Frazzled wrote:Modquisition on. Lets all sima down nah. Its getting a bit heated so posters please take some breaths or I will have to close this thread.

Manchu wrote:Implication is . . . shoot the pope?

Orlanth wrote:Things are so much simpler on the screen.

Manchu wrote:Shortly before the death of John Paul II, Hans Kung published a book in which he claimed that the Church would be in serious crisis if Ratzinger became pope. This is his way of saying "I told you so." Kung was a kind of "rock star" of theology, ultimately publishing his rejection of Vatican I's doctrine of papal infallibility. This, along with other controversial ideas, led to his "silencing" (i.e., he is not allowed to teach theology at Catholic universities) by the CDF under Ratzinger. In return, Kung has taken every opportunity to criticize and denounce Ratzinger in public. This latest letter is just the most pathetic attempt and--at least in my opinion--is the final nail in the coffin of Kung's own credibility.

Frazzled wrote:Thats something to the Catholics to answer. Unless you're Catholic you have no qualification to opine and it borders on an attack. Lets move away from this point please and statements about the "crass hypacrasy is part of the Catholicism." this thread has survived so far but will end quickly.

Frazzled wrote:No you're missing my point.

Only Catholics can decide if the Pope is Catholic. The rest of the world is a bunch of outsiders, who don't have the expertise to do so.

Orlanth wrote:

Frazzled wrote:No you're missing my point.

Only Catholics can decide if the Pope is Catholic. The rest of the world is a bunch of outsiders, who don't have the expertise to do so.

Your missing my point, (about global cultural perspectives) which is is more alarming because you are trying to mod it.

Orlanth wrote:

Frazzled wrote:No you're missing my point.

Only Catholics can decide if the Pope is Catholic. The rest of the world is a bunch of outsiders, who don't have the expertise to do so.

Your missing my point, (about global cultural perspectives) which is is more alarming because you are trying to mod it.

However let me join you and look at this literally for the monent. Anyone who understands the theological criteria to become or remain a Catholic could determine given sufficiant details about the Popes beliefs and which seminal rituals (strictly no puns allowed!) he has performed, the 'expertise' is not hidden knowledge. The last part is easy, Pope Benedict would have performed all necessary catechisms etc before he became a priest, let alone Pope. Most if not all denominations have a criteria for orthodoxy, even those Pentecostals who run away from any perceived orthodoxy do its called Romans 10: 8-12.

oops double post.

Frazzled wrote:I don't feel that someone not in the faith can judge someone of that faith about that actual faith's matters.

Soladrin wrote:You should take a closer look

The obstacle in Rome
Posted at: Friday, April 16, 2010 07:30:13 AM
Author: Austen Ivereigh

Pope Benedict XVI - Catholics like me have been insisting these past weeks on TV and radio - is a key part of the solution to the clerical sexual abuse crisis, which is why the media attempt to scapegoat him is so misguided. Indeed, what has surfaced from the recent firestorm is how providential it was that Pope John Paul put then-Cardinal Ratzinger in charge of abuse cases from 2001. But what is also becoming clear by the day is how much he has struggled against a mentality at the top of the Roman Curia which manages, at times, to live up to every sceptical media stereotype.

Cardinal Bertone's misguided remarks on homosexuality and paedophilia were one instance. But far more shocking is the revelation of a letter sent by Darío Castrillón-Hoyos, the Colombian cardinal who until 2006 headed the Congregation for the Clergy, to French bishop Pierre Pican, congratulating him for not turning over to the police an abusive priest later jailed for 18 years for raping children. (See Reuters).

It was a notorious case at the time: the auxiliary bishop, who received a suspended three-month jail sentence for failing to report sexual abuse of minors, admitted in court he had kept Fr Rene Bissey in parish work despite the fact the priest had privately admitted committing pedophile acts. The case shocked France and prompted its bishops to declare that all abuse cases must be reported to civil authorities.

The Castrillón-Hoyos letter, posted on its website by the critical Catholic French magazine Golias, could not be clearer or more damning:

"I congratulate you for not denouncing a priest to the civil administration. You have acted well and I am pleased to have a colleague in the episcopate who, in the eyes of history and of all other bishops in the world, preferred prison to denouncing his son and priest."

Consider the letter's date: September 2001. Pope John Paul II's motu proprio insisting that all credible abuse accusations against priests be referred to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was issued in May that year.

The Vatican's statement in response to the revelation was swift and well-judged. "The document is another confirmation of how timely was the unification of the treatment of cases of sexual abuse of minors on the part of members of the clergy under the competence of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith", said Fr Lombardi yesterday.

In effect, says John Allen, "the Vatican statement suggests that Castrillón Hoyos's attitude was part of the reason that then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger ... pressed for a more aggressive policy on the removal of predator priests".

A glimpse of that attitude was on vivid display in an April 11 interview that Cardinal Castrillón-Hoyos -- who along with Cardinal Law (formerly of Boston) is one of the leaders of the movement behind the restoration of traditionalist liturgy -- gave to the Spanish-language CNN. My translation:

“As prefect of the Congregation for Clergy I had meetings with scientists. And there was one group of scientists who said that the paedophile doesn’t exist; there exist persons who commit acts of paedophilia, but the illness of paedophilia doesn’t exist. So, when one person makes a mistake, which is often a minimal error, that person is accused - that person confesses his crime, or is shown his crime -- the bishop punishes him according to what [canon] law allows: he suspends him, takes him out of a parish for a time, then sends him to another parish. He is correcting him. This is not a crime, this is not a cover-up, this is following the law just as civil society does in the case of doctors and lawyers – in other words, it’s not about taking away the chance of them exercising their profession for ever.”

So you mean, asks Patricia Janiot, that for the Church sex abuse of minors is not a crime? Castrillón-Hoyos loses his rag in a flash of arrogance.

"Patricia, for the love of God, don’t you understand what I'm saying? Am I speaking a foreign language? I’m talking in Castilian. The Church punishes paedophilia as a very serious crime – do I have to repeat this a thousand times? -- but punishes it according to the law. The fact that it is a serious crime does not authorise a bishop to punish without following the processes to which the accused has a right."

When Janiot asks him about those processes, the cardinal talks about the need for corrobative evidence and witnesses but quickly adds that even when these exist, "when you factor in the enormous sums of money which are benefitting large numbers of people in relation to these crimes, we all have the right to question the honesty of those cases.”

Janiot then asks him whether, if Pope John Paul II had acted more decisively to clear up the mishandling of abuse cases, Pope Benedict would not have inherited such a large problem. Castrillón-Hoyos is having none of it.

"Pope John Paul did everything he should have done, and did so within the clearest norms of justice, charity, and of equity, – he did exactly what he should have done to maintain the purity of the Church. He did exactly what he should have done. I am witness to his worries and his pains. It is very easy to have news stories about cases which have not proved in which the image of the clergy is far from reality – this does not mean that there have not been painful cases in the Church; he knew of them, and he punished them. Show me one single case – I challenge people – one known case anywhere in the world where a case has been proved where the delinquent has not been punished."

"What about the case of Fr Maciel?" Janiot answers. "This was never brought to justice. He died, never having been tried."

Cardinal Castrillon's eyes look sharply to the left, to where an advisor or lawyer is obviously sitting. He then turns back to the camera. "Non ti rispondo", he answers (in Italian, oddly). The interview is over.

This astonishingly unedifying display shows why, even while Rome cannot be held responsible for local Churches' failure to disclose clerical sex abuse cases to the police, it could at times help to foster the mentality that was disposed against that disclosure.

The message, at least from the head of the Congregation for the Clergy until 2006, was to regard "paedophile acts" as minimal mistakes, to doubt the veracity of evidence brought against priests, and to regard a bishop who turned over an abusive priest to the police as betraying his "son".

Pope Benedict XVI said yesterday that the excoriating media coverage gives the Church a chance to repent.

At a Mass broadcast on Vatican Radio he said that "we Christians, even in recent times, have often avoided the word 'repentance,' which seems too harsh. Now under the attacks of the world, which speaks to us of our sins, we see that the ability to repent is a grace, and we see how it is necessary to repent -- that is, to recognize what is wrong in our life".

But there is one more step to take: to name what is wrong. It's what Castrillón-Hoyos displays so vividly.

Its name is clericalism.

Priest says he was pressurised into taking blame for pope
A FORMER vicar-general in the archdiocese of Munich has claimed that he was pressurised last month into taking the blame for a mistake made 30 years ago by the then Archbishop of Munich, Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict), concerning the case of a paedophile priest.

Fr Gerhard Gruber has now said he did so only after coming under huge pressure from unnamed Catholic Church sources to take responsibility, so as to “take the pope out of the firing line”.

In a letter to a friend, seen by German weekly magazine Der Spiegel , Fr Gruber wrote that he was “begged” in numerous phone calls and after receiving a prepared statement by fax for him to sign. The magazine said Fr Gruber expresses unhappiness in the letter at being given the sole blame in public.

A spokesman for Munich archdiocese has dismissed the report as “completely made up”, saying Fr Gruber was at no point forced to sign anything but that he merely assisted in formulating the statement.

Last month media reports claimed that in 1980, Pope Benedict, as Archbishop of Munich, had mishandled the case of paedophile priest Fr Peter Hullermann. The priest was moved to Munich for “therapy” in 1980 after abusing a boy. The psychiatrist dealing with his case warned he was not to be allowed work with children.

Fr Hullermann was allowed return to parish duties in Munich within weeks of arriving there. The priest reoffended and in June 1986 he was convicted of the sexual abuse of other minors and given an 18-month suspended sentence. When this emerged last month, Fr Gruber assumed total responsibility, thus seeming to absolve Pope Benedict.

Meanwhile, according to the Spanish daily La Verdad , Colombian cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos said at a weekend conference in Murcia that Pope John Paul approved the policy of not reporting to the police clerical sex abuse crimes.

In a September 2001 letter, recently published by the French Catholic publication Golias , Cardinal Hoyos wrote to French bishop Pierre Pican to congratulate him for not reporting an abuser priest. Earlier that year, Bishop Pican received a suspended three-month sentence for not reporting serial abuser Fr René Bissy, who was eventually given an 18-year prison sentence for child sex abuse crimes between 1989 and 1996.

Speaking in Murcia on Saturday, Cardinal Hoyos confirmed the text of the letter, adding also that Pope John Paul had seen it and “authorised me to send it to all the bishops”.

Four months earlier, in 2001, Pope John Paul assigned judicial responsibility for certain “grave” sins (including child sex abuse) to the Congregation For The Doctrine Of The Faith. It was following this that the then prefect of the CDF, Cardinal Ratzinger, wrote to all Catholic bishops advising that they refer all credible cases of clerical child sex abuse to him. That letter was accompanied by another one, also in Latin, instructing that this be kept secret.

If Cardinal Hoyos’s claim is true it would suggest that Pope John Paul’s 2001 directive was intended to encourage a policy of cover-up.

Orlanth wrote:Well if you cannot even see the connection that is a useful answer of itself. Thanks.