Dear George,

“I do not think US Church representatives deny this…”

The secular press focus on the alleged crimes not Church procedures. Ecclesiastical law lost its civilian legitimacy over two hundred years ago. They secular would see no reason to have clerics have first bite of the judicial cherry. The curious thing is, in the Anglo West, usually, courts will allow the Press to keep silent on disclosing sources. Reporters are meant follow protocols, though.

A key point is to the secularist journalist is, it is not for the Church to sort fact from fiction. That is what “real” Courts are for. Canon Law has no more legality vis-à-vis secular law than does a retail store’s return of goods policy vis-à-vis the (Australian) Trade Practices Act. If a retailer shopkeeper said that he/she would only respond to a ACCC summons, after an internal investigation, chances are matters might escalate from a commercial fine to criminal contempt.

As for producing and assessing evidence of alleged crimes; it is not up to Media, the Church and retail stores; rather, judges and juries have this role in secular society. The prosecution and defence of cases, with attended evidence, are usually in open court, where evidence is assessed. Maybe, some bishops don’t see civilian juries their peers?

“… they should provide properly researched details, as they often do, but they often don't: they either offer details based on their interpretation of facts...”

The secular view is “properly researched details” must presented in open court. The jury determines makes “their interpretation of facts” and perhaps with the guidance of judicial instruction, yields a verdict. Then the Press and Church can better to report or act on findings.

An innocent priest always has the option to sue for deformation, if he feels that journals are producing libellous allegations.

- I think our dialogue has taken us away from matters of blatant cover-up towards was posited to in the Media towards tuff/colour wars over jurisdiction. Does the judge kiss the Bishop’s ring or does the Bishop stand and bow to the Judge in Court.

"Cardinal Schönborn, 65, seen as a possible future Pope, accused Cardinal Angelo Sodano, 82, the former Vatican Secretary of State (Prime Minister), of having blocked investigations into sex abuse crimes committed by his predecessor in Vienna, the late Cardinal Hans Hermann Groer." Times Online

Full article:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article7121062.ece

It is encouraging to see Cardinal Schönborn come forward on this matter. Being more open/honest about the past is hopefully the first step forward towards addressing the present. Yet, some bottom-up pressure, from the laity, might help too.

As George and I have been discussing, there are cross-jusidictional legal matters pertaining to Canon Law, which make the secularisation of the Church (oxymoron?) challenging.

Dear Oliver,

I am not sure why you quoted me saying “US Church representatives (don’t) deny this.” Do you have a quote where they do? I mean an exact quote of who said what, not instances of bishops ducking secular authorities e.g. in the USA, of which, I agree, there are a number of examples.

Neither do I understand why you bring in Canon Law again. It says nothing about cooperation or not with secular authorities, of which there is and was a variety of (including Nazi or Communist). I thought we were over this already.

>>The secular view is “properly researched details” must presented in open court<<
I think you confuse (criminal) investigations prepared by police and decided upon by the court, and investigative research preceding the publication of an article. A journalist can write a poorly researched paper about the teaching of mathematics (e.g. by not checking the credibility of his/her sources and/or not consulting professionals where he/she is not supposed to be an expert himself/herself), where no accusations of criminal nature are involved.

>>away from matters of blatant cover-up towards was posited to in the Media towards … wars over jurisdiction<<
How else would we know about “blatant cover-ups” if not through Media - that might or might not report with or without an a priori bias. As to “wars over jurisdiction”, please read my first paragraph. (ctd)

(ctd)
As I see it, what some bishops did is somehow equivalent to the hit-and-run crime, and if technically possible, they should be prosecuted for that, full stop.

However, presenting these crimes as if they were intentional - or as if (all) bishops were somehow prone to “hit and run” with no sense of responsibility just because of being Catholic - is counterproductive. No doubt, wrongs were committed both in the moral and legal sense, but we neither serve the truth nor help the victims to get some kind of justice, if we exaggerate, twist facts or wrap them in sweeping accusations and statements, thus diluting the horror and gross negligence of particular cases that actually happened. (See e.g. http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=3565#87250 as an example of what I mean).

In the link you provided (illustrating the internal tensions between Bertone and Ratzinger/ Schoenborn), there is also a comment:

“Margaret Hodges (British MP) described children in care as “disruptive and difficult”. Demetrious Panton, a victim of abuse, as “extremely disturbed”. Patricia Hewitt defended Hodges by saying, 'If you look back, our understanding of sexual abuse and our willingness and readiness to believe our children has also been transformed. And obviously Margaret feels utterly remorseful about that.' Seems familiar?”

The case is described on http://www.fassit.co.uk/margaret_hodge.htm and is just an illustrations (not excuse) that in those times not only Catholic bishops were inclined not to take sexual abuse of children as seriously as we all take them today.

Let me repeat that I am grateful for helping me to clarify some details in the argument we are having. I got interested in this topic somewhat involuntarily when asked to explain the sad and convoluted situation the Church in the “free world” has found herself in, to people who used to live on the other side of the Iron Curtain, and thus remembered (and respected) only the persecuted Church. Even after twenty years, there is still that difference of perspectives.

As if wanting to comment on my last paragraph, the pope observed today during his flight to Portugal :

“The greatest persecution of the Church doesn’t come from enemies on the outside, but is born in sin within the church. The Church thus has a deep need to re-learn penance, to accept purification, to learn on one hand forgiveness but also the necessity of justice. Forgiveness does not exclude justice” (http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/sex-abuse-crisis-terrifying-pope-says).

.

Dear Mary,

Perhaps you will agree that the first priority of the church should be to eliminate the risk of any further paedophilia or sexual abuse of adolescents occurring.

And the second should be to identify paedophiles and sex criminals among the clergy and other staff and bring them to court.

As you rightly point out, Mary, the current pope is doing something about the second priority. He even seems to be warming to the job, though he did start off in a somewhat half-hearted fashion and needed a good deal of prodding by both families of victims and the world-wide media before he actually did anything worth boasting about.

It was over a decade previously that both he and his predecessor, John-Paul II, correctly diagnosed that the church had reached an advanced state of gangrene through sexual abuse and that the rot had set in.

Their immediate reaction was to save their beloved church from the threat of ignominious scandal. Unfortunately, despite their combined efforts, the lid blew on that one and an endless stream of horror flooded out and engulfed the unbelieving senses of millions of modest Christians and ordinary sinners.

John-Paul II was shortly recalled for higher duties and Benedict XVI has since had to battle it alone. He carries on relentlessly with that useless lid still waving desperately in his hand but, so far, to no avail.

In the meantime, what should have been his first priority, the one on which I hope we agreed to earlier, continues to remain unattended.

Nobody has suggested that children and adolescents should never remain alone, isolated, in the sole presence of a priest, however holy and saintly he may appear. Nobody has ordered that children and adolescents should permanently be granted dispensation from attending the confessional.

Perhaps you will also agree, Mary, that the pope has overall responsibility for his organisation,irrespective of any possible personal liability. I would be interested to have your opinion on what consequences you feel that overall responsibility should entail for the pope in his role as chief executive in this particular case.

.