend on bloggers of various descriptions and dispositions. Why? Hint: look to your right.

The 750 or so multinational bloggers who applied for the Rome meeting were vetted by Vatican staff and 150 were chosen by lot. The U.S. contingent included the American Papist, and the Ironic Catholic, as well as Crescat, (a self-described mackerel snapping papist), and the writer of Whispers in the Loggia.

The bloggers, relatively young and well-meaning, "publish" unedited pieces, effectively managing electronic water coolers around which their friends (in the Facebook sense) gather to agree. Because the blog beast needs constant feeding, conservative Catholic bloggers present the last best chance for the Vatican to get out unfiltered missives. (The bloggers at the meeting asked for the same advance-release courtesy the Vatican Press Office now gives major news outlets.)

So the Vatican has gotten into the spin-control business big time. It summoned the troops to headquarters in preparation for the megabyte war. Is this the "new evangelization"?

What about the bishops? Aren't they the ones who explain magisterial teaching? Are they now by-passed for the I-Pad brigade? What kind of evangelization is this? I don't know whether the Vatican is recognizing or causing the leveling of the playing field, but when one screen shows a bishop fired and the other screen shows predominantly un-credentialed individuals being encouraged to "put out" the Christian message, you have to wonder whether the medium has replaced the message.

It is a question of emphasis. The days of only bishops preaching went out with St. Dominic and his confreres. The Vatican that demands only clerics preach in church recognizes the Internet cathedral as a setting for its message, but that message -- whether in major media or the blogs -- is increasingly harsh and essentially confusing.

It is not about words. It is about action. The world cries daily and desperately for ministry of the sort Dorothy Day advised: individual, personal and personalized ministry given freely one by Christian one, in living (not pixilated) color. The real message -- the new evangelization -- is not what is said, but what is done. And what is done by Rome sometimes clouds the message.

Phyllis Zagano is senior research associate-in-residence at Hofstra University and author of several books in Catholic Studies.
Sources include
http://ncronline.org/blogs/just-catholic/firing-bishops-and-new-evangelization
http://people.hofstra.edu/Phyllis_Zagano/
http://ncronline.org/users/phyllis-zagano
http://ncronline.org/blogs/just-catholic
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Bourgeois
http://www.uscatholic.org/blog/2011/03/elizabeth-johnson-bad-your-faith
http://ncronline.org/news/accountability/bp-morris-you%E2%80%99ve-got-stand-your-truth?gclid=CKDXjJfU6qgCFcW5Kgod_EfYGA
http://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/bishop/bmorrisw.html
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/pccs/index.htm
http://www.twb.catholic.org.au/documents/bishop_morris_pastoral_letter_2006.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Martin_Morris
http://exclusionconference.ecclesiological.net/index.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_J._Chaput
http://www.catholicvote.org/discuss/index.php?show=papist
http://www.ironiccatholic.com/
http://thecrescat.blogspot.com/
http://whispersintheloggia.blogspot.com/
http://catholicblogs.blogspot.com/
http://www.vatican.va/news_services/press/index.htm

The gift that was Henri Nouwen (Post #129)

Excerpt from The Catholic Register: The gift that was Henri Nouwen

by Fr. Ron Rolheiser Tuesday, 10 May 2011 10:38
Fr. Henri Nouwen was perhaps the most popular spiritual writer of the late 20th century and his popularity endures today. More than seven million of his books have been sold world-wide and they have been translated into 30 languages. Fifteen years after his death, all but one of his books remain in print.

Many things account for his popularity, beyond the depth and learning he brought to his writings. He was very instrumental in helping dispel the suspicion that had long existed in Protestant and Evangelical circles towards spirituality, which was identified in the popular mind as something more exclusively Roman Catholic and as something on the fringes of ordinary life. Both his teaching and his writing helped make spirituality something mainstream within Roman Catholicism, within Christianity in general, and within secular society itself. For example, American Secretary of State Hilary Clinton has stated that his book, The Return of the Prodigal Son, is the book that has had the largest impact on her life.

He wrote as a psychologist and a priest, but his writings also flowed from who he was as a man. And he was a complex man, torn always between the saint inside of him who had given his life to God and the man inside of him who, chronically obsessed with human love and its earthy yearnings, wanted to take his life back. He was fond of quoting Søren Kierkegaard who said that a saint is someone who can “will the one thing,” even as he admitted how much he struggled to do that. He did will to be a saint, but he willed other things as well: “I want to be a saint,” he once wrote, “but I also want to experience all the sensations that sinners experience.” He confessed in his writings how much restlessness this brought into his life and how sometimes he was incapable of being fully in control of his own life.

In the end, he was a saint, but always one in progress. He never fit the pious profile of a saint, even as he was always recognized as a man from God bringing us more than ordinary grace and insight. And the fact that he never hid his weaknesses from his readers helped account for his stunning popularity.
His readers identified with him because he shared so honestly his struggles. He related his weaknesses to his struggles in prayer and, in that, many readers found themselves looking into a mirror. Like many others, when I first read Nouwen, I had a sense of being introduced to myself.

And he worked at his craft, with diligence and deliberation. Nouwen would write and rewrite his books, sometimes five times over, in an effort to make them simpler. What he sought was a language of the heart. Originally trained as a psychologist, his early writings exhibit some of the language of the classroom. However, as he developed as a writer and a mentor of the soul, he began more and more to purge his writings of technical and academic terms and strove to become radically simple, without being simplistic; to carry deep sentiment, without being sentimental; to be self-revealing, without being exhibitionist; to be deeply personal, yet profoundly universal; and to be sensitive to human weakness, even as he strove to challenge to what’s more sublime.

Few writers, religious or secular, have influenced me as deeply as Nouwen. I know better than to try to imitate him, recognizing that what is imitative is never creative and what is creative is never imitative.

Where I do try to emulate him is in his simplicity, in his rewriting things over and over in order try to make them simpler, without being simplistic. Like him, I believe there’s a language of the heart (that each generation has to create anew) that bypasses the divide between academics and the street and which has the power to speak directly to everyone, regardless of background and training. Jesus managed it. Nouwen sought to speak and write with that kind of directness. He didn’t do it perfectly, nobody does, but he did do it more effectively than most. He recognized too that this is a craft that must be worked at, akin to learning language.

Sources include
http://www.catholicregister.org/fr-ron-rolheiser/the-gift-that-was-henri-nouwen
http://www.ronrolheiser.com/
http://www.henrinouwen.org/
http://www.amazon.ca/Return-Prodigal-Son-Henri-Nouwen/dp/0385473079
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%B8ren_Kierkegaard

Saturday, May 14, 2011

A curial shake-up (Post #128)

Excerpt from the National Catholic Reporter: A curial shake-up

by John L Allen Jr

On May 10, two key personnel moves were announced by Pope Benedict XVI.

Italian Archbishop Fernando Filoni was named Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, traditionally known as “Propaganda Fide.” Since June 2007, Filoni had been the “substitute” in the Secretariat of State, which is the Vatican’s key position for internal church affairs -- something like the White House Chief of Staff. Meanwhile, Archbishop Giovanni Becciu, also an Italian, was named to take over as “substitute.” Becciu is a veteran of the Vatican’s diplomatic service, most recently in Angola from 2001 to 2009 and then in Cuba.

Two observations suggest themselves.

First, by consensus the role of the “substitute” is the most complex job in the Roman Curia. Whoever holds it has to keep a staggering range of details in resident memory, and the administrative success or failure of a papacy often rests on his shoulders. Those who have played it well over the years have been the stuff of legend: Giovanni Battista Montini, for instance, was the substitute under Pius XII from 1937 to 1953, and went on to become Pope Paul VI; Giovanni Benelli, who was Paul’s own substitute from 1967 to 1977, was widely understood to be the power behind the throne.

Given how difficult it is to master the role, many observers found it curious that Filoni would be shipped out after less than four years, to be replaced by someone in Becciu who has no previous experience at all working inside the Vatican. Those who know Becciu say he’s a genial and effective diplomat, loyal to his superiors at the Secretariat of State -- but that’s not quite the same thing as readiness to step into what is arguably the most demanding administrative position in the Catholic Church.

(It may be, of course, that Becciu rises to the occasion. Filoni too was never a creature of the Curia, having served in Vatican embassies around the world since 1982 -- including a memorable stretch as the nuncio to Iraq, when he was the only ambassador not to leave Baghdad during the U.S.-led invasion in April 2003.)

When the dust settles, the most obvious beneficiary of these moves would seem to be Italian Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Secretary of State, who will not have to be concerned about the new substitute forming a rival center of power. Becciu is said to stand well outside the normal curial power blocs. By virtue of being Sardinian, he’s also not part of the usual Italian regional networks focused on Lombardy, or Emilia-Romagna, and so on.

The question, however, is whether clarity about who’s in charge may be achieved at the expense of elevating someone who’s going to need a fair bit of on-the-job training -- compounding what critics, at least, have sometimes seen as a deficit of governance under Bertone.

Second, the appointment of Filoni to Propaganda Fide, replacing Indian Cardinal Ivan Dias, is the latest chapter of what one might call the “re-Italianization” of the Roman Curia under Pope Benedict XVI.

As of this writing, four of the Vatican’s nine congregations, one of its three tribunals, and six of its twelve pontifical councils are led by Italians. In the Secretariat of State, the top official, Bertone, and his most important deputy, now Becciu, are also both Italians.

To be sure, Benedict XVI tries to ensure that major Catholic cultures are represented in Rome. When he recently needed a new prefect of the Congregation for Religious, for instance, Benedict made it clear he wanted a Brazilian. Part of the reason Benedict may have felt comfortable sending Filoni to Propaganda Fide, in fact, is because he recently tapped Archbishop Savio Hon Tai-Fai, of Hong Kong, as its number two official.  Still, it’s striking that 13 of the 25 most senior decision-making positions in Benedict’s papacy are now held by Italians.

This preference for Italians is, in some ways, the most natural thing in the world. Benedict tends to assign senior positions to people he knows and trusts; as he told journalist Peter Seewald in Light of the World, he wants a family spirit among his top aides. By virtue of having served in Rome for a quarter-century, a disproportionate share of the people he knows to share that outlook will inevitably be Italians.

In the case of Propaganda Fide, there may also be a special logic for an Italian. From an administrative point of view, the department is a behemoth, controlling a complex network of financial assets and real estate holdings designed to generate support for overseas missions. For just this reason, the head of Propaganda Fide over the centuries has been known as the “Red Pope.”

One of Filoni’s immediate tasks will be to bring Propaganda Fide into compliance with a new financial reform decreed by Benedict XVI, which came on-line in April. One aim of that reform is to avoid the financial scandals that arose under Propaganda Fide’s former prefect, Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe of Naples, who has been accused of cutting sweetheart deals for Italian politicians on apartments in exchange for funneling millions of Euro in public funds to his office for restoration work that was never actually performed. The calculus may have been that because the financial sleight-of-hand to be reformed reflects Italian ways of doing business, it requires an Italian to get things under control.

Whatever the logic, it seems fair to say that for the foreseeable future, Italian sensibilities will loom awfully large in defining the outlook and priorities of the papacy of Benedict XVI. Whether that’s good or bad, helpful to the church’s fortunes or a hindrance, is almost beside the point -- it is what it is.
Sources includehttp://ncronline.org/blogs/all-things-catholic/triptych-benedict%E2%80%99s-papacy-and-hints-what-lies-beyond
http://ncronline.org/users/john-l-allen-jr
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernando_Filoni
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cevang/index.htm
http://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/bishop/bbecciu.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Curia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Paul_VI
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Pius_XII
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarcisio_Bertone
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinal_Secretary_of_State
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emilia-Romagna
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Dias
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/ccscrlife/documents/rc_con_ccscrlife_profile_en.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savio_Hon_Tai-Fai
http://www.ignatius.com/Products/LIWO-H/light-of-the-world.aspx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crescenzio_Sepe

Bishop Lahey pleads guilty to importing child porn (Post #127)

Excerpt from Canadian Catholic News: Bishop Lahey pleads guilty to importing child porn

OTTAWA — Bishop Raymond Lahey pleaded guilty to the importation of child pornography May 4 and asked to go directly to jail, even though a date has not been set for his sentence hearing.
The former bishop of Antigonish, N.S., faced two child porn charges, but the Crown and defence counsel agreed to drop the more serious charge of possession of child pornography for the purpose of transmission. Lahey’s lawyer told the court no distribution was involved. They also agreed on a set of facts that were summarized in the courtroom, but have been sealed from the public because of the child porn content.

Det. Andrew Thompson, the Ottawa police officer who did the forensic exam of Lahey’s laptop and other electronic devices, gave brief descriptions of some of the 588 images and 60 videos he found that depicted boys as young as eight to 10 engaging in sexual acts with each other or adult males.  Thompson also found pornographic stories on the bishop’s hard drives – one running to 300 pages in length — that he categorized under five themes: mastery and slavery involving adults and young boys; humiliation of young boys; torture of young boys; sex acts between young boys; and degradation of young boys or forcing sex acts on them.

Lahey’s lawyers will be in court May 26 to determine a date for a sentence hearing. The bishop faces a minimum mandatory sentence of one year in jail and possibly up to 10 years. “My client feels very deeply and profoundly remorseful for what he has done,” said defence counsel Michael Edelson told the court May 4.  Lahey was waiving his right to bail, the lawyer said. “He is asking to be incarcerated this morning to signal to the court the sincerity and genuineness of his remorse.” Lahey smiled a couple of times at his defence counsel, and then waited for a police officer to escort him out of the courtroom.

On Sept. 15, 2009, a Canadian Border Services (CBSA) agent flagged Lahey for a secondary search when he returned to Canada aboard a flight from London. He had been travelling alone and his passport showed he had visited Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and Germany. According to the statement of facts, when asked what he did for a living, he replied he was a priest who did missionary work. The agent asked him about what electronic gear he was carrying and noted how Lahey’s demeanour changed from being “calm, friendly and forthcoming,” to “nervous, quiet and resisting eye contact” when she asked him about whether he had a laptop.

A preliminary inspection revealed images of young males engaged in sex acts. The Ottawa police were contacted and continued the investigation, finding several more images. Lahey denied to the CBSA agent an interest in child pornography but admitted an attraction to young males 18 to 21, as well as those older than that.

The bishop may face further canonical penalties. The highest canonical penalty Lahey could face is dismissal from the clerical state, what used to be called defrocking, said Father Frank Morrissey, a leading canon lawyer.   Ontologically, Lahey remains a priest forever, but he would no longer be considered a cleric, Morrissey said. “He could be deprived of the right to take part in any meeting of conference of bishops or an ecumenical council or a papal audience, or they could forbid from exercising any public ministry and make that a perpetual penalty.” Further penalties will all be at the level of the Vatican, he said. “All cases of bishops are reserved directly to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.”

The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) issued a statement following Lahey’s conviction condemning “all forms of sexual exploitation, especially involving minors” and said it “continues to work to prevent such behaviour and to bring healing to the victims and their families.”

Sources include
http://wcr.ab.ca/WCRThisWeek/Stories/tabid/61/entryid/914/Default.aspx

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Quebec Cardinal could be next pope (Post #126)

Excerpt from The National Post: Quebec Cardinal could be next pope

When Pope Benedict named Cardinal Marc Ouellet of Quebec City last summer to one of the most crucial jobs in the Vatican, he was praised among Catholics for selecting a man of such high quality, international experience and great sense of the universal Church. The position Cardinal Ouellet was given, considered by many as only second in importance to the papacy itself, was overseeing the selection of the next generation of bishops.

Now, as the Church begins to think of the day when it will be time to pick a successor to Pope Benedict, Cardinal Ouellet's name has come up again -in dramatic fashion. In a story this week by John Allen, considered one of the best analysts of the inner workings of the Vatican, he proposed three men who "are at least among the most commonly cited possibilities" to take over from Benedict should the need arise.

"Ouellet is currently the Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, a powerful position, which should burnish his credentials as someone who could take control of the machinery of the Vatican," wrote Mr. Allen, who is based in Rome for the highly influential National Catholic Reporter. "A veteran seminary professor and theologian, he's a Ratzingerian intellectually, coming out of the same [spiritual mould] as the Pontiff himself.

Many see Cardinal Ouellet as having the right balance of skills to lead a Church in need of a dynamic leader.  One Vatican insider, who did not wish to speak for attribution, pointed out Cardinal Ouellet's strengths:

  - He is one of the finest churchmen in the world and Pope Benedict honoured him as such by giving him centre stage.

  - The cardinals have been reluctant to cross the Atlantic for a new pope, but Ouellet may transcend that problem: He has enormous experience working and teaching in Latin America, where half the Catholics in the world live.

  - He has been a long time friend of Pope Benedict and was part of the papal "kitchen cabinet" even before last year's appointment.

  - His outgoing personality might be a benefit for a Church that still misses John Paul II's charisma.

The other two men noted in Mr. Allen's article were Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi of Italy, who has the intellect of Benedict "with the optimism and opening to the world of Pope John XXIII," and Cardinal Leonardo Sandri of Argentina, who is considered a "consummate Vatican insider who would likely be at the top of many lists if the most serious perceived need at the time is a set of safe hands who can govern the church effectively."

He also noted Cardinal Ouellet's linguist abilities -fluency in French, English, Spanish, Portuguese, German and Italian - make him qualified to lead a world Church.

Sources include
http://www.nationalpost.com/todays-paper/Quebec+Cardinal+could+next+pope+analyst/4729021/story.html

Monday, May 2, 2011

John Paul II Beatified at Vatican Mass (Post #125)

Excerpt from The New York Times: John Paul II Beatified at Vatican Mass

VATICAN CITY — Lauding John Paul II as a giant of 20th-century history as well as a hero of the church, Pope Benedict XVI moved his towering predecessor one step closer to sainthood on Sunday in a celebratory Mass that drew more than a million people to Rome.

“He was witness to the tragic age of big ideologies, totalitarian regimes, and from their passing John Paul II embraced the harsh suffering, marked by tension and contradictions, of the transition of the modern age toward a new phase of history, showing constant concern that the human person be its protagonist,” Benedict said.

Benedict beatified John Paul II, declaring him “blessed,” meaning that he is able to be publicly venerated. He also greeted Sister Marie Simone-Pierre, a French nun who said that she recovered from Parkinson’s disease after praying to John Paul, a cure that Benedict had declared miraculous. An additional miracle is required for canonization, the next step after beatification.

Benedict praised John Paul for having carried out the vision of the liberalizing Second Vatican Council. “On a more personal note,” he added, “I would like to thank God for the gift of having worked for many years with blessed Pope John Paul II.”

Benedict inherited a sex abuse scandal that emerged in the final decade of John Paul’s reign, prompting some victims and critics to oppose the beatification or at least to question its speed, the fastest in modern times. Benedict waived the traditional five-year wait to begin the beatification process; it began just weeks after John Paul’s death.

But in spite of the scandal, for many, the late pope’s memory remains very real. “I miss him, so very much,” said Cristiana Arru, a lawyer from Rome who grew up near the Vatican and came often to see the pope celebrate Mass. Her eyes welled up with tears. “I still feel as though I’ve been orphaned.”
John Paul’s was a papacy of milestones. In 1978, as Cardinal Karol Wojtyla of Krakow, Poland, he became the first non-Italian to become pope in four centuries. Under him, the church issued its first new catechism in nearly 500 years. In 2000, he asked pardon for the church’s sins against Jews, women, heretics and minorities. He was the first pope to visit a mosque and a synagogue.

He survived an assassination attempt by a Turkish gunman in 1981, a still-hazy chapter in cold war history with various theories about who might have been behind the attack. He later visited the gunman in prison and forgave him.

Lech Walesa, a Solidarity founder and a former Polish president, attended the Mass, as did Poland’s current president, Bronislaw Komorowski.

President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, one of Africa’s longest-ruling autocrats, who was raised a Catholic, sat in the front row with his wife, Grace. President Felipe Calderón of Mexico, where John Paul had close ties, also attended, as did Italy’s prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi.

Sources include
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/02/world/europe/02pope.html?ref=europe