This development was a surprise:
https://www.ncronline.org/news/accountability/pope-sends-maltese-archbishop-investigate-chilean-bishop-abuse-cover-case
From the article:
"Pope Francis is sending Archbishop Charles Scicluna of Malta to Chile
to take testimony about Bishop Juan de la Cruz Barros Madrid of Osorno,
Chile, who is accused of covering up allegations of abuse by a Chilean
priest who was found guilty of abuse.
The Vatican announced Scicluna's trip to Chile in a statement this morning.
Scicluna was in charge of sexual abuse cases in the Congregation of
the Doctrine of Faith from 2002 until 2010. Francis appointed him to
lead a commission in the doctrinal congregation to hear appeals of
priests accused of sexual abuse."
It's too bad this didn't happen a long time ago; but I feel that it is a positive thing that it is happening now. Will be interesting to see how it plays out; hopefully the truth will out.
It seems Scicluna is a fixer - he flies out, does his thing, and presto! the perpetrator goes away. Perhaps that is the intention here as well.
ReplyDeleteIt all seems a little ad hoc. As an alternative to dispatching the fixer to make someone disappear, formal policies and processes could be established to deal with high-level officials accused of these crimes. Evidence gathered, charges filed, cases prosecuted in open court, the accused defended, rights protected, avenues of appeal, etc. etc.
What you want is due process, but due process is so messy. The Church would prefer that the offender simply drop dead on the doorstep (Acts 5:5) and avoid the mess. Open an investigation, and the next thing you know the investigator will be vilified by those who fear the outcome.
ReplyDeleteBut how many of Francis's predecessors would have paid attention to the criticism he got in Chile? Instead of a fixer, most of them would have sent excommunications and interdicts. Simply by having a second act, Francis is doing a new thing in the church.
Better late than never, indeed.
ReplyDeleteTom: you would make a good lawyer!
Compared to what Francis is trying to deal with in Nigeria, Chile is a minor kerfuffle.
ReplyDeletehttps://cruxnow.com/global-church/2017/12/15/bishops-joust-contested-choice-shepherd-nigerian-diocese/
And if Chile and Nigeria weren't enough to keep him awake nights, now there is China. The pope has made overtures toward reuniting the state-backed Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association with the underground Catholic Church. Actually efforts to heal the division were first made by Pope Benedict, and Francis is just continuing to try to advance the process. Apparently some conservatives think he is throwing the underground church under the bus. The church in China has had a complicated history.
ReplyDeleteThis isn't an "Advertisement for Myself" (cf. Norman Mailer) but for a long comment of mine at the end of Margaret Steinfels' earlier "When the Irish Mafia was virtuous". She posted it almost a week ago, so most of you have probably stopped checking in to see if there are new comments. I didn't post mine till yesterday. I'm emboldened to do this because, as you'll see, the people who have read the comment, have liked it a lot. Thanks for indulging me.
ReplyDeleteI sometimes check back to see if anything happened in older threads and I DID catch your post, Gene. Great story. Sometimes music and song can bypass the verbal which seems sometimes to throw up barriers, for some reason.
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