So an atheist like Hari is more pro-Catholic than Catholics?

Why do you promote this fool?

If you’re not going to bother addressing the substantive point, and just want to throw ad-hominem insults because he happens to be an atheist – don’t bother commenting.

Because Hari wants to bring the man who oversaw the rape of their kids to justice. And the Catholic hierarchy doesn’t.

You are guaranteed to get a host of the “people of faith” who are in denial about the scale and seriousness of this issue attacking those like Hari who dare to point out that the Emperor has no clothes…. it kinda goes with the territory.

They either deny it’s a problem, or even if they have the grace to admit it, try to shift the focus away from the crimes themselves onto some grandiose conspiracy theory about the anti-Catholic (or Islamic or Jewish or whatever… delete made up faith they follow) sectarian bias on this site, or the media in general.

If it weren’t such a serious and on-going problem it would be comic.

It’s a great speech. All Catholics should be addressing this.

“They either deny it’s a problem, or even if they have the grace to admit it, try to shift the focus away from the crimes themselves onto some grandiose conspiracy theory about the anti-Catholic (or Islamic or Jewish or whatever… delete made up faith they follow) sectarian bias on this site, or the media in general.”

While I do not believe that there is some great anti-Catholic conspiracy, I do wonder whether Dawkins, Hari etc are simply using the child abuse scandal as a stick with which to beat the Catholic Church. Had there been no child abuse, do people really think that there wouldn’t have been anti-Pope protests?

‘If you’re not going to bother addressing the substantive point, and just want to throw ad-hominem insults because he happens to be an atheist – don’t bother commenting.’

OK Sunny, you asked for it.

Hari refers to a document issued by the Vatican in 2001 that he claims is an order to hush up the rape of children and protect paedophile priests.

This is the document, which is mostly about abuse of the sacraments, in particular priests who use the confessional to solicit sex.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_delictis_gravioribus

English tranlation

http://www.bishop-accountability.org/resources/resource-files/churchdocs/EpistulaEnglish.htm

http://www.bishop-accountability.org/resources/resource-files/churchdocs/SacramentorumAndNormaeEnglish.htm

As you will read, mention is made of something called ‘pontifical secret’. This is Vaticanese for confidentiality.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontifical_secret

As it is explained above

‘Thus the procedures of the Church tribunal were covered by papal secrecy (called at that time secrecy of the Holy Office), but the crime of the priest was not: “These matters are confidential only to the procedures within the Church, but do not preclude in any way for these matters to be brought to civil authorities for proper legal adjudication. The Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People of June, 2002, approved by the Vatican, requires that credible allegations of sexual abuse of children be reported to legal authorities.” ‘

http://www.bishop-accountability.org/resources/resource-files/churchdocs/DallasCharter.pdf

I defy you to find in this an order to protect paedophile priests.

People have tried to put Hari right on the matter, read a reply here
http://dolphinarium.blogspot.com/2010/03/johann-haris-rude-and-bigoted-reply-to.html

Hari has often been, how we say, careless with the truth in the past

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Johann_Hari#Challenges_to_his_credibility.2C_and_Hari.27s_responses

6 Richard

“I do wonder whether Dawkins, Hari etc are simply using the child abuse scandal as a stick with which to beat the Catholic Church.”

If you mean in the sense of using the scandals as an unwarranted way of attacking the Church (or faith groups generally), I think you are wide of the mark. Why do you think the Church is so worried about “aggressive atheists”?

Because they have a lot to be worried about. After centuries of being given special treatment, and people being unwilling to criticize them, they are just worried about the sudden change. They can’t dismiss the rising tide of revulsion the way they used to laugh off some anti-Catholic Paisleyesque rant about the anti-christ.

It’s a constant refrain on this site in particular that there is a double standard regarding the Catholic church being treated more severely than other faiths. It’s nonsense…worse, it’s deflection and denial to cover up their awful record of dealing with such scandals over decades.

Don’t fall for the special pleading, concentrate on getting the Catholic church..and any other faith involved in similar scandals and cover ups, to take action!

There are two closely argued rebuttals to Hari’s fact-free column in the Indie from Catholic sources

here
http://brentwooduk.blogspot.com/2010/09/fisking-johann-hari.html
and here
http://catholicvoicesmedia.blogspot.com/2010/09/appeal-to-johann-hari.html

8 resistor

Yes, yes… we’ve all heard and seen this tactic before: let’s not concentrate on the main issue, lets minutely dissect these crticisms, then when we find some piffling inconsistencies…voila, we can dismiss them as a sinister anti-Catholic plot, probably dreamt up by the Masons, or the homosexuals, or the lefties…better yet by lefty gay Masons!

The obfuscation and denial has to stop. Don’t try and rubbish the critics, admit there is a problem, open the files. It’s not rocket science.

Galen10

I’ve just proved that everything that Hari said in his speech was untrue. I given plenty of sources for you and Sunny to check. You’d rather put words into my mouth I’d never utter – are you Hari in disguise?

Perhaps Sunny can tell us why he praised such a dishonest speech.

10 resistor

You have “proven” no such thing. The supposed rebuttals in your posts are not proof… they are from what I can see peddling a particular view which aims to exonerate the current Pope, produced as you said yourself by Catholic sources.

We have had plenty of experience in this site on other threads of Catholic apoligists who insist that there is 1) a double standard which treats the Catholic church more severely than other faiths, 2) and that there is no substance to allegations that the current Pope, and the previous Pope, could and should have done more to address these issues.

Posting links to 2 Catholic sources in defence of your stance is pointless: there are plenty of others which “prove” the opposite. More to the point however, there are plenty of sources and debates going on in sites with no axe to grind, and reports from reputable News Agencies and media outlets which give huge cause for concern, quite apart from the many cases that have already been settled.

http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2010/08/09/now-we-have-real-evidence-%E2%80%93-sexual-abuse-is-not-a-%E2%80%98catholic-problem%E2%80%99/

“according to Dr Thomas Plante of Stanford University and Santa Clara University, “available research suggests that approximately two to five per cent of priests have had a sexual experience with a minor” which “is lower than the general adult male population” – in which the percentage of those who have interfered with minors “is best estimated to be closer to eight per cent”. In other words, children who have anything to do with priests are between 1.6 and four times LESS likely to be abused by them than by anyone else.”

Interesting, The incidence of child abuse is actually less amongst the clergy than it is amongst the general population. Anyone got any statistics for muslim imams or jewish rabbis? I assume that if islam and judaism had as bad or a worse record on child abuse than the catholic church, nitwit Hari would be shouting through his megaphone at them? No? didn’t think so. Catholic church don’t do fatwas so the hypocrite can hyper-ventilate at them all he likes.

Some FACTS on the matter: -

http://www2.ed.gov/rschstat/research/pubs/misconductreview/report.pdf

@13 The Twats

Yes we are well fucking aware that child abuse happens outside the Catholic Church, the difference is of course that those perpetrators tend to get prosecuted once those crimes come to the attention of someone in a position to raise the alarm. The RCC on the other hand hushed everything up and shuffled the perpetrators on to newer pastures, with new victims. THAT is the problem people have, stop being obtuse.

14 clux

Well said!

Why is it that some people of faith automatically feel the need to deflect any criticism of their chosen belief system on issues such as these, rather than demonstrate some contrition, or show how they are trying to improve things or lobby their faith of choice to make full disclosure, co-operate fully with the authorities and make recompense to the victims?

It’s a tactic we see all too often: no expressions of regret for the terrible crimes, or for the role of their faith group covering matters up or delaying investigations. Instead we get denial there is a problem, or deflection like that exhibited by “the facts” in post 13 above.

We are supposed to feel sorry for the poor benighted organisation for being unjustly attacked, or believe that they are being unfairly singled out for sectarian motives, or indeed that it was all the fault of the permissive society (the gays dun it) or a sinister conspiracy (the Masons dun it… yes Cardinal Hoyos, we are looking at you!). No doubt if some felt they could get away with it the Jews would have been held responsible.

Thankfully the obfuscation and special pleading just doesn’t work anymore. It may come too late for many of the victims, but let us not forget that for many in faith groups the light of inquiry is an unwelcome friend.

[9] let’s imagine YOU are the man – perhaps casually puffing on a cigar while contentedly surveying the opulence of the papal palaces?

Your reverie is disturbed by news that a group of strident atheists in the third world (aka Britain) are about to again draw attention to the abuse of THOUSANDs of children on your watch.

Surely the best response would have been an unequivocal, open and detailed statement demonstrating how strenuous efforts were made to protect all of those in your care (and by that I mean vulnerable children, not priests).

Yet nobody from the upper echelon of the RCC has had the courage to do this. Surely such an approach would have been far more convincing than merely groveling?
Or when the pontiff described these cases as ‘unspeakable crimes’ was he speaking literally rather than metaphorically?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-11357165

No but you see, the Catholic Church simply cannot be guilty of covering up decades of systematic child abuse. The Catholic Church itself told me so! What have you got to say about that, smartarse?

[17] “What have you got to say about that, smartarse?” – well that’s the largely irrelevant, isn’t it?

The important question is whether or not the RCC did enough to either prevent or atone for the crimes carried out under the Rat’s watch?
Come to think about it, is enough being done to weed out today’s predatory priests, or is the relentless obfuscation set to continue?

18

The answer as to whether the RCC did enough under then Cardinal Ratzinger is probably no, despite their increasingly hysterical attempts to re-write history now that he his Pope. It is interesting that in their treatment of Cardinal Hoyos, the church has been seen to have thrown him under a bus, even by some of the Catholic media, in an attempt to shield the current and previous Pope from being compromised.

It is possible to make an argument, which is being strongly promoted by the RCC, that Ratzinger improved matters in his time as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) by centralising the handlling of such cases in Rome. The Vatican spokesperson Fr Federico Lombardi reacting directly to (and within days of) the scandal over Hoyos’ letter in April 2010 was quite specific that it was:

“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.”

It is also arguable however that the unification was aimed at preventing local church organisations from settling cases “in-country”, and preventing the full facts coming out by losing them in the Byzantine papal bureaucracy.

It is difficult not to agree with the conclusions of John Allen in his piece in the National Catholic Reporter on 23rd April 2010:

“From here on out, when spokespersons insist that Pope Benedict fought inside the Vatican for reform, the world will have a much clearer picture of what his opposition looked like. At stake wasn’t just the question of cooperation with the police. Castrillón was part of a block of Vatican officials who thought the sex abuse crisis was fueled by media hysteria, that “zero tolerance” was an over-reaction, and that removing priests from ministry without lengthy and cumbersome canonical trails is a betrayal of the church’s legal tradition.

That’s important to keeping the record straight, because the truth is that the real choice in Rome over the last ten years vis-à-vis the sex abuse crisis was never between Ratzinger and perfection — it was between Ratzinger and Castrillón.”

(see: http://ncronline.org/blogs/all-things-catholic/cardinal-castrillon-must-feel-trapped)

[19] – oh, it’s the oldest trick in the book, tie the problem up in a multi-layered and complex process (preferably with key protagonists in distant locations).

How can there ever be any personal culpability in this kind of Kafkaesque world? Who even has the time or energy to follow such a labrythine trail, apart from some of the victims of course?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aq0lZ57AdWU

“Yes we are well fucking aware that child abuse happens outside the Catholic Church, the difference is of course that those perpetrators tend to get prosecuted once those crimes come to the attention of someone in a position to raise the alarm. The RCC on the other hand hushed everything up and shuffled the perpetrators on to newer pastures, with new victims. THAT is the problem people have, stop being obtuse.”

“Obtuse”, that’s rich. I cited a paper PROVING that the incidence of child abuse amongst the clergy is less than amongst the general population, what have you got, indignant, impotent outrage? Where is your proof that perpetrators of other faiths “tend” to get prosecuted more?

In fact, where is your proof that Rabbis and Imams aren’t indeed far worse in their child abuse record?

I’m no fan of the catholic church, I think they should be brought to task for their abuses. What I object to is the double standard that people like you apply to them. Sheikh Abdul Rahman Al-Sudais visited the UK last year and not one of you intellectual hypocrites were there to protest nor even raised a shout on this forum, here are a few choice quotes from him: -

“History of Jews is full of deception, trickery, rebellion, oppression, evil and corruption. They always seek to cause mischief on the earth and Allaah loves not the mischief-makers.”

“Read the history to know that yesterday’s Jews are evil predecessors and today’s Jews are worse successors. They an ingrate people, they altered God’s words, worshipped calf, killed Messengers and denied their Messages. They are exiled people and the worst of mankind. Allaah cursed them and cast His wrath upon them. He turned some of them to monkeys and pigs and worshippers of creatures. They are worst in position and are astray from the right path”

“The history of the (Jewish) people is written in black ink, and has included a series of murders of the prophets, the Mujaheedin, and righteous people. Oh Sons of brave Mujaheedin…You have revived the hopes of this nation through your blessed Jihad”

Can you imagine the protests if the pope had said that???

Here’s a few child abusing imams for you : -

http://www.thisisstaffordshire.co.uk/news/Imam-accused-child-sex-offences/article-1819964-detail/article.html

http://www.typicallyspanish.com/news/publish/article_25044.shtml

http://patdollard.com/2008/02/imam-investigated-as-serial-pedophile/

Rabbinical sexual misconduct is no less widespread, here is a long, long depressing list of cases of clergy abuse: -

http://100777.com/node/463

Come on man, I’ll get right behind you on the Catholic thing if you’ll acknowledge that all these religions should be EQUALLY condemned, I can’t stand shoulder to shoulder with people who can condemn the pope in the foulest, basest, irreverent language possible but not even bat an eyebrow at someone who says “all” Jews are “monkeys and pigs”. If you can’t see the moral hypocrisy of that position then I despair for you.

20

Indeed, it is truly horrifying. The more I’ve looked into the Hoyos letter affair, (my interest really only began with exchanges on threads in here with some of those in total denial that there was anything to link Ratzinger with any wrong doing, and that of course it was all a sinister anti-Catholic conspiracy, and LC had a double standard etc., etc.. usual nonsens to deflect attention from the real issue) the more incredulous I’ve become at the reaction of the RCC to these issues.

Hoyos is a case in point. One of the most senior cardinals, once regarded as a possible Pope, who not only congratulated the French bishop for not handing over a known paedophile, but subsequently implicated JPII in approving the contents of the letter and encouraging him to distribute it worldwide, then blamed the Masons (honestly, you couldn’t make this up) for orchestrating anti-Catholic media campaigns about the scandal.

Of course, perhaps we shouldn’t expect too much from a Cardinal who was instrumental in allowing infamous holocaust denier and former excommunicate Bishop Williamson “back into the fold”, despite his refusal to unequivocally renounce his views.

Plus ca change…?

Thing is, if you attack the Pope Catholics aren’t going to like you. Veneration of the dude is – well – fairly important to them, and they’re liable to find concern more frustrating than venom.

23

So we’re supposed to pussyfoot around them and not upset their delicate sensibilities? Isn’t it that over deferential attitude that got them (and us) into this mess in the first place?

I’m heartily sick of the apologists for the continual foot dragging and obfuscation of the RCC playing the sectarian card. The knee jerk reaction is that any criticism is suspect because it’s motivation is anti-Catholic and/or resulting from a double standard which deals more harshly with the sins of the RCC than with the sins of other faiths or secular bodies.

We’ve seen plenty of evidence from people posting in here, and there is even more in the cyber universe of course. What I find particularly hard to stomach is not only the fact they are so deluded as to believe all the guff about it being an anti-Catholic sectarian conspiracy, but the fact they seem more energised about that than about the crimes themselves, getting to the bottom of them, and taking measures to ensure they don’t continue and can’t be repeated.

Galen 10 and others

Hari is quoted in the OP as saying that the Pope is a a man who covered up the rape of thousands of children of Catholics.

This is an extremely serious charge. But there is no evidence to support it. Resistor and others here in the past have pointed out that the document (Crimen Sollicitationes) that is frequently brandished as being “proof” of Vatican participation in a cover-up is no such thing. The proper meaning and purpose of that document has been explained over and over again.

Nor is there any other evidence that the Vatican “covered-up” or had a policy of covering-up complaints of child abuse/rape.

There is evidence, however, that in a number of countries individual bishops did, on occasion, transfer priests against whom complaints had been made rather than suspend them. And there is evidence that in some cases information that should have been given to the Police was not.

But there is no evidence that such negligence was the norm, or that it was sanctionned by higher authority. The Pope (and the last Pope too) have made very clear their regret that some Bishops behaved in this way and let victims down. They have apologized on behalf of the institution. And in all cases that I know of, the offending bishop has been made to take early retirement.

Most of these instances where priests were transferred instead of being properly investigated date back to the 1970s. During the past 10-15 years the Catholic bishops in most of the countries affected have introduced stringent Nolan-type rules to ensure that the Police are brought in to investigate.

It’s hard to see what else the Church, and especially this Pope (who insisted on these changes himself when he was running the Holy Office) have yet to do.

@25

And in all cases that I know of, the offending bishop has been made to take early retirement

That’s alright, then.

…

@25

I think your wasting your time with this sort of reasoning sir, the mob has spoken and has mobilised it’s pitchforks, facts and reason only get in the way. They will only be appeased by a public burning.

The pope should convert to Islam, he could do whatever he wanted then.

@27

You’re right, of course. Child abuse (and the covering-up of such crimes) is no reason for people to get angry. They should just accept what the Church has to say and let that be the end of the matter. Why are they so pissy anyway? It was a long time ago after all. Oh and [insert anti-Islamic/Jewish statement here] of course.

*Puts down pitchfork, dusts off rosaries*

25

The fact that things have improved from the previous terrible state of affairs is some comfort no doubt, but it’s no reason to be as apparently sanguine as you are about the current state of affairs.

There is a wealth of evidence out there about those who are now high up in the clergy (not just in the RCC) who failed to act when they had a moral duty to do so. There are certainly lots of questions about the current Pope’s approach to cases in Germany when he was a cardinal. Even if it is the case that people like Ratzinger were not directly responsible, they were certainly in positions of authority in bodies which were renowned for dragging their feet, “losing” information and taking years to bring cases to a close.

Even where apparent successes are trumpeted (such as the centralisation of cases in Rome discussed earlier), the motives are often open to considerable debate, as any cursory review of the reaction to this measure will show even amongst the Catholic media.

24 -

No, I’m saying that Hari should dispense with his “appeal[s] to Britain’s Catholics“. It just reads like concern trolling.

21

“Come on man, I’ll get right behind you on the Catholic thing if you’ll acknowledge that all these religions should be EQUALLY condemned, I can’t stand shoulder to shoulder with people who can condemn the pope in the foulest, basest, irreverent language possible but not even bat an eyebrow at someone who says “all” Jews are “monkeys and pigs”. If you can’t see the moral hypocrisy of that position then I despair for you.”

What sort of a moral position IS that exactly?

You appear to be saying that you’re NOT going to “get right behind” the previous poster unless he accepts that all religions should be equally condemned when their adherents are found to be guilty of such crimes.

I doubt anyone on LC would have any problems condemning people of any faith (or indeed of no faith) who commit such atrocious acts against children. As was pointed out to you above, even if your evidence is true, the fact that rates of abuse are higher in the outside world is not what was under discussion: you were using it as a deliberate distraction from the issue under discussion, which related to the Roman Catholic Church.

Stop the special pleading. It’s no sort of answer, still less excuse, to try and diminsh the culpability of one group by concentrating on the sins of others.

27

Honestly, where do you and the other apologists for the Catholic church get this fixation that if it were Moslems doing it, nobody on here would mind?

Are you so totally divorced from reality by your sense of Catholic guilt that you think those outside your faith have no morality, or that morality is only possible for “people of the book”?

I doubt the good folks on the LC site, or those who agree with Mr Hari will be burning anyone at the stake anytime soon…. tho given the history of the various Christian churches (*caveat, this criticism does not serve to absolve or denigrate the penchant for other faith groups to be equally psychotic), you would probably be wise not to throw stones in your glass house.

Yes the rally had all the trappings of a lynch mob with caricatures of the pope hanging from nooses.

As for it not being anti-Catholic, a trawl the photos on Flickr revealed the usual men dressed as nuns (what’s that about?) and at least two banners with the message ‘Fuck the Pope’.

For the ignorant, this is a slogan which precedes a catholic getting beaten up in Glasgow or fire-bombed out of their home in Belfast.

e.g.

‘http://www.flickr.com/photos/russell-higgs/5002083450/

and from

http://citynoise.org/article/737

‘Wee Mackey…D.Coy..2nd Batt: 15th Feb 2006 – 22:19 GMT

most of the taigs i know want to be british.. Yet some say they want a united Ireland… As long as we have our Super UFF we will mantain our civil libertys and serve the Queen as our fathers and grandfathers did…Thank-God we had Cromwell and parliment.. God save the Queen and fuck the pope and all his pedophlie preists….’

The Hari supporters here have repeated his response to reasoned debate,

http://dolphinarium.blogspot.com/2010/03/johann-haris-rude-and-bigoted-reply-to.html

‘One reader had the effrontery to contact Hari asking him politely whether he’d withdraw some of the wilder statements in his column. The reader included quotations from Crimen sollicitationis, which Hari in his column quite madly claimed “order[ed] bishops to swear the victims to secrecy and move the offending priest on to another parish”.

The reader also pointed out inter alia that “there is absolutely no proscription in any document on reporting any case of abuse to the civic authorities by anyone?” and argued not unreasonably that, “de delictis gravioribus is a direct action by the then Cardinal Ratzinger TO PREVENT diocesan cover-ups of sexual abuse cases – rather every detail of said crimes were to be reported to Rome – with consequent MANDATORY reporting to the civic authorities of said offences where it is the law; and recommended reporting where it is not?”

Hari’s reply was spat out:

“What rubbish. “No proscriptions” on reporting the facts? It says they should be dealt with in ‘the utmost secrecy’!
Shame on you for supporting this filth.
I get over 200 emails a day. I’m not really inclined to spend my time engaging with paedophile-defenders like – as you put it – “His Holiness.”
I hope one day you have an awareness of the despicable and evil crime you are defending, and apologize to the victims. You can reply to this but I won’t read it. I have better things to do.” ‘

Even people living in Dubai question Hari’s truthfulness

http://dubaithoughts.blogspot.com/2009/04/most-vitriolic-piece-on-dubai-so-far.html

‘It’s biased, has no balance, has plenty of inaccuracies. It raises some valid points about things that need attention – treatment of labourers, bankruptcy laws, enforcement of the laws and the like. But to get those points across he crosses the line of responsible journalism.

It’s so full of highly doubtful and downright untrue claims that it detracts from the the important issues he talks about.’

Just like the real problem of child abuse in the church.

@33

Sigh. The “Fuck the Pope” slogan was not a hark to the violence in Ireland (I forget, were there atheists involved in the Troubles?) – as very clearly was shown it was a joke with the punchline being “but use a condom”. Because the Pope is against the use of condoms, even to stop the spread of AIDS. He’s weird like that :S

You might as well say anyone who says “Fuck the police” is giving a ringing endorsement to the work of rap artistes NWA.

Also : equating atheist protests & criticisms with anti-Catholic violence in Ireland is pretty fucking low – although seeing as his “Holiness” equated atheism with Nazism the other day it’s hardly surprising to see his apologists follow suit.

[33] JH may be suspect but in what way does that detract from accusations that catholic priests abused many thousands of children, or that the subsequent investigation process was badly flawed (if we allow the most generous interpretation of the non-action that eshewed)?

First you were babbling on about ‘muslims’ now it’s demonstrators, or individual commentators (like JH) – this is akin to the kind of DENIAL that must have existed on the Rat’s watch when word of ‘unspeakable crimes’ first began to surface?

What’s all this fuss about? People have the right to protest about anything they like (so long as it is done peacefully – see what happens if you joke about shooting the Pope!), regardless of whether it is hypocritical, selective or ill-informed. So Mr Hari and friends were perfectly correct to protest, regardless of how correct their information or cause might be. And commentators here can chose to believe various interpretations or not (although it would be nice if some of them actually read what the other side were saying rather than what they thought they were saying). The joys of freedom – something can be provably wrong (or right) and still be believed (or ignored).

Although to be honest I do wonder how much Mr Hari understands about Catholicism if he thinks that criticising the Pope (God’s vicar on earth apparently, thanks to some great propogranda work by early Bishops of Rome) is pro-Catholic. He may not understand how religion works that well – blind faith and all of that?

33

If you want a good example of the double-think and culture of denial in the RCC look no further than the response to the affair of the Hoyos letter.

It was pointed out that the CDF, then headed by Cardinal Ratzinger, had earlier issued an instruction that urged bishops in countries where the law obliges them to report knowledge of sexual crimes against children to civil authorities, to follow the law. (This was the case in France where the crimes referred to in the Hoyos letter had taken place). This seems eminently sensible, and indeed something the Cardinal could take credit for.

However, Monsignor Scicluna somewhat rained on the parade by confirming that in countries where no such law existed (and there are many) “we do not force bishops to denounce their own priests, but encourage them to contact the victims and invite them to denounce the priests by whom they have been abused.”

So that’s alright then…. It’s the victims responsibility!

Bear in mind also that Cardinal Hoyos is on record as insisting that the late Pope JPII specifically approved of the contents of his letter to Bishop Picard, and furthermore encouraged him to distribute it to Catholic bishops worldwide. If true this means JPII must have considered the earlier CDF instruction unimportant. If it is untrue, why has Hoyos not been slapped down by the Vatican for making the accusation?

When Hoyos made his allegation about JPII’s involvement, and defended the letter he sent (at a conference at the Catholic University in Murcia, Spain in April 2010) the audience which included 2 Cardinals applauded! Hoyos also claimed that Bishop Picard was right to refuse to inform on the child molester because he learnt of it under seal of confession, a claim which was wrong on 2 counts: the Bishop heard of the abuse outside the confessional, and even if he had French law excludes crimes committed against minors from recognition as protected by the seal of the confessional.

There is also reason to doubt Ratzinger’s sincerity on this issue, since the man he created Cardinal and Vatican Secretary of State, Tarcisio Bertone, told the Italian Catholic Monthly 30 Giorni in Feb. 2002 shortly after the CDF instruction was issued that:

“It seems to me that there is no basis for demanding that a bishop, for example, be obliged to turn to civil magistrates and denounce a priest that has confided in him to have committed the crime of pedophilia,”

Oh really?

So in fact there IS no compulsion as far as the Vatican is concerned in the CDF guidance about handing over child molesters.

Now tell me again how successfully the Catholic church has dealt with the issue.

37

Apologies for leaving out the attribution for much of the information above:

http://blog.beliefnet.com/roddreher/2010/04/cardinal-john-paul-approved-of-cover-up.html#ixzz10AZhkX1Q

Here’s another Fuck the Pope banner

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimshannon/5004674937/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/andrewlevey/5004298869/

a banner with a depiction of the pope as a satanic nazi

http://www.flickr.com/photos/notginger/5003560433/

Terry Sanderson of the National Secular Society on the platform
http://www.flickr.com/photos/andrewlevey/5004993524/
who said this,

http://www.secularism.org.uk/after-the-chesney-revelations-ir.html

‘For too long the Church has behaved like an arrogant, unaccountable arm of the government and of the law aided at every turn by a fifth column of Catholics whose primary, indeed seemingly only, loyalty is to their Church. ‘

Aha, Catholics as fifth columnists, disloyal to the state. I think I know exactly where these people are coming from, and its not a pro-Catholic position.

25 Gould

Let’s contrast your quote:

“But there is no evidence that such negligence was the norm, or that it was sanctionned by higher authority. The Pope (and the last Pope too) have made very clear their regret that some Bishops behaved in this way and let victims down. They have apologized on behalf of the institution. And in all cases that I know of, the offending bishop has been made to take early retirement.”

With this:

http://gawker.com/5578047/pope-failed-to-act-on-sex-abuse-allegations-despite-having-authority-to-do-so

Now tell us all again how vigilant and “on the ball” the Vatican were in relation to allegations of child abuse worldwide over decades.

39

So your point is that there are no circumstances in which the Catholic church has acted in this way? It has at all times behaved as what…?

A selfless, accountable arm of the government and law perhaps? Or an organ that has never been helped by the fact that every turn by a fifth column of Catholics whose primary, indeed seemingly only, loyalty is to their Church?

It’s the same tendentious nonsense: any criticism of the RCC (or other faiths to their many adherents) MUST be motivated by raging, sectarian, anti-Catholic bias musn’t it? Stands to reason we must be Orangemen, or Masons, or Gay or trendy lefty Grauniad readers.

It couldn’t possibly just be that we are just sick of the obfuscation, the lack of repentance, the continual attempts to downplay the scandals or blame the permissive society?

“It couldn’t possibly just be that we are just sick of the obfuscation, the lack of repentance, the continual attempts to downplay the scandals or blame the permissive society?”

And yet many of the same people who criticise the church support other large bodies such as the European Commission (or even areas of our own beloved state) which engage in similiar practices?

42

Eh? Where did that come from?

If and when we get reports of the European Commission or “areas of our own beloved state” (whatever that means!?) doing the same as the Catholic church, I’ll be in the front ranks of those giving them the kicking they would so richly deserve.

You are simply pandering to the apologists and deniers amongst Catholic ranks who seek to downplay the culpability of their own church with spurious arguments about “well, they are all at it, you know…”.

What kind of defence is that exactly? Yeah…that’s right..none.

Galen 10 @ 40

I have never argued that the Vatican was particularly “on the ball” in this matter. It did indeed leave this problem largely to diocesan bishops to sort out. That was probably a mistake – but an innocent one.

The fact that it did not centralize the issue makes me even more sceptical of the claims made by Hari etc. of some kind of deliberate conspiracy to cover up. Had the Vatican really wanted to keep everything secret, then allowing local bishops the lead role in dealing with abuse allegations wouldn’t have been the way to do that.

There’s no doubt that some bishops handled this very badly. But there is no evidence this Pope did. Indeed, once he took the lead role in dealing with the issue, the right things were done.

A lot of Hari’s stuff is downright misleading. Take what he writes about the Kiesle case.

<i

In the US in 1985, a group of American bishops wrote to Ratzinger begging him to defrock a priest called Father Stephen Kiesle, who had tied up and molested two young boys in a rectory. Ratzinger refused for years, explaining that he was thinking of the "good of the universal Church" and of the "detriment that granting the dispensation can provoke among the community of Christ's faithful, particularly considering the young age" of the priest involved. He was 38. He went on to rape many more children.

Sounds awful. But what Hari doesn’t tell us is that Kiesle was arrested, charged and convicted of his crimes in 1978. And from the time of his arrest was removed from the ministry of the church and never restored to it.

So – police involved from the outset…. and priest under suspension from the get go. Kiesle himself had asked to be laicized after his conviction. Ratzinger’s delay was not in keeping him away from parish duties, or in informing the police, but merely in deciding whether to allow him to quit the priesthood (which like marriage is supposed to be forever).

Hari suggests that Ratzinger’s inaction was what allowed Kiesle to rape more kids. But there’s no evidence for this.

Kiesle did indeed rape more kids – after he was thrown out of the Church in 1987. Kiesle has been charged with numerous abuse cases from the 70s and further abuse cases committed in 1995 (8 years after he left the Church) and frankly it looks as if the only period he was NOT abusing kids was that time in the mid 80s that Ratzinger was considering his case.

44

Did you actually bother to read the gawker info referred to @40?

Hardly seems to suggesnt the current Pope was in the van of a full on charge does it? There is ample evidence that the current Pope when still a Cardinal was just as dilatory as many of his colleagues, and significant questions as to how involved he was in the Hoyos affair.

Galen10,

Whilst I’ve seen no evidence to show Pope Benedict XVI was involved directly in anything criminal, I have no liking for the Catholic hierarchy, which (despite generally being clean shaven nowadays) comes under my general heading of ‘old men with beards’ – people whose rise to power is based on age, adherence to tradition over anything else and the ability to grow a beard. But the Catholic church is also above all else a bureaucracy, and by the nature of unchecked bureaucracy it practices lack of repentance, attempts to downplay scandals and parcels out the blame (note I was not referring to child abuse in this case – the first EU issue that comes to mind is the budget for example). It is this I find intriguing – keen supporters of other bureaucracies attack the Catholic church for exactly the same sort of bureaucratic reaction that the others also make.

The examples cited above of muslim and jewish misdeeds are misleading in this respect, as neither is a particularly hierarchical religion, so incidents there are localised and not related to the religion as a whole (albeit in some cases there are widespread abuses because of the same religious conditions). Catholicism however is monolithic in a way very comparable to governments and international organisations, and like these its first reaction is defensive and internally-focussed. I just find it odd that this behaviour can be identified in say HMRC (not appologising for mistakes – a much smaller sin but in a much smaller organisation (and to be clear, I am talking about bureaucratic reactions, not the original problem here)) equally much as the Catholic church.

In all honesty, I would prefer to see the Catholic church attacked for being a perscriptive and misleading religion – its attitudes towards sexual issues are preserved from various reactionary moments from the tenth century onwards for example – rather than over particular scandals which are not indicative of the whole religion but rather of particular sections of the bureaucracy. If you want to attack a religion, don’t pussyfoot round the edges on what is in effect something that is not core to that religion (for all those who may have a loose grip on reality, Catholicism regards paedophilia as a sin, not as something to be expected). Just attack them as pushing lies written hundreds of years ago (rarely thousands though – a key point people forget) and promoting an archaic form of society, which need not even be the only interpretation of their holy book. Or just point and laugh – that seems to be doing the job on Anglicanism quite well…

And after my last post, a slight defence of Catholicism.

It is worth noting that the Catholic church has a lot of rules – it is not an absolute monarchy. One of the key rules is that although the Pope is first amongst equals among bishops, his ability to intervene in others’ dioceses is limited to appeals and certain matters. Discipline of clergy is a particular issue, because this is the responsibility primarily of bishop and archbishop, and therefore Vatican intervention is limited unless one party or the other involves them. So where a priest has sinned, it is for the bishop to take action, not the Pope or his cardinals – hence the lack of action. This is not to excuse a lack of guidance, but to point out that by church law the current Pope has limited power (and as a cardinal had limited power) to act.

The rule of law can be an irritating thing, especially when the laws themselves date back to the Roman Empire, but there you go.

The Italian police are obviously getting in on the sectarianism.

By Guy Dinmore in Rome

Published: September 21 2010 15:25 | Last updated: September 21 2010 15:25

Italy’s finance police have seized €23m held by the Vatican in an Italian bank while Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, the pope’s top banker, has been placed under investigation for suspected money laundering.

Police confirmed Italian media reports that they had confiscated the funds held by the Institute for Religious Works (IOR) – the Vatican’s bank – in an account at Credito Artigiano, an Italian bank, following suspicions raised by the Bank of Italy over two attempted transfers.

Mr Tedeschi, formerly Bank Santander’s head of operations in Italy and a professor of ethical finance, was appointed head of IOR a year ago. According to sources close to the Vatican, one of his main mandates was to bring the bank in line with international norms and regulations on tax havens and money laundering.

The Vatican expressed its full confidence in Mr Gotti Tedeschi. In a statement it expressed surprise at the investigation and said it remained committed to financial transparency.

The Credito Valtellinese group, which owns Credito Artigiano, said it had no comment.

According to the Italian media reports, the central bank raised concerns last Wednesday over two attempted transfers of Vatican funds, totalling €23m, from its account at Credito Artigiano to unnamed beneficiaries at JP Morgan Frankfurt and Banca del Fucino.

The investigation is being led by magistrates in Rome.

Originally founded in 1887 and housed within a medieval bastion within the Vatican, IOR was thrown into crisis following the suspected murder of Roberto Calvi, director of Banco Ambrosiano who was found hanging from London’s Blackfriars bridge in June 1982.

The Vatican was a major shareholder in Banco Ambrosiano and invoked a treaty that gave it immunity from Italian investigations. In 1984 the Vatican denied all wrongdoing but IOR paid $244m to creditors of the collapsed bank in exchange for the dropping of further claims against the Vatican.

Angelo Caloia, Mr Gotti Tedeschi’s predecessor, was appointed in 1989 in an attempt to restore IOR’s health and credibility, but in the early 1990s its activities once again came under scrutiny during the so-called Enimont corruption trial involving Italian officials. IOR co-operated with the investigation and was not prosecuted.

IOR, which does not publish its accounts, is believed by bankers to hold assets of some $5bn. It is overseen by five key cardinals, has no shareholders and its profits are used for charitable purposes. Mr Caloia said two years ago the bank had not invested in derivatives and had survived the global crisis through prudent management.

46

I think you are kinda missing the point.

I’m more than happy to point and laugh, and attack Catholics and all the other theists on the basis of the inherent absurdities of their chosen delusion. If all this was about was an intellectual jousting match about whether Catholicism (or any other religion) was actually any less ridiculous than belief in the Flying Spaghetti Monster, then we could all just have a laugh about it and go down the pub for a drink afterwards.

The fact that we all know individual people of faith who are wonderful people, or that their organizations do some great work, is not some “get out of jail free” card for the baleful, negative, and often frankly evil aspects of their beliefs or policies.

What many people find hard to take about this particular issue is the fact that an organisation which affects to be morally superior has colluded in covering these matters up. It had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century before it lived up to the responsibilities it owed victims of abuse.

Attacking the church for being a prescriptive and misleading religion…why yes, by all means. That doesn’t mean we should let them off the hook for their manifest failures to combat the abuse of minors however, or that we should accept the whiney apologia that it’s all a vicious sectarian plot and a double standard applies.

47

I refer you to the above post and the gawker article linked in it which contains this quote:

“Ratzinger was named prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 1983. Papal instructions from 1922 gives that office “sole responsibility for deciding cases of priests accused of particularly heinous offenses: solicitation of sex during confession, homosexuality, pedophilia and bestiality.” (Always nice to see homosexuality right there next to pedophilia and bestiality, isn’t it? No, wait, not “nice.” “Awful.”) Ratzinger was aware of those instructions (which were contradicted by canon law from 1983), according to Archbishop Philip Wilson, who says he discussed them with Ratzinger’s office.”

For another great example of Vatican handling of an abuse case in Arizona, try:

http://reform-network.net/?p=4359

Galen10,

I just think the fact we are concentrating on a sideshow, rather than major problems with the religion is a huge boost for the Vatican (perhaps it would be best to seperate the bureaucracy from the faith?) as this will pass, and they will eventually bring in measures to deal with it. And they can stand alongside you and me in abhorence at the practise, whilst hiding behind rules and procedures to explain why it was dealt with so badly. Limited damage on something like this now can be repaired – if you have a problem with the old men with beards (and, presumably in my analysis, clipboards) then attack what they hold up as pillars of the faith.

My point about other bureaucracies is just partially frustration about the selective attention the Vatican receives (OK – the crimes here are pretty horrendous, so maybe I should account for that – although the UN seems to get away with similiar more easily?), and partially my normal habit of trying to frame issues differently – so the comparison is not religions but bureaucracies and how they deal with problems. I think it makes the whole thing a bit more comprehensible, if no more creditable.

Oh, and the more I think on this, the more I think Mr Hari was talking nonsense. He may not be anti-Catholic in the sense of discriminatory thoughts, but he is in no way pro-Catholic. Since his beliefs in this are seemingly much the same as mine, a bit more straightforward honesty would be good.

52

I’ve no particular liking for Hari either, and perhaps his approach is a tad over the top and counter productive, but I still think you are barking up the wrong tree.

The abuse scandals have hit the Catholic church hard, particulalrly in N. America and Europe. It’s partly financial of course, but also the damage to reputation and moral authority. The German church is also losing a lot as people opt out of paying their optional local tithe: press reports indicate it has reached crisis proportions both financially and in terms of membership.

It’s also hard to see how the church heirarchy can square the recent reports about how few UK catholics accept basic church teaching about birth control and female priests.

I fail to see how you can regard this as a slideshow. It’s not the only thing damaging the church, but it has to be one of the most serious.

Enough already!

Come on your LC’ers – haven’t we done this issue to death already?
Bringing in Hari adds nothing new at all- what was the point?

There are loads of other things that would be worth an LC consideration.

How about this – Jastor Jones the whacko that didn’t deserve a lot of airtime, but got it here on LC:

The police now intend to bill him $180,000 for security services. Says CNN: http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/09/17/florida.quran.pastor/index.html?iref=allsearch

That’s worth a thread on LC isn’t it?

Is it fair for some one threatened with violence, having comitted no violence themselves, to not expect the protection of the state?
When other countries leaders threaten me with violence – shouldn’t my country defend me?

If I need hospitalition because of m crazy mountain-climbing hobby…should I not get it on the NHS – is there a parallel there or not?

Over to you guys to discuss… but please no more rehashing of the same views on Catholic / paedophilia

And one question Sunny

If I were to email you a potential piece for LC – would you consider it?

I’m just an anonymous commentor here I know – not a prestigious blogger.

But has my input to date, earned me any credibility with you?

Or this could be of interest to some folks to discuss: that the King of Bahrain has no problem suggesting that mosques can be a force for unrest and dissent.

Image the fall-out if Cameron or Obama said that!

http://hosted2.ap.org/AZMES/140fe8300e9c43bab097b794ca7594c6/Article_2010-09-20-ML-Bahrain-Crackdown/id-eae666c72f854bd0a4d4eeec45896e58

BAGHDAD (AP) — Bahrain’s king warned that mosques would be key targets in sweeps against suspected Shiite dissent in his tiny Gulf nation and vital U.S. ally.
The first blow was a big one: stripping the citizenship of a powerful Shiite cleric with close ties to Iraq before next month’s parliamentary elections…Ayatollah Hussein al-Najati — the Bahraini representative of Iraq’s most powerful Shiite figure

A Sunni opposing Shiites? Why, that’s almost as surprising as a Protestant opposing Catholics…

@21 The Twats

“Obtuse”, that’s rich. I cited a paper PROVING that the incidence of child abuse amongst the clergy is less than amongst the general population, what have you got, indignant, impotent outrage? Where is your proof that perpetrators of other faiths “tend” to get prosecuted more?

In fact, where is your proof that Rabbis and Imams aren’t indeed far worse in their child abuse record?

For a start you cited a paper which only covered American educators, you see Table 7, page 24 a full 100% of sexual offenders is achieved without any of the perpetrators being identified as priests. This is due to priests not working in the American School system. So using that as guidance you end up with a full 0% of sexual child abuse being committed by priests. Well done, PROBLEM SOLVED! Course that’s what you get from absorbing your opinion from a clearly non-biased news source like the Catholic Herald…

Quite why you don’t want to be accurately described as obtuse is beyond me, also how in the nine hells am I supposed to prove that Rabbis and Imams aren’t far worse? Do you even know how proving things works? Am I to collect the full vast hordes of people whom have been tutored by Rabbis and Imams across the world and get them all to shout in unison “I wasn’t diddled by those men!”? Would you like me to get you the Moon on a stick while I’m at it?

@54

Who appointed you thread monitor? If you want to start a discussion go right ahead. In the meantime stop whingeing and diverting the current thread.

58 Cylux

Hear hear! This kind of diversionary tactic is all too common amongst the apologists for the Church sadly.

@58

Idiot.

61 “the facts”

Is that REALLY the best you can do? Truly?

Somebody calls you out on your tendentious earlier posts, and the best you can come up with in response is “idiot”?

No wonder the Catholic church is in trouble with such erudite defenders fighting their corner!

Galen 10 @ 45

Did you actually bother to read the gawker info referred to @40

Yes, it was another largely irrelevant piece of nit-picking about which group of clerical bureaucrats had lead responsibility for exercising internal Church disciplinary powers and on which date they were given it.

Sure, the Church and perhaps even Ratzinger may have been dilatory in their consideration of when and whom to laicise or prosecute under cannon law etc. But this has nothing to do with “covering-up” sex abuse, let alone a Vatican-led conspiracy to cover-up these crimes.

Instead of hair-splitting about the efficiency of the Church’s internal disciplinary procedures (which in any case tend to be initiated AFTER a criminal conviction), those claiming there was a conspiracy to cover-up should point to any cases where bishops or the Vatican actually prevented the Police from investigating a valid complaint or where they put pressure on the victim or the victim’s family to stay silent. That is “covering-up”.

Cases where the Church is supposed to have obtained knowledge of offences via Confession aren’t really helpful.

Can you point to any series of cases – not involving breach of the oath of secrecy of the confessional – where the Vatican deliberately impeded the investigation of complaints of child sexual abuse by the police or tried to intimidate victims into remaining silent?

63

I will restrict this response specifically to the “secrets confessional” defence, as it simply isn’t valid in this case.

You said: “Cases where the Church is supposed to have obtained knowledge of offences via Confession aren’t really helpful.”

Like many others, I don’t accept that hiding behind the confessional is a legitimate excuse for failing to inform the authorities about a child rapist.
I suspect few people except convinced Catholics would. Hoyos tried (in his Murcia speech in April 2010) to justify his sickening letter of congratulation to Bishop Picard at least in part by claiming it was subject to confessional secrecy.

There are however two major problems with this (even if you are willing to accept the principle that confessional secrecy justifies Picard’s actions).

Firstly, French law (which covered the case at point in the letter) does not accept that the secrecy of the confessional extends to crimes against minors. So even if Picard had heard of the abuse in confession, he was under a legal obligation to tell the authorities. The Vatican via the CDF has specifically ordained that where such a national legal obligation exists, it should be obeyed. This makes Hoyos’ letter even more suspect, as it flew in the face of a pre-existing instruction from the CDF.

Secondly, it wasn’t the case that Picard heard of the abuse under cover of the confessional at all : he learnt of it from the victims outside the confessional.

Of course it should also be bourne in mind that the CDF guidance about obeying national laws means that in countries where no specific law exists, a Bishop in this situation would be under no obligation as far as the Vatican is concerned to inform the authorities.

63

“Can you point to any series of cases – not involving breach of the oath of secrecy of the confessional – where the Vatican deliberately impeded the investigation of complaints of child sexual abuse by the police or tried to intimidate victims into remaining silent?”

That’s not exactly what was being discussed, tho I have no doubt a trawl thru t’interweb could come up with lots of things I could cut and paste. However, they wouldn’t “prove” anything, particulalry not in the eyes of those apologists for the Church who seem to think banging on about conspiracy theorists is actually more important than reforming the way the Church dealt and is dealing with these matters.

There are however large numbers of cases where the Vatican is on record as having dragged it’s feet, not informed local law enforcement, or given perpetrators an “easy out”. Just take the case of Father Marcial Maciel in Mexico… it’s not as if he was an isolated case.

“Is that REALLY the best you can do? Truly?

Somebody calls you out on your tendentious earlier posts, and the best you can come up with in response is “idiot”?

No wonder the Catholic church is in trouble with such erudite defenders fighting their corner!”

All you’ve done is obfuscate and misrepresent the data and arguments and spouted foul invective and anti-catholic bigotry. You are so biased on this issue that any kind of reasoned conversation with you is impossible. I can almost feel your bitterness and vile vitriol through your words you have typed on the keyboard. Your hate is potent.

I put it to you that you are nothing more than an anti-catholic bigot. You couldn’t care less about child abuse, you probably despise these Catholic children you champion as much as you despise everything else. You’re simply using the suffering of children as a convenient proxy to hammer your anti-establishment ideology.

For people like you all morality is viewed through the lense of “does it serve me or my ideology.” That is to say you have no morality.

In fact, let me clarify, you’re not an idiot, you’re a useful idiot.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot

I’ll leave you to your self-loathing, poisonous existence.

66

Ah yes, abuse..always the last refuge of someone who has lost the argument.

You haven’t presented any data or arguments worthy of misrepresenting.

Just another clueless apoligist and enabler who can’t accept any critcism of their church. Throwing the anti-catholic bigot epithet around is a sure sign of someone who isn’t open to reasoned debate: your mind is already closed, which is par for the course from anyone who believes in the supernatural.

Galen 10

I don’t accept that hiding behind the confessional is a legitimate excuse for failing to inform the authorities about a child rapist.

Fair enough, you’re not a Catholic. But for Catholics this is one of those absolutes. If a priest finds this obligation conflicts with the law, he should be willing to go to jail in the same way a good journo would go to jail rather than reveal his sources.

That’s not exactly what was being discussed…

Exactly my point. It’s what ought to be being discussed, but isn’t. You and many others around here spend an undue amount of time banging on about the Catholic Church’s internal disciplinary procedures and whether they are quick or efficient enough. I suspect you imperfectly understand them. I certainly don’t claim to understand them perfectly myself. But frankly, what relevance are they to the question whether the Pope helped cover-up thousands of rapes – as alleged by Johann Hari? “Cover-up” surely means stopping the police or other proper authorities from finding out about the abuse, or impeding their investigation. Nearly all the cases Hari and you cite in discussions about “cover-up” seem to have been very publicly known – sometimes for decades. Often they involve clergy who have been convicted in court. The “dilatory” behaviour you condemn Ratzinger for is more often than not associated with internal Church procedures long after the offending cleric has been publicly exposed, convicted and is already in prison. Hardly proof of any “cover-up”.

“66

Ah yes, abuse..always the last refuge of someone who has lost the argument.

You haven’t presented any data or arguments worthy of misrepresenting.

Just another clueless apoligist and enabler who can’t accept any critcism of their church. Throwing the anti-catholic bigot epithet around is a sure sign of someone who isn’t open to reasoned debate: your mind is already closed, which is par for the course from anyone who believes in the supernatural.”

What argument exactly are you talking about? You were the one who started with “the abuse” which by your own reasoning would suggest that you lost the argument straight away, recall “the twats”. It’s a bit rich to get all”abuse, you’ve lost the argument” after that.”Abuse” appears to be all you’ve got. All I can see in every post you’ve made is invective, you haven’t even acknowledged the basic point I was trying to make, that all child-abusers should be condemned equally, regardless of faith, which one would think would be a liberal axiom. This alone would suggest that you have an anti-catholic agenda. The fact that you also seem to assume that anyone who isn’t as rabidly anti-catholic as you are must somehow represent the Catholic church is suspect as well, and definitely indicative of bias.

Maybe you should try and get a seance going with your spiritual leader Karl Marx. Maybe he can come up with something a bit more substantial than your ad-hominem straw-man combos.

69

I think you’ll find it was another poster who introduced “the twats” epithet, and you’ve obviously confused me with him, which suggests you aren’t paying attention; the short attention span would of course explain your assumption that the documents you provided earlier “proved” anything.

I’m more than happy to condemn all child abusers, regardless of faith, so don’t try using that as a “get out”; your precious theory that I have an anti-Catholic agenda looks kind of weak – continual repetition doesn’t make it any more true.

It’s not an unreasonable assumption that many of the people who refuse to accept there is any issue here are practising Catholics, they certainly seem to be protective of the church to an extent which frequently borders on the obtuse (pace oldandrew in another thread). I’ve never said they represented the church.

Your assumption that Karl Mark is my “spiritual leader” is actually rather amusing, but has less to recommend it than the assumption (which I freely admit may have been slightly lazy of me) that those who see anti-Catholic bigotry everywhere may (shock horror) be Catholics, and uncritical toadies trying to bury the story. [Note for the hyper-sensitive: not all Catholics are uncritical toadies…but if the cap fits……]

68

As is often the case, you have singularly failed to address any of the substantive points, but that par for the course amongst defenders of the church it seems.

Perhaps Hari’s language IS incendiary, and some might argue it ought to be given the subject matter. I happen to think he’s a bit OTT, but the fact remains that there has been a lot of foot dragging and obfuscation over this issue. Many Catholics and even people in the Vatican would agree this is the case. The problem with the continued mantra “there is no proof” is that it is an unconvincing apologia for Ratzinger as a Cardinal, or indeed as Pope.

He doesn’t have to have been involved in “stopping the police or other proper authorities from finding out about the abuse, or impeding their investigation.” in your words for him to have significant questions still to answer, either as to his competence if he was unaware, or his courage if he was aware and did nothing.

Such flagrant actions wouldn’t be the only type of cover up! Yes Vatican procedures are Byzantine, but don’t expect us to let the church off the hook just on the basis that the procedures are arcane, whether deliberately or just because they are badly managed.

@69
You march in with a lofty name such as “The Facts”, then present a biased opinion piece based on faulty extrapolation from a paper that only narrowly concerned itself with child abuse within schools and expect your moniker to not be challenged?

You then further decided to dig yourself deeper by engaging in whataboutery with barely veiled sectarianism in regard to Jews and Muslims and posted links to stories of child molesters from their ranks. Who, it should be pointed out, weren’t being shielded from the secular authorities by the higher ups in their religious organisations, meaning that even with the “evidence” provided Judaism and Islam are STILL better at policing child abuse within their ranks than Catholicism.
Also I’d like to quote the opening statement from the page you linked to detailing the rabbinical cases of abuse:

More evidence that these people who claim to be Jews are God’s enemies and not His chosen people.

No anti-Semitism going on there. Nope. Not a one. Find paedos, make sweeping statement about the entirety of Jews, perfectly fine discourse.
For the BNP.

You then harped on about the rather pathetic canard that “lefties let Muslims do what they like” @27. Which is about as true as pots of gold at the end of rainbows.

If I can be accused of anything its of being right first time about you being obtuse and of treating you with the contempt you deserve.

BenSix 57

> A Sunni opposing Shiites? Why, that’s almost as surprising as a Protestant opposing Catholics…

The analogy is not there.

Unless you can show me cases right now where catholic (or protestant) leaders are suggesting sweeps of protestant (catholic) churches saying, like the King of Bahrain that they :

“can be a force for unrest and dissent” and that they would be “key targets in sweeps against suspected dissent “

Cylux

> You then harped on about the rather pathetic canard that “lefties let Muslims do what they like” @27. Which is about as true as pots of gold at the end of rainbows.

I’ve looked back at LC archives, and the numeric evidence is that it is true, that LC is extremely reluctant to criticise or ask anything remotely like a tough question of Islam.

Whereas the number of threads that ask very firm questions of christianity/the church, is much larger.

Fair cop – the Pope’s visit has put him and the catholics in the topical category recently.

But even so – take the recent mocking thread: “The conference that says the earth is flat!”
There has never been a similarly mocking piece about some Islamic whackos

Or the interest here about Pastor Jones – no similar pieces looking at Muslim whackos.

Check the LC archives for yourself.
Take eg – the question of women under Islam: LC is remarkably silent, despite the feminists who hang out here.

Look back a year or so and you’ll see people making really ridiculuous claims without any evidence at all -such as Jesus and Mohammed were equally violent.
Or the New Testament and the Qur’an advocate the same level of violence.

47,

“Papal instructions from 1922 gives that office “sole responsibility for deciding cases of priests accused of particularly heinous offenses: solicitation of sex during confession, homosexuality, pedophilia and bestiality.”

I hate to get involved as I get the impression from your posts that you have some kind of ongoing issue with me from when I challenged your conspiracy theory from a while back.

However, I would like to know where you got this quotation from the 1922 papal instructions from. I have searched the internet for it, but all I get is people quoting a New York Times paraphrase of an interview with a bishop in which he gave his interpretation of the rules.

I would hate to think that you were once again passing off unconfirmed third or fourth hand accounts involving paraphrasing and interpretation as if they were undeniable facts.

@74
Women under Islam you say? Remarkably silent you say?
http://liberalconspiracy.org/2010/09/20/pictures-from-protest-for-sakineh-mohammadi-ashtiani/

From 2 days ago.

75 oldandrew

The source of the quote is linked in post #40 above. The NY Times piece referred to is easily found. As any reasonable person will see (no, trust me I’m not including you amongst their ranks given your paranoia) there is a huge debate about this complex area relating to Crimen Solicitationis and Canon Law. None of it reflects well on the way the Catholic church has behaved in handling cases of sexual abuse over many decades, but I confidently expect you to dismiss anything out of hand on the basis we don’t have instant access to original documentation, and sometimes have to rely on (or at least start with) reports from the press, news agencies and journalists.

I have no personal animus against you, indeed I’m entirely indifferent to you personally. What I do have an issue with is your continual habit of playing the man not the ball, and your lazy assumption that anyone who dares to criticise the RCC is some crazed sectarian conspiract theorist.

If that weren’t annoying enough, you are (as your responses on various threads on LC will amply demonstrate) TOTALLY fixated with challenging the validity of ANY reported events or statements on the grounds that they are third or fouth hand or paraphrased.

The straw man that I present such reports as undeniable fact is demonstrably false. What I have continually said is that where things are reported in otherwise reputable sources, they at least deserve to be investigated or followed up. Your response is invariably that there is nothing to these reports, and retreat under the cosy blanket of your paranoid view that it’s all a sectarian anti-Catholic conspiracy.

For example you have variously;

1. questioned whether Ratzinger was personally present at the meeting of Cardinals which discussed the Hoyos letter, even though the Vatican spokesman has confirmed this was the case;
2. cast doubt on Hoyos’ widely reported statements at the Murcia Conference on 16th April 2010, again despite the wide coverage of these in the mainstream media; and
3. rejected the reported comments Hoyos made to RCN Radio in Colombia on the basis that no transcript existed.

All of the above amply demonstrate that you are unlikely to ever be convinced, or even to engage in reasoned debate unlike many reputable Catholic commentators, bloggers and clergy who are not subject to your paranoid fantasy that the press makes all this stuff up.

They are at least capable of engaging in a reasoned argument, and actually responding cogently to criticism with evidence rather than dismissing it out of hand as you constantly do as a grandiose conspiracy theory.

77,

“The source of the quote is linked in post #40 above.”

Apologies, I must have missed the quotation marks.

I thought you were claiming it as fact yourself rather than informing us that a gossip columnist had (incorrectly) claimed it as a fact.

78

More deflection. Yes, of course, the NY Times is full of gossip columnists, and must therefore be rejected as part of your paraniod conspiracy theory about anti-catholic bias.

“More deflection. Yes, of course, the NY Times is full of gossip columnists, and must therefore be rejected as part of your paraniod conspiracy theory about anti-catholic bias.”

I suspect that you are deliberately misunderstanding this in order to draw me in, but just in case this is a genuine failure of communiation, I will clarify what I meant.

The source of your quotation, which you appeared to be mistakenly presenting as factual, was Gawker.

Gawker (not the New York Times) is an online gossip column, or as Wikipedia describes it:

“Gawker is a blog based in New York City that bills itself as “the source for daily Manhattan media news and gossip” and focuses on celebrities and the media industry”

80

The quote from gawker was where I found the original quote: it is lifted from the NY Times, and if you look there is a considerable amount on-line (both pro and anti) covering the NY Times reporting of this specific issue, and the coverage of the Catholic church in general which is outside the scope of this discussion.

It was merely a portal thu which I found the NY Times quote: no doubt cause enough for another hysterical dismissal on your part because it’s indirect and you are too lazy or scared to find the original.

80

Good news!! Brush up your Spanish oldandrew….after some ferreting about, eureka! The link below is to the RCN website. Perhaps some kind person can translate the below for our edification?

You will be delighted to know it also contains a link to a sound recording of the actual interview with Castrillon. I look forward to your further input!

http://www.rcnradio.com/noticias/nacional/22-04-10/hay-una-persecuci-n-contra-la-iglesia-cardenal-dar-o-castrill-n#

Por: RCN Radio
El cardenal colombiano Darío Castrillón Hoyos afirmó en diálogo exclusivo con RCN La Radio, desde Roma, que “hay una persecución contra la iglesia” con la ayuda de “idiotas útiles” y la participación de la masonería.

En extenso reportaje, monseñor Castrillón señaló que hay una desinformación total en relación con la carta en la que felicitaba al obispo francés Pierre Pican por no haber denunciado ante la administración civil al sacerdote Rene Bissey por supuestos abusos a menores.

“Es un absurdo; es una persecución contra la Iglesia. Lástima que haya idiotas útiles dentro que se prestan para este tipo de persecución”, señaló el alto prelado.

“La Iglesia no defiende a los pedófilos, sino los derechos humanos de los acusados”, subrayó el cardenal colombiano.

Sostuvo que “no me da miedo decir que en algunos de los casos está por dentro la masonería, unida a otros enemigos de la Iglesia”.

Insistió en que “no dirá todo lo que sabe”, acerca de la influencia de la masonería en este escándalo mundial alrededor de la pederastia en la Iglesia Católica.

“No debe quedar ninguna duda de la dureza de la iglesia contra la pedófilia, y manteniendo junto a la verdad la justicia y la caridad”, enfatizó.

Entre tanto, este miércoles se informó que monseñor Castrillón Hoyos no presidirá la misa solemne de este sábado en la Basílica en Washington, tras la controversia generada por la mencionada carta al obispo francés.”

“The quote from gawker was where I found the original quote: it is lifted from the NY Times”

My point was that Gawker mistakenly attributes it to a Papal Instruction from 1922. This is incorrect.

I know Galen ignored my link to the Catholic reply to Hari so I’ll post the relevant paragraph.

‘As to the letter to Bishop Pican, this was not a letter written by “the Vatican” to the world’s bishops; it was a letter to the bishop from the prefect of the Congregation of the Clergy, Dario Castrillon Hoyos, whose attitude, I agree, was shocking. When that letter came to light earlier this year, the Vatican’s spokesman said, in effect, “you see what we were up against?” More specifically, you see what Cardinal Ratzinger was up against. That letter directly went against the guidelines which the CDF was putting into place that year — guidelines which, by the way, made it clear that a case of abuse should “normally” (they can’t say always: in some countries child abuse is not a crime, in others it is a crime but not acted on) be reported to the civil authorities. Cardinal Castrillon-Hoyos was retired in 2004, leaving the way clearer for Cardinal Ratzinger’s necessary reforms.’

Can I ask Galen, how much of Hari’s speech was you think was true?

82,

Well, that confirms that even RCN’s written description of their own broadcast fails to mention the sensational claim about the meeting agreeing the letter. No doubt this is just part of the conspiracy.

It won’t let me download the audio, even if I thought I could understand it.

83

Prove it

85

LOL, I knew you’d dismiss it out of hand. So first of all you rubbish all the widely reported “paraphrases” and second hand reports of this, and now (quelle surprise!) you dismiss the “original” out of hand, because it’s in Spanish and you can’t download the actual radio broadcast. I can, it’s around 21 minutes long and my Spanish isn’t upto understanding it all.

So… if it transpires that the radio broadcasts confirm things reported in the press… your response will be…? Oh yeah… it’s all part of the conspiracy.

84 resistor

I think Hari is an idiot, so little comfort for you there.

Your tendentious quote isn’t convincing either. The issue we’ve been discussing, and trying to shed more light on, is then Cardinal Ratzingers involvement (if any) in the letter. It’s not enough to deplore the letter, and blithely say that it shows the wisdom of Ratzinger’s attempts to reform a rotten system.

The church and it’s apologists are forgetting that Ratzinger was present at the meeting of Cardinals which Castrillon says discussed the letter. There has been a deafening silence on what Ratzinger’s involvement was, but nobody is denying he was present. It seems hard to believe that if he objected to the content of the letter, or to it being sent out, that he hasn’t said so since in the rush to throw Castrillon to the wolves and identify him as part of the old guard, and therefore part of the problem, not the solution.

You will also realise from any analysis of this issue that many people, even if they give Ratzinger some credit for trying to reform matters, still think he dragged his feet. For every pro-Ratzinger commentary holding him up as the new broom sweeping clean, I can show you others arguing that he still didn’t do enough, and even when he acted it wasn’t fast enough.

He’s got you now Galen10.

Oldandrew can’t understand Spanish. So to access that interview he’s going to have to rely on an English translation or summary…. at which stage it will immediately become ‘second-hand’ and can therefore be dismissed as hearsay.

83 oldandrew

This might help you, as I know you seem to have trouble with evidence and using the internet:

The document issued by the Congregation of the Holy Office (precursor of the current Congregation for the Doctrine Faith) on 09 June 1922, is identical with Crimen Solicitationis, issued on 16 March 1962 with the exception of an additional technical Appendix in the latter. That document continued in force until the issue of the motu proprio “Sacramentorum sanctitatis tutela” on 30 April 2001.

It was the 2001 motu proprio which instructed Catholic bishops around the world to report all cases of clerical sexual abuse of minors to the CDF, and it is this document which Vatican sources usually hold up as their evidence that Ratzinger is “tougher” on these matters than his predecessors, and should get the credit:

http://visnews-en.blogspot.com/2010/04/fr-lombardi-on-letter-of-cardinal.html

Interstingly this Vatican response, widely seen as having been rushed out with uncommon speed, makes no apology for the content of the letter, and sheds no light at all on Ratzinger’s involvement. One might almost think they had something to hide!

Castrillon’s letter to Picard, discussed in a meeting of cardinals which included Ratzinger, was therefore sent 4 months after the motu proprio, and would seem to directly contravene it (quite apart from the fact it is morally abhorrent of course).

86,

Are you seriously asking me to prove that the “Papal Instructions” of 1922 didn’t use *exactly the same words* as the New York Times paraphrase of the interview where a bishop gave his interpretation of the instructions? I don’t see how I can prove it, but you’d have to be mad to believe in such a coincidence.

87,

Again we have the problem that if I point out that something is ridiculous, you don’t explain how it could be possibly the case, you just attack me for dismissing it. I await with interest your explanation as to how a radio interview in which an archbishop makes a sensational allegation about the current pope could be advertised with loads of quotations but no reference to that specific allegation.

But you won’t explain this will you? You’ll just call me names for doubting that the entire media, including the original broadcasters, would simply ignore this allegation.

88,

You appear to be reporting your conspiracy theory as fact again (although you appear to have rolled back from “agreed” to “discussed”). As you know, we do not know that the meeting which Cardinal Ratzinger attended discussed the letter, and the failure of both the Vatican and the world’s media to even attempt to clarify the matter makes it less, rather than more, likely that this was the case. We really only have two options here, (a) what was said on the radio is not as sensational as you have claimed or (b) there is a global media conspiracy to ignore the details of the allegation.

Still maybe you can get the interview translated and we can find out for sure?

89 Larry

Yes indeed… in the words if Yossarian “That’s some catch, that Catch-22,”

It’s not as if I didn’t predict it tho is it?

In our next instalment….oldandrew denies the veracity of a certified translation of the RCN Radio broadcast, “It’s all a vicious anti-Catholic conspiracy” he is reported as saying from underneath his tin-foil hat.

“at which stage it will immediately become ‘second-hand’ and can therefore be dismissed as hearsay”

“Second-hand”?

I dream of second-hand evidence.

With Galen10 evidence is always at least fourth-hand, and one of the people in the chain of reporting is always paraphrasing rather than giving a direct account.

91

All of these are tomorrow issues I fear: there’s only so much troll response you can take in one day!

“The document issued by the Congregation of the Holy Office (precursor of the current Congregation for the Doctrine Faith) on 09 June 1922, is identical with Crimen Solicitationis, issued on 16 March 1962 with the exception of an additional technical Appendix in the latter.”

Which doesn’t contain Rawker’s quotation from earlier.

So I guess I can prove it.

Galen10 you have the patience of a saint.

I just assumed from the get go that the apologists were not interested in real discussion and were very much interested in shutting down any and all criticism of their man. I’m not sure I’ve been proven wrong.

Still maybe you can get the interview translated and we can find out for sure?

Uh, I’d say it was incumbent on you, oldandrew, to get the thing retranslated, since you’re the one claiming that the widely reported content is incorrect.

“Uh, I’d say it was incumbent on you, oldandrew, to get the thing retranslated, since you’re the one claiming that the widely reported content is incorrect.”

Oh for pity’s sake.

95

Oh do try to keep up: I know it must be difficult for you in amongst all the paraniod conspiracy theories swirling around in your head.

You were being asked to prove that the quote didn’t come from the NY Times.

You haven’t done that.

This is after all only the tactic you constantly use yourself in rubbishing sources: what is sauce for the goose etc….

Anyone who was paying attention could see that the wording of the quote reported in gawker didn’t come from Crimen Solicitationis. The NY Times quote does however give a defensible precis of the 1922 document for the purposes of the point under discussion.

96 Cylux

Thanks – although I’m none to sure many would accept my saint-like quality, or indeed that I’m all that flaterred by the comparison.

For what it’s worth, since I’ve had some spare time I’ve rather enjoyed the sparring: it’s like a more cerebral form of fighting orcs and the forces of darkness in an online game, except this is relates to real life and is a tad more important.

The opposition is fairly similar however.

97 Larry

I suspect you will have a long wait Larry. Given the track record, I confidently predict that even if a word for word transcript is provided which proves that all of Castrillon’s widely reported remarks are accurate, there will still be some tendentious “get out” for the credulous apoligists who have already made their minds up that there is nothing to this story.

They are so self righteously convinced that only their interpretation is correct. Such breathtaking arrogance…I wonder if New Labour took some of their cues from the Vatican’s news management techniques?

98 oldandrew

Why do you feel your continued obfuscation deserves pity?

You have been rightly “called out” to demonstrate that a claim you have been making for months across a number of threads is correct.

You have consistantly rubbished the quotes from this Radio broadcast quoted in a large number of perfectly well respected News Agencies and media outlets. This is despite the fact that any reasonable commentator (including it must be noted many who are supporters of the Catholic church) were quite happy to accept as genuine.

You harp on about conspiracy theories oldandrew, yet ask us to give credence to your bald assertion that the quotes attributed to Catrillon are not valid, because they are fourth or fifth hand. The suspension of disbelief involved in this is considerable. It would entail believing that the Associate Press report of the speech was wrong, that all subsequent reports were also wrong, and that neither Catrillon or the Vatican bothered to correct them.

The ball is now firmly in your court. You have been provided with a link to the first hand source you so craved.

Put up, or shut up.

91 oldandrew

Ref. 86: You mis-read or wilfully misinterpreted the “gawker” quote which it acknowledges is from the NY Times. The wording of the NY Times quote makes it quite plain that it is their view of the effects of the 1922 document, which is supported by Canon lawyers (although there are opposing views). You were being asked to demonstrate that the quote was not “real” since you have such an issue with “non-direct” attributions.

Ref. 87: Your comment in 85 makes the assertion that since the text in the RCN website doesn’t cover Catrillon’s allegations, it must therefore be part of a conspiracy. I don’t see how that follows. The radio broadcast is 21 minutes long, and in Spanish. I have listened to it, but my Spanish isn’t good enough to confirm the contents. The short RCN commentary seems to concentrate more on Castrillon’s loopy theory that “it was the masons wot dun it”.

It isn’t incumbent on me to explain why RCN chose not to feature Castrillon’s other comments, as I’m not in charge of their editorial policy, or writing their web page content. You deserve to ridiculed for your frankly outlandish claim:

“You’ll just call me names for doubting that the entire media, including the original broadcasters, would simply ignore this allegation”.

This whole discussion is based on the fact that it wasn’t ignored… it was widely covered as a follow up to his letter to Picard, and prounouncements in Murcia.

Ref. 88: I’m not reporting anything as fact, except things which are generally accepted as factual. It accepted from reports that Ratzinger attended the meeting. No, we do not “know” exactly what happened, as no detailed account has been published, and it’s hardly likely the Vatican would publish minutes given their vested interest in trying to kill this story off. You can hardly use the Vatican’s reticence to be more open as evidence that Ratzinger was not implicated in discussing or approving or protesting against the letter, any more than I could argue it proves he drafted it. The media will have to speak for themselves, but the fact that they haven’t attempted to clarify this point doesn’t “prove” anything one way or the other.

Your two options are false dichotomies. If Castrillon’s comments on the radio are not as sensational as reported, then Ratzinger and the other Cardinals present MAY be off the hook, and Castrillon will be exposed as a fantasist and nasty pice of work. However, if his claim that Ratzinger was present at the meeting is true (and the Vatican has singularly faied to deny it, indeed from some reports has confirmed he WAS present), it needs to be explained what happened. This is hardly asking for much: if the Pope and the Vatican have nothing to hide, they can explain whether the meeting discussed the letter, or rubber stamped it, or whether Cardinal Ratzinger was perhaps asleep? Your option b) that there must otherwise must be a global media conspiracy to ignore the details of the allegation is simply paraniod fantasy.

However given your constant refrain that any criticism of the church is sectarian and has the basest of motives, any reasonable commentator will know how to take your protestations for the diversionary obfuscation they are.

“You were being asked to prove that the quote didn’t come from the NY Times.”

Am I?

Why would you ask me that when in comment 75 I told you it was from the New York Times, and not, as Gawker claimed and you quoted, Papal Instructions from 1922?

104

You just never give up do you? I never said it was a direct quote from Crimen Solicitationis or the 1922 precursor to it.

It was obvious to anyone with half a brain who checked the gawker link that it was a quote from the NY Times. I don’t know if the words used in the NY Times quotes are lifted directly from either and I don’t much care: as I said above they are a defensible precis of what the documents do say, and I have researched them.

You are doing your usual pettyfogging hair splitting in a doomed attempt to deflect attention from your lack of real argument or response to the substantive points put to you, other than the whacky: “it’s all a sectrarian plot” refrain of course.

Nobody else finds that any more convincing now than they did months ago when you first raised it, and constant repition doesn’t help.

105,

I know you never said it. You just quoted somebody who said it. I have already apologised for missing the quotation marks the first time round.

I do consider identifying the difference between direct quotation and “defensible precis” to be considerably more than a matter of hair-splitting and you might wish to acknowledge that difference in future.

106

More hair splitting, and not the issue at all. You are as usual deliberately trying to divert the discussion into the minutea to deflect attention from the weakness of your cetral argument.

The same tactic can be seen in Lombardi’s response to the furore caused by the publicisation of the letter back in April: an immediate press release which totally avoided the substantive issue, whilst heaping praise on BXVI for centralising all such cases within the CDF.

No attempt to disown or apologise for the nauseating content of the letter.
No clarification about how the letter could have been released contrary to the motu proprio issued 4 months earlier.
No clarification of Ratzingers role or acquiescence despite the fact he was at the cardinals meeting which Castrillon says discussed the letter.
No response from the Vatican to Catrillon’s attempt to implicate JPII in the letter.
No response from the Vatican about the claim that attacks on the church were the work of freemasons and “useful idiots” within the church.

You not only don’t have answers, you aren’t interested in them.

Galen 10 @ 107

Your concentration on the letter misses the key fact of the Bissey-Pican affair.

Although Bishop Pican did not break the silence of the confessional and inform the Police of Bissey’s wrongdoing, he did remove Bissey from his position, had him sent for psychiatric treatment and effectively kept him isolated for two years.

In 1998 Bissey was eventually charged with numerous offences committed since 1989 but none of these charges related to offences committed after Bishop Pican learned of Bissey’s proclivities.

I don’t expect you, as a non-Catholic, to agree with the Catholic position on the duty of silence associated with Confession. But I do expect you as a fairm minded person not to keep implying that the Church’s actions in this case permitted Bissey to carry on raping kids. They did not.

“No clarification of Ratzingers role or acquiescence despite the fact he was at the cardinals meeting which Castrillon says discussed the letter.”

Do you now have evidence of this?

108 Gould

I think I, and many other people, would much prefer that Bishop Pican and any others who find themselves in a similar dilemma simply turned the offender over to the secular authorities concerned. Even many staunch Catholics would agree with that approach, and the penchant for Bishops to “self-medicate” the ills of the church in this way is at best questionable, at worst actionable.

Pican was sentenced to a 3 months suspended jail sentence for not reporting the abuse in violation of French law, and it is worth noting that Pican admitted in court that he kept Fr. Bissey on in parish work after he knew of the abuse, which involved the sexual abuse, including rape, of 11 boys between 1989 and 1996.

You are correct that I do not agree with the Catholic position on the duty of silence associated with the Confession. The fact is however that this case was not covered by confessional privilege, as Bishop Pican was not told about it in confession. Even if he had been told in confession however, he would still have been obliged to inform the French authorities, as French law does not accept that crimes against minors fall under the protection of the confessional. Further, the Church has itself confirmed that in cases where national legislation makes reporting crimes like child abuse mandatory, then it should be complied with.

I believe I am a fair minded person. I have nowhere implied that the Church’s action in this case permitted Bissey to carry on raping kids, and would ask you to retract the accusation.

You may not feel the letter from Catrillon is central to the affair; it is nonetheless important on a number of levels. Not only do many (including lots of Catholic commentators) find the contents nauseating, but it directly contravenes the guidance issued 4 months previously by the CDF.

This is all the more surprising since then Cardinal Ratzinger, then head of the CDF, is known to have attended the meeting of Cardinals at which Castrillon says the letter was discussed. Of course we don’t know if the letter’s contents, or the wisdom of sending it at all, were debated, discussed, or whether it went through on a nod – we deserve to be told.

We also have the issue of Catrillon’s later attempts (both in Murcia and his RCN Radio broadcast) to implicate the previous Pope in both approving the letter’s contents, and encouraging it’s wide circulation within the church.

Last but not least, we have the question of what this particular case tells us about the state of the battle between clericalist conservatives like Castrillon (who has even according to much of the Catholic press been thrown under a bus in relation to this issue), and “modernisers” such as many Bishps in the USA, Ireland and the UK, and to some extent the current Pope and CDF, who, however slow on the uptake, are at least making efforts to improve matters.

As a fair minded person, I would expect you to review the evidence of this whole sorry episode, and agree that the Castrillon letter should be officially repudiated. It should also be explained why the Cardinals meeting from which it emanated (even if they didn’t draft or agree it) did not see fit to apply the CDF policy detailed in the motu proprio Sacramentorum sanctitatis tutela of 18th May 2001.

“It should also be explained why the Cardinals meeting from which it emanated (even if they didn’t draft or agree it)”

Hang on, do you now accept that they might not have agreed to it?

111 olandrew

The trouble is we don’t know, do we…because the Vatican are stonewalling. As I have consistantly said, we need an explanation and some clarity. I’ve never said that they drafted it, or agreed it or debated it…because none of us know the detail.

According to the National Catholic Reporter 17th April 2010 (don’t tell me oldnadrew, another fifth hand source, and no doubt a vicious anti-Catholic rag…. errrmm..ok, not really)

“Asked about Castrillón’s statements during a press briefing tonight in Malta, Lombardi said that he wouldn’t go beyond his statement earlier in the week, except to point out that the 2001 document assigning responsibility for sex abuse cases to Ratzinger’s office was signed “by John Paul II, not by me,” and invited journalists “to draw the conclusions.” ”

http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/crisis-hangs-over-pope-malta-volcanic-ash

If then Cardinal Ratzinger was not present (contrary to what Castrillon has said) then he is at least partially off the hook, although that still leaves open the question of why Castrillon and the other cardinals were either unaware of or ignored the April 2001 motu proprio.

If he was present (and absent a denial from the Vatican most reasonable people would assume Castrillon would be unlikely to tell such a barefaced that Ratzinger was present if it wasn’t the case), why didn’t the current Pope pick up that the letter was both contrary to the motu proprio,and morally reprehensible? (Yeah, don’t tell me..it’s all a sectarian conspiracy, etc, etc…)

111

Follow up from The Tablet from 1st Mat 2010 on the question as to whether Ratzinger was actually at the meeting:

“It was a meeting of cardinals,” he said. “Therefore the current Pope [Benedict XVI], who at the time was a cardinal, was present. The Pope [John Paul II] was never at those meetings. However, the Holy Father was indeed present when we spoke about this matter in the council, and the cardinals ruled,” Cardinal Castrillón reportedly said.

It is the second time that the Colombian-born cardinal who was Prefect for the Congregation for Clergy in 2001 has claimed that Pope John Paul authorised his letter to Bishop Pican but the first time that he has attempted to implicate the former Cardinal Ratzinger in the controversial decision. Cardinal Ratzinger’s attendance at such a meeting would be normal. He and Cardinal Castrillón would have met regularly at the time as fellow members of several Vatican congregations.

The Vatican have continued to refute any claims that Pope Benedict was complicit in cover-ups, insisting that he has done more than anyone else in the Church to deal openly and swiftly with sexual abuse by priests. Soon after the Castrillón letter surfaced the Vatican spokesman, Fr Federico Lombardi, produced a statement suggesting that the letter confirmed the wisdom of the decision to give Cardinal Ratzinger’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith exclusive responsibility for investigating clerical abuse cases in 2001.”

http://www.thetablet.co.uk/article/14646

I know, I know..you will still trot out that old canard about this being second hand, no surprise there. For those less prone to paranoid conspiracy theorising however, it is interesting that even The Tablet seems to accept his attendance and that the letter was (if nothing else) discussed or even authorised. Also interesting that they juxtapose the rapid statement from Lombardi attempting to exonerate Ratzinger with the fact there is NO detail about the meeting. Typical!

This is pointless. We don’t know what went on at the meeting, who was there, whether the letter and its contents were discussed in any detail etc.

This post began by praising a speech by Johann Hari which has been proven to be nothing less than a pack of lies. Sunny claimed that I wanted to ‘throw ad-hominem insults because he happens to be an atheist.’ Rather a silly thing for me to do as I am also an atheist. I’m just not a lumpen atheist like Hari, Dawkins, Hitchens et al.

Hari’s speech was a rabble-rousing rant to a liberal lynch mob (with their ‘Fuck the Pope’ banners) and for him and his mates to claim to be ‘pro-Catholic’ is laughable. Sunny should apologise for posting and praising this bigoted rubbish.

“I’ve never said that they drafted it, or agreed it or debated it”

Actually you said:

“the meeting of Cardinals … discussed and approved Hoyos’ letter”
http://liberalconspiracy.org/2010/09/17/the-conference-that-says-the-earth-is-flat/#comment-176159

And you claimed:

“the current Pope when a cardinal was present at a meeting where the Hoyos letter was discussed, and raised NO objection to it!”
http://liberalconspiracy.org/2010/09/17/the-conference-that-says-the-earth-is-flat/#comment-176845

And when I said

“I can’t find anything about Hoyos’ letter being agreed at a meeting with the current Pope present”

you replied “you missed it. No doubt you didn’t try very hard, or perhaps you just don’t understand internet searches very well?”
http://liberalconspiracy.org/2010/09/17/the-conference-that-says-the-earth-is-flat/#comment-177684

And you said:

“According to The Independent of 28th June 2010, he was present at a meeting of Cardinals in 2001 which approved the sending of a letter by Cardinal Hoyos”
http://liberalconspiracy.org/2010/07/27/why-is-the-government-protecting-the-pope-from-arrest/#comment-156795

“The sources quoted by The Independent say that the current Pope was actually present at the meeting which discussed the contents of the letter…it would seem to me to demonstrate that … the current … Pope agreed with the decision of Bishop Pican’s decision not to name Father Rene Bissey as child rapist.”
http://liberalconspiracy.org/2010/07/27/why-is-the-government-protecting-the-pope-from-arrest/#comment-157137

“the council meeting … approved the decision to send the congratulatory letter to Bishop Pican…the meeting at which Hoyos insists he was encouraged to send the letter and forward it widely inside the church.”
http://liberalconspiracy.org/2010/07/27/why-is-the-government-protecting-the-pope-from-arrest/#comment-157154

“the meeting at which the offending (and offensive) letter was sent to Bishop Pican”
http://liberalconspiracy.org/2010/07/27/why-is-the-government-protecting-the-pope-from-arrest/#comment-157597

Hey, oldandrew can do research! When it suits him, of course…

114 resistor

It doesn’t go anywhere becuase trolls like oldadrew and gould are part of the conspiracy of silence which would rather see effort expended on protecting the reputation of the church at all costs, than in addressing its egregious and continuing failures to address these matters.

To describe Dawkins in particular as a lumpen atheist hardly helps your case. I have no time for Hari either, but (just possibly) there is a place for invective in the face of obfuscation and dilatory response of the Catholic church in relation to this issue.

If you can’t see that people who are trenchant opponents of church (whether Catholics or not) might be doing so from friendly motives, then you would appear to have fallen for the special pleading of the clericalist traditionalists like Castrillon whose mindset and mentality put the interests of the church above those of abused children.

No wonder the church is in crisis and people stayed away from the Pope’s visit in droves, or that membership is collapsing. Even The Tablet admits that in Germany and Austria, both places where abuse scandals have been much in the news, there is a huge crisis not just of faith, but of finances.

“The crisis threatens to reach catastrophic proportions. A staggering 6.25 million German Catholics, that is a quarter of the German Church, are expected to leave the Church this year because of the scandal, according to a poll in the [ITAL]Frankfurter Rundschau[UNITAL] daily. This will cost the Church millions of euros as people leaving opt out of paying church tax (8 per cent of income tax). In Austria 30,000 Catholics have already left the Church this year, compared to 21,000 by this time last year – which was a record year. ”

http://www.thetablet.co.uk/article/14646 (penultimate paragraph)

Rather than bleat about Hari, and give the Vatican a free pass on issues like Castrillon’s letter, try acting less like a fellow traveller, and more like someone who actually wants to make a difference!

116 Mr S Pill

Isn’t it a shame he can’t expend a similar level of effort actually getting to the bottom of what actually DID happen at the meeting?

Or perhaps in having the RCN Radio broadcast he rubbished for so long verified.

Resistor @ 114 is right about one think… we don’t know what happened, because they aren’t telling us, and are hardly likely to unless pressured.

It’s hard to know how to describe what happened with the letter: discussed, agreed, rubber stamped, refered to only in passing, hidden away by Castrillon becuase he knew it was a stupid idea…. ther are other possibilities no doubt.

The thing is, people like oldandrew, gould and fellow travellers like resistor don’t really want to know, and seem to think it’s more important to whitewash the church than to deal with substantive issues.

As Lord Acton said:

“I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men with a favourable presumption that they did no wrong. If there is any presumption, it is the other way, against the holders of power, increasing as the power increases. Historic responsibility has to make up for the want of legal responsibility. Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or certainty of corruption by full authority. There is no worse heresy than the fact that the office sanctifies the holder of it. ”

Dalberg-Acton, John Emerich Edward (1949), Essays on Freedom and Power, Boston: Beacon Press, p. 364

“It doesn’t go anywhere becuase trolls like oldadrew and gould are part of the conspiracy of silence…”

Well, at least I can now see why my warnings to you to avoid going into conspiracy theorist territory fell on deaf ears.

If we’re playing that game… oldandrew, you have now been provided with the Hoyos’ first hand evidence in Spanish, along with a translation of some of the key passages by Associated Press, as reported and commented upon by the Tablet. (Both seemingly trustworthy sources – hardlay internet conspiracy theorists.)

You previously conceded that

“this would be incriminating if Hoyos said it and it was true”

You also said said:

“all the stories of accusations against the Pope personally have faded into insignificance once they were properly scrutinised.”

And reiterated:

“there is nothing of substance to investigate.”

Do all of these quotes still reflect your position? Because it seems to me that the allegation that Ratizinger was present at this meeting is a substantial one, and has apparently not been properly scrutinised. Assuming that you believe otherwise, and still maintain that there is nothing at all incriminating here, I can only see two alternatives open to you: Hoyos didn’t say it (that is the AP translation is erroneous), or Hoyos was lying. I haven’t notice you produce any evidence in support of either of these assertions.

I think I, and many other people, would much prefer that Bishop Pican and any others who find themselves in a similar dilemma simply turned the offender over to the secular authorities

I can see why you would.

Even many staunch Catholics would agree with that approach

Not if it involved breaking the seal of the confessional they wouldn’t.

The fact is however that this case was not covered by confessional privilege, as Bishop Pican was not told about it in confession.

Really? How strange. Cardinal Castrillon clearly thought it was, and that was the burden of his letter.

Speaking at a conference in the southeastern Spanish city of Murcia on Friday, Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos said the French bishop did not report Rene Bissey to the police because he was told of the child abuse during confession, the online edition of regional daily La Verdad reported.

Pierre Pican was prevented by the privacy of confession from reporting the priest “by word or any other means, and under any circumstances,” he said according to the newspaper.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/europe/Cardinal-justifies-praise-for-French-bishops-silence-over-abusive-priest/articleshow/5826601.cms

If Castrillon, Ratzinger and Pope JP II all believed the confessional was an issue, that would explain the apparent conflict with the motu proprio, wouldn’t it?

I have nowhere implied that the Church’s action in this case permitted Bissey to carry on raping kids, and would ask you to retract the accusation.

I am happy to retract (and indeed apologize) in the face of your unambiguous denial. But if that’s the case, why are you making such a meal of the affair? If no damage was done, it’s not a scandal surely?

BYW – what’s your source for the “wasn’t told in confession” factoid?

“Do all of these quotes still reflect your position?”

Yes.

“Because it seems to me that the allegation that Ratizinger was present at this meeting is a substantial one, and has apparently not been properly scrutinised.”

Wow, you’ve proved that the views I have expressed in the past utterly contradict…

… your views.

Very impressive.

Very impressive.

Thank you. In return, I am impressed that your beliefs are so pathetically flimsy as to squeeze through the crack between “incriminating if Hoyos said it and it was true” and the fact that he did say it, and no-one in any position to know has gainsaid it.

No doubt this is because of the proper scrutiny it is your stated view that these claims have been subject to. Perhaps me you could point me towards it? Assuming that it exists somewhere outside of your head.

“and the fact that he did say it”

What?

What?

That the current Pope was at that particular meeting of Cardinals. Obviously.

Incidentally I do know where you’re going with this – I realise there’s doubt about what the letter being the ‘product’/'outcome’/'result’ of the meeting actually means. I’m quite happy with that uncertainty, and its implications for the current Pope range from a devestating indictment to his being slightly remiss.

Although you’ve been making a big deal about this, your position is not consistent with this degree of uncertainty. You’ve committed yourself to there being an *entirely* innocent interpretation, as has already been revealed by proper scrutiny of all the relevant allegations. Frankly I can’t imagine what that interpretation might be – that Hoyos was psychologically inspired to write the letter by the meeting, that it was a ‘result’ of it in that sense? Well, I think we can file that under ‘Hoyos lying’, really.

125

“That the current Pope was at that particular meeting of Cardinals. Obviously.”

Oh right, you are doing that thing where you imply the dispute is about attendance at the meeting rather than the more obvious matter of what happened at the meeting.

Hmmmm. Seems unlikely that two people would independently go down that same dead end, so presumably you are Galen10 writing under another name? Or are you some kind of tribute act?

“You’ve committed yourself to there being an *entirely* innocent interpretation, as has already been revealed by proper scrutiny of all the relevant allegations.”

I don’t know about “entirely innocent”, I was settling for “not newsworthy”.

#23 – ‘Thing is, if you attack the Pope Catholics aren’t going to like you. Veneration of the dude is – well – fairly important to them, and they’re liable to find concern more frustrating than venom.’

Untrue. There was massive disappointment when Ratzinger was elected as Pope.

The Vatican has amply shown that it will never take responsibility for enabling paedophiles to abuse children, so it is down to national governments to legislate by making failure to report abuse to the police a crime with a lengthy sentence.

Well, why don’t you tell us, oldandrew? What did happen at that meeting?

We now agree that the current Pope was present, and a deeply reprehensible letter emerged as an ‘outcome’ of it. No-one I can find seems to know precisely what this means, but frankly it doesn’t sound particularly wonderful.

Luckily, there has already been proper scrutiny of this question…. to which you alone are party. So why don’t you tell us?

(Unless of course proper scrutiny amounts to some wildly unconvincing hand-waving dismissal, such as ‘if there was anything in it the press would have picked it up by now’.)

“(Unless of course proper scrutiny amounts to some wildly unconvincing hand-waving dismissal, such as ‘if there was anything in it the press would have picked it up by now’.)”

Do you think if you say this enough times it will be become plausible that the details of a sensational allegation against the Pope would be ignored by everybody in the world except you (somebody who doesn’t actually know what the details are)?

126 oldandrew

More likely oldandrew you are doing that thing you do, where you try to avoid discussion of one point because you’ve lost the argument (in this case whether Ratzinger was actually present), and switch to another tack and bemoan the fact we’re now talking about what was actually discussed at the meeting.

Of course, the Vatican are unlikely to tell us. Now you’re backtracking from saying that there is an entirely innocent interpretation (which may be true, or may not), to saying that you are sure that even if it wasn’t entirely innocent, it just wasn’t newsworthy.

Where is your evidence for that, absent some details about the meeting itself?

Oh, and by the way, assuming that Larry and I are the seem person because we share the same view on this issue just makes you look ridiculously paranoid. Oh, wait..I’ve just re-read some of your posts… word!

129 oldandrew

The details haven’t been ignored though have they? There is a fairly lively debate going on about them here for example, and quite a bit of coverage on line.

Let’s nail your disinformation now for the wishful thinking it really is shall we? The sensational allegations were made by Castrillon, not some fringe anti-Catholic loonie, but a prince of the Church, once talked about as a possible future Pope.

You’ve had to be dragged kicking and screaming to even acknowledge (however grudgingly until the RCN Radio broadcast is translated) that there is a primary source confirming he made these claims. Now you fall back on the old favourite that everyone else in the world apart from Larry and I already “know” there is nothing to these allegations, and have therefore ignored them.

What arrogant, intellectually lazy tosh.

121 Gould

“I can see why you would”

I can see why you wouldn’t want to go there, because there is no defense for doing anything other than involving the secular authorities in this case which isn’t to do with confessional secrets (and of course no defence even if there was unless you are a fairly devout Catholic).

“Not if it involved breaking the seal of the confessional they wouldn’t.”

It’s a view of course, but if you read some of the responses to on-line discussions on this issue, you’ll see there are plenty of Catholics who feel just that way.

“Really? How strange. Cardinal Castrillon clearly thought it was, and that was the burden of his letter.”

Castrillon is also on record as saying that the Masons (you really couldn’t make it up could you?) are behind attacks on the church! There is a lot of debate about whether Castrillon just hadn’t done his homework, and plain got this wrong, as Picard learnt of the abuse committed by Bissey from the mother of a victim, NOT in confession, or whether he knew the fact all along and tried to use the confessional secret angle as a cover, knowing it obfuscate the issue and bring the Catholic faithful onside.

The facts of the case were well known and reported, and Bissey himself had confirmed it was not a confessional issue. It IS interesting that Castrillon has never felt compelled to issue any correction, let alone retraction, of his nauseating letter.

Bear in mind also, that even if he sincerely believed it WAS a confessional issue, the motu proprio of 4 months earlier issued by the CDF made it incumbent in Pican to comply with French law. Why in that case did Ratzinger, as head of the CDF, not stop the letter from being sent, since we know he was at the meeting?

“…..why are you making such a meal of the affair? If no damage was done, it’s not a scandal surely?”

Because it IS important. Damage has certainly been done to the reputation of the church, and to claims that it is reforming itself in relation to treatment of sex abuse scandals. This is NOT (despite oldandrews paranoid fantasies) some anti-Catholic crusade, it’s a legitimate question as to what the current Pope knew, and whether Castrillon’s claims about JPII have any foundation.

I can see why the Vatican doesn’t want to touch this issue, or give it legs in the media…. but the deafening silence over the issue simply confirms the suspicions of many both inside and outside the church that it hasn’t changed.

“BYW – what’s your source for the “wasn’t told in confession” factoid?”

I’ll find the links and post them later, but if you search you will find that it is a fact: the “confessional privilege” defence used by Castrillon has been comprehensively rebutted (quite apart from the fact of course that it contravenes both French law and the earlier motu proprio.)

130,

Can you tell me where:

a) I argued Ratzinger wasn’t present at the meeting
b) I said that the meeting was *entirely innocent*, as opposed to *not as incriminating as you claim*?

131,

Do we now have the actual allegations made? Or are you still presenting your conspiracy theory narrative as fact?

As for the point as to why I don’t believe you and Larry could be posting independently, it is because both of you are addressing the same bizarre straw man, that *you* came up with (the one where I am arguing over attendance at the meeting rather than the claims about what happened at the meeting). It doesn’t mean you have to be the same person, but it certainly strains credibility to say that you can both have had the same fantasy independently. He’s either you, or somebody who is simply following your strange interpretation of the debate without reading the discussion for himself. I think the first explanation is more likely (as I can’t imagine why you’d have that much influence over somebody else that they would unquestioningly accept your account of reality regardless of what they can see in front of them), but he may have a perfectly reasonable explanation, and I look forward to it.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/09/25/3021772.htm
*Whistles innocently*

oldandrew, you are being ridiculous.

The crux of the matter is what happened at that meeting. That is a serious question. You have repeatedly insisted that the answer is insubstantial, not newsworthy, etc. Yet you do this from a position of total ignorance: you don’t know what the details are.

You have also asserted that this question has been “properly scrutinised”. Right. Tell us where. Show me the analysis, where the details are exposed and raked over. Because I have to say that assertion currently strikes me as a bald lie.

Do you think… that the details of a sensational allegation against the Pope would be ignored by everybody in the world except you (somebody who doesn’t actually know what the details are)?

This is such a weirdly upside-down, inside-out way of looking at the world, that I wonder how you can even get out of bed in the morning without falling over.

Firstly the details have not been released. That is hardly the same as having been ignored.

Secondly, the broader allegation has not been ignored by everyone in the world, it was covered in the Tablet for example, whose headline was that the current Pope is ‘implicate[d]‘. And for good reason. The bottom line is that a senior Cardinal – not me or Galen or internet conspiracy theorists – but a Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church – has levelled a serious charge against the current Pope. All I am saying is: that charge deserves to be investigated and not waved away or buried as being inconvenient. The details need to be seen and analysed, before we can reach a firm conclusion either way. To preempt that investigation risks a miscarriage of justice. That is the only conclusion available to any fair-minded person, who cares a damn about justice for the victims of child abuse.

“That is a serious question. You have repeatedly insisted that the answer is insubstantial, not newsworthy, etc. Yet you do this from a position of total ignorance: you don’t know what the details are.”

I don’t need the details to know they aren’t newsworthy, I just need to know that the media haven’t bothered reporting them as news.

“Firstly the details have not been released.”

Eh? Don’t you mean they “haven’t been reported in English”?

Don’t you mean they “haven’t been reported in English”?

No I don’t – unless you are telling me that the details of the meeting, and the extent to which the current Pope was involved in discussing, drafting, or agreeing the contents of that letter, are covered in Hoyos’ Spanish interview.

“No I don’t – unless you are telling me that the details of the meeting, and the extent to which the current Pope was involved in discussing, drafting, or agreeing the contents of that letter, are covered in Hoyos’ Spanish interview.”

Obviously, I am not telling you that. I believe that if the interview contained that it would have been reported.

But you and Galen10 have been roundly abusing me for thinking that the interview was anything other than utterly incriminating.

Do you now accept that there is no evidence for Galen10′s allegation?

But you and Galen10 have been roundly abusing me for thinking that the interview was anything other than utterly incriminating.

Quote please of where I did that. Personally I have been roundly abusing you for dismissing the allegation out of hand, and preempting the inquiry which I say needs to occur.

Also, any further comment on the ‘proper scrutiny’ this allegation supposed to have received?

139,

I assumed that your comments about how, if the interview was translated, I’d reject the contents, implied that you thought there was something incriminating in the interview.

So just to clarify, you are admitting that you do not know of the existence of any actual evidence for the allegation? You are just asking, as conspiracy theorists always do, for an investigation into the allegations for which there is apparently no evidence?

It’s interesting that you think ‘not utterly incriminating’ is synonymous with ‘no evidence’.

Of course there is evidence.

A cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church sent a disgraceful letter (established fact). He (first hand account) says that the letter was an outcome or result or product of a particular meeting. The evidence, both Hoyos’ own testimony and the input of experts from the Tablet, suggest that the current Pope was present at said meeting.

Whilst not utterly incriminating, that all adds up to a prima faciae case against the current Pope, that he was to some extent complicit in, or an active participant in, the planning, drafting, agreeing, or sending of that letter.

The details need to be filled in, I fully accept. You, of course don’t accept this, because you say this matter has been subject to proper scrutiny, the details of which we are all still waiting for.

Galen 10 @ 132

Bear in mind also, that even if he sincerely believed it WAS a confessional issue, the motu proprio of 4 months earlier issued by the CDF made it incumbent in Pican to comply with French law.

No, I think you are just wrong here. The obligations associated with the seal of the confessional override all requirements of civil law and any motu proprio. The obligation is absolute.

Why ….. did Ratzinger, as head of the CDF, not stop the letter from being sent, since we know he was at the meeting?

I don’t know whether he was there or not and it seems to be a bone of contention between you and oldandrew. But, assuming, for the sake of argument he was – I see no reason why Ratzinger (or Pope john Paul) or, indeed, anyone else would dispute the letter since it merely expresses what has been the Church’s position for may years. Briefly summarized that is:

1. Where the seal of the confessional is an issue – it should never be breached.
2. Where the seal of the confessional is NOT an issue, Bishops should see themselves as being in the equivalent of a paternal relationship with their priests. When it comes to involving the Police they should as a general rule try to get someone else (e.g. the victim or the victims family) to make the formal complaint to the Police rather than do it themselves.

I don’t see why you think this approach is objectionable – except, insofar as when it is distorted, misrepresented and detached from its context, it can be used by the unscrupulous to give the false impression that the Church’s general policy is see to it that NO ONE ever tells the Police. But you know that’s bollocks, don’t you, ‘cos you’ve read the motu proprio?

So, if you know that the Church encourages the civil authorities to become involved and orders its clergy to facilitate this…. Where’s the beef?

Castrillon is also on record as saying that the Masons (you really couldn’t make it up could you?) are behind attacks on the church!

If you knew anything about the history of French or Italian freemasonry, this wouldn’t seem so tinfoil hat. Without going into all the details – people join the masons in these countries precisely because they are anti-clerical.

“It’s interesting that you think ‘not utterly incriminating’ is synonymous with ‘no evidence’.”

Feel free to argue that straw man if you like. However, your one piece of evidence was the cardinal’s allegation in the radio interview. If you are admitting that the allegation is not incriminating, then you have nothing left.

“A cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church sent a disgraceful letter (established fact). He (first hand account) says that the letter was an outcome or result or product of a particular meeting.”

You’ve translated the interview have you?

“The evidence, both Hoyos’ own testimony”

You have this do you? Or are we still in the world of make-believe?

“and the input of experts from the Tablet…”

Now that is a claim so bizarre that I can only imagine you have put it in as a distraction so I guess I’d better not discuss it.

“…suggest that the current Pope was present at said meeting. Whilst not utterly incriminating, that all adds up to a prima faciae case against the current Pope, that he was to some extent complicit in, or an active participant in, the planning, drafting, agreeing, or sending of that letter.”

Sorry, I seem to have missed the bit where it was established as fact that the meeting planned, drafted, agreed or sent the letter. You know, the incriminating bit?

Gould,

“I don’t know whether he was there or not and it seems to be a bone of contention between you and oldandrew.”

The bone of contention is that he keeps saying I have discussed this, and even that we argued about it and he won, while I don’t think I have ever expressed an opinion on the matter.

Galen10,

I have just noticed that at various points in these comments you have condemned Cardinal Castrillón Hoyos for his masonic conspiracy theories expressed in his RCN interview.

At other points in this thread, you have relied on (what you imagine were) the Cardinal’s claims in the same radio interview as the only evidence of wrongdoing by the current Pope, and claims he made at other times as evidence against the previous Pope.

Can we just clarify this point? Is the Cardinal a bit of a loon for blaming masons, or a reliable witness for blaming the Pope (past or present)? I can’t really see how he can be both a lunatic conpsiracy theorist, and somebody who is so reliable that you will argue for weeks on the basis of third hand accounts of what he said.

You’ve translated the interview have you?

No. You presumably have access to a detailed translation though, since you claim that this has all been subject to proper scrutiny.

Let’s suppose I did have it translated, and I found that the Cardinal had said that the letter was the ‘product’, ‘outcome’, or ‘result’ of the meeting, or some such ambiguous term. (And I’d bet a good few quid that’s what I would find – that is after all what he has been widely reported as saying, contrary to your claim that the whole world except me ignored it, and what is more no-one has gainsaid this interpretation.) Would you consider this to be:

a) no evidence
b) evidence
c) incriminating evidence
d) utterly incriminating evidence
?

At the moment I’m playing whack-a-mole: you claim that there is no evidence at all against the Pope. Zero, zilch, nada. I produce some evidence, you point out that it is not “utterly incriminating”, I concede this, and then you triumphantly trumpet that there is therefore absolutely no evidence whatsoever, and then we start again. Apparently there can be no middle ground, where there is reasonable prima faciae evidence, certainly deserving of further enquiry, but not yet absolutely definitive. Well, this impossible scenario is where we happen to be.

146,

If somebody vaguely insinuates that they might have witnessed something, but doesn’t specify what it was I will not consider that to be evidence. If somebody with no connection to the matter whatsoever other than personal prejudice starts making allegations that they cannot justify, then I don’t think that should be considered evidence.

These are the standards I would hold to for an allegation to be considered evidence in itself. Either the person making the incriminating allegation should be a witness, or the witness’ allegation should be incriminating.

I asked you a specific question about Horos’ interview. Your vaguaries don’t answer it.

148,

Which part of “If somebody vaguely insinuates that they might have witnessed something, but doesn’t specify what it was I will not consider that to be evidence” did you not understand?

148 Larry

Now you can see the kind of thing we’ve been up against: trying to get an sense out of him is like nailing jelly to a wall.

Which part of “If somebody vaguely insinuates that they might have witnessed something, but doesn’t specify what it was I will not consider that to be evidence” did you not understand?

The part where the general principles were pinned down to a concrete answer in the specific context under consideration. (Or the part where, if you meant “no”, you didn’t just say “no”.)

Galen10,

Come off it.

We’ve had weeks since you first claimed that “the current Pope, whilst still a Cardinal, was at least complicit in decisions which allowed known child abusers to avoid punishment”.

You didn’t acknowledge the weakness of your case when you revealed that the only justification you had was the story of the cardinal’s letter and the claim he was present at the meeting which “approved” the letter.

You didn’t acknowledge the weakness of your case when it turned out that your evidence that such a meeting took place was bloggers misquoting newspapers rereporting a press agency report paraphrasing something the cardinal said in an interview.

You didn’t acknowledge the weakness of your case when it turned out that the Cardinal was not completely reliable as a guide to events.

You didn’t acknowledge that you had changed your position when you switched to saying that the meeting had “discussed” rather than approved the letter, and lied about what you had said before.

And now we have reached the point where you are not even arguing that what was said in the interview was “incriminating”.

Your conspiracy has fallen apart into nothing.

By all means call for inquiries and investigations, that’s what conspiracy theories do, but don’t pretend that I was unreasonable in rejecting your claim. It has collapsed into nothing.

152 oldandrew

There never was a conspiracy, it was always in your fevered imagination.

You’ve spent weeks trying to rubbish this story with an exasperating display of denial of perfectly legitimate reports. Your attempt to re-write history will only fool those hopeless dupes and deniers who think it is more important to protect the interests of the church before those of abused children.

Any reasonable person will see from the exchanges over recent weeks that your increasingly hysterical reaction on this issue isn’t based on an objective view of the situation, but a pre-determined position.

Castrillon’s comments are real, and you’ve now been provided with the primary source: worryingly for you that means that all the on-line commentary referencing his quotes can’t be dismissed out of hand as you have consistently done.

The questions are simple: if Castrillon is lying why hasn’t he been denounced? The letter to Pican “emanated” from the meeting of Cardinals.. if they have nothing to hide, tell us what went on. If Ratzinger didn’t stop it, why not?

You never have, and never will answer these questions. Like lots of deniers in the church, you just want it all to go away.

I’m not the conspiracy theorist oldandrew: you are the one with a penchant for labelling any critcism of the church sectarian, anti-catholic and based on a double standard.

Don’t worry, I will keep investigating this issue: who knows, we might even get to the truth someday. Perhaps Sunny will even publish the article:… what should we call it I wonder..?

“Catholic Church in Disarray Over Child Abuse Response” perhaps?

Come back and talk to us when you’ve had that primary source you so craved translated… then we’ll know who the real conspiracy theory wing nut is!

Thanks folks – I’ve enjoyed it, and learnt a lot.

One lesson that I shall do my best to apply in daily life, is this: when someone expresses themself using a term whose precise meaning is any way unclear or ambiguous (such as ‘outcome’ or ‘product’ or indeed a great many other ordinary English words), in the past I would have enquired what exactly it was that they meant. But now I know that to make such an enquiry, or even to assume that they had any intended meaning whatsoever, is to be a wild-eyed conspiracy wackaloon. The correct course of action, I now understand, is to confidently conclude that their statement has no meaningful content whatsoever, and never to breath another word about it. And the more that is at stake, the more important it is to follow this rule.

142 Gould

Firstly, a request: PLEASE break your War & Peace efforts into more digestible chunks: it makes it easier for me, and everyone else to follow!

As to the body of your post:

1) “No, I think you are just wrong here. The obligations associated with the seal of the confessional override all requirements of civil law and any motu proprio. The obligation is absolute.”

Im no Canon lawyer, so I’ve tried to clarify this from on-line sources.

“For years, bishops complained to the Vatican about confusion over how to handle sexual abuse cases. In 2001, Pope John Paul II issued a document saying all credible allegations of abuse by priests should be reported to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. But the document was not widely circulated, and the confusion remained.
In April, the Vatican for the first time published online guidelines that it said it advised bishops to follow in handling abuse, including reporting all sexual abuse cases to the Vatican and to civil authorities in countries that required mandatory reporting of crimes. But those guidelines do not hold the force of law. The new document did not change that. “It’s not for canonical legislation to get itself involved with civil law,” Monsignor Scicluna said. “

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/16/world/europe/16vatican.html

However Scicluna is also on record as saying:

“In some English-speaking countries, but also in France, if bishops become aware of crimes committed by their priests outside the sacramental seal of confession, they are obliged to report them to the judicial authorities. This is an onerous duty because the bishops are forced to make a gesture comparable to that of a father denouncing his own son. Nonetheless, our guidance in these cases is to respect the law,”

in an interview with the Italian Catholic magazine Avvenire

http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1342484?eng=y

So it seems you are probably correct that for the church this does not apply where confessional provilege in involved. However my understanding of the Pican affair is that it was not covered by this as he learnt of the abuse outside the seal of the confessional. It is also reported that the prosecution at Pican’s trial rejected the confessional secrecy defence because the French law recognising such secrets does not apply to crimes against minors. I’m trying to find an attribution for that one.

Oh – I almost forgot. As I am banishing the ambiguous statement to the conspiracy theoretic hinterlands, I should also have claimed to have ‘properly scrutinized’ it. If anyone should be so presumptuous as to ask what exactly this entailed, I should…. say nothing at all.

142 Gould

2) “So, if you know that the Church encourages the civil authorities to become involved and orders its clergy to facilitate this…. Where’s the beef?”

Because the situation is confusing, and whilst the church may be trying to make up for past mistakes, it obviously still isn’t perfect. The letter Castrillon sent (on whatever basis it was “arrived at” in the meeting of Cardinals) seems to contradict the motu proprio of 4 months earlier.

Altho Castrillon later claimed the confessional secrecy defence, that wasn’t mentioned in the letter, so he may simply have come up with it as a post hoc defence when it all hit the fan later: he certainly can’t have done his homework, as he could quickly have found out that Pican’s case wasn’t covered by confessional secrecy.

I’m not convinced that this affair is an example of things being distorted, misrepresented or wrenched out of context to attack the church. There is a real feeling that Castrillon’s letter exhibits the kind of attitude amongst many clerical conservatives the church could well do without: just browse through the coverage in major news outlests at the time, including many Catholic sources.

This wasn’t some sectarian, anti-Catholic consiracy. Many perfectly reasonable people, including Catholics, were repulsed by Castrillon’s letter and concerned about it’s implications.

I would also strongly disagree with your point that where the seal of confessional is not involved: “Bishops should see themselves as being in the equivalent of a paternal relationship with their priests. When it comes to involving the Police they should as a general rule try to get someone else (e.g. the victim or the victims family) to make the formal complaint to the Police rather than do it themselves”.

This harks back to the bad old days of cover up and foor dragging. The secular authorities should always be involved in such cases at the earliest opportunity. No doubt if it is under seal of confessional, and a bishop refuses to divulge information which subsequently comes out, then he has to be prepared to face prison for his faith.

142 Gould

3) “If you knew anything about the history of French or Italian freemasonry, this wouldn’t seem so tinfoil hat. Without going into all the details – people join the masons in these countries precisely because they are anti-clerical.”

I take your point about the history of masonic anti-clericalism, but I still think Castrillon’s comments as reported in the RCN Radio interview are pretty “out there”.

Attributing attacks on the church to masons, or to the permissive society, or simply to sectarian anti-Catholic bias looks pretty weak to me. Perhaps some masons are actively involved, but there are plenty of people like me who are just horrified by the events, and not in the least satisfied by the response of the church. It doesn’t make me (or the many others like me) anti-Catholic, or a Mason, or a conspiracy theorist.

138 oldandrew

“Obviously, I am not telling you that. I believe that if the interview contained that it would have been reported.

But you and Galen10 have been roundly abusing me for thinking that the interview was anything other than utterly incriminating.

Do you now accept that there is no evidence for Galen10?s allegation?”

You seem to be the only person who is holding out that the RCN interview did NOT contain Castrillon’s widely reported comments. You have now been provided with links to the primary source. The onus is now on you to justify your continued claims that there is no direct evidence that Castrillon made the two claims at issue, i.e. that Ratzinger was present at the Cardinals meeting, and that he had JPII’s blessing for the contents and wide circulation of the letter.

Neither I, or from what I can see Larry ,have ever said that it was “utterly incriminating”: that’s just something you’ve made up to try and justify your crazy theory that this is a sectarian anti-Catholic conspiracy theory. What we’ve said is that the allegations are serious and need to be investigated and explained.

You have been rightly criticised for asserting the opposite view, that there is absolutely nothing incriminating, because you have no evidence to support your claim, and your case has of course been considerably weakened by the fact that you can no longer hide behind the claim I didn’t have a primary source for Castrillon’s reported allegations.

The “allegation” isn’t mine, it is Catrillon’s. Whether there is any truth to it is important, but unlike you I’m not pre-judging it, I’m calling for it to be investigated, and for the Church to be open about it. If they have nothing to hide, then there is absolutely no reason for the Vatican press office to address the issues raised.

159,

“The onus is now on you to justify your continued claims that there is no direct evidence that Castrillon made the two claims at issue, i.e. that Ratzinger was present at the Cardinals meeting, and that he had JPII’s blessing for the contents and wide circulation of the letter.”

What on earth are you talking about now?

I haven’t ever discussed either of those claims.

Galen 10

Both the rhetoric and substance of your own recent posts are in marked contrast to the OTT, dishonest mischief-making of Hari et al.

I suspect you will not get the openness or investigation you are calling for, largely because the Vatican tends to err on the side of discretion.

I strongly suspect that the real truth goes something like this: a turf battle went on within the Vatican over the issue of clerical abuse between Castrillon and others on the one side and Ratzinger on the other.

The Castrillon camp would, in simple terms, be more inclined to take a therapeutic approach to offending priests, seeing some time spent in retreat and a dose of psychiatric help as what was needed in most abuse cases.

Ratzinger, by contrast, took a much harder line and wanted to purge the Church of such outrages. He was more focused on punishment than therapy.

Bureaucratic ownership of abuse cases had, for various complicated reasons, wound up with the Congregation of the Clergy (Castrillon’s dept.). Ratzinger badgered the then Pope (JP II) to transfer responsibility to him.

Ratzinger won his turf battle and was behind the 2001 motu proprio. The Castrillon letter was, to some extent, born out of pique on Castrillon’s part. It was his way of saving face. Neither JP II nor Ratzinger wanted to utterly humiliate Castrillon, and since Ratzinger had won the substantive battle felt he could be magnanimous in victory and so did not rub Castrillon’s nose in the mud by quibbling too much over whether the letter was compatible with his (Ratzinger’s) newly promulgated norms.

The key point is that Ratzinger was by a mile the “goody” in this whole sorry saga. He is absolutely the man to clean up the Church and take a very tough line with offenders. Attempts to implicate or incriminate him with cover-up are misdirected and way out of order.

161 Gould

I tend to agree that (regretably) we will not see the type of openness required, or indeed any investigation. This rather gives the lie to some of the claims about the sunny uplands Cardinal Ratzinger led the church to after the motu proprio of 2001.

The damascene conversion of the church heirarchy to making their response to such scandals more about changing the previous inaction and making amends, than the previous knee-jerk reaction of protecting their own and covering things up, is of course to be welcomed. No doubt Benedict XVI deserves some credit for his belated actions.

Your narrative of possible events is plausible. However, it would have reflected more credit on the Vatican in April this year when the story resurfaced if it had taken swift an unambiguous action to disown Castrillon’s letter and explain why it was unacceptable. It should also be explained what happened at the cardinals meeting, and why the offending letter, which flies in the face of the CDF guidance was ever issued, particularly when Cardinal Ratzinger was present.

I for one am unconvinced that it was because they didn’t want Castrillon’s nose rubbed in his demotion: the church heirarchy have certainly been pretty keen to throw him under a bus since, and identify him as part of the problem, not part of the solution. If BXVI wants us to accept he is different, and rejects the old clericalist protectionism, let him demonstrate it by denouncing Castrillon’s actions and refuting his claims.

We are not after all talking about some way-out fringe conspiracy wing-nut: we’re talking about one of the most senior Cardinals of the church, previously regarded as “papabile”.

Ratzinger may be a “goody” in comparison with some of his predecessors, but in reality that is damning with faint praise. You claim that he is the best man for the job, or that attempts to implicate him or incriminate him with a cover-up are misdirected or way out of order. This isn’t about falsely incriminating or implicating him however: it only looks that way to crazed conspiracy theorists like oldandrew and the like because they are “ultras” who will brook no criticism, and because church evasion makes it look suspicious.

BXVI needs to convince us that he IS actually going to walk the walk, not just make encouraging noises.

Looking at just this one issue, the signs aren’t good.