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The Vatican reaches out
Aug 2nd, 2011 | By Ophelia Benson
Well good. Good good good. The Vatican is tired of being the eternal victim and is finally standing up for itself. What a relief – I'm so sick of watching people ride roughshod over it.
The papal nuncio is set to deliver a strong response to the Cloyne Report before the end of August, rebuffing the Taoiseach's accusation the Vatican undermined child protection guidelines…
The Vatican has been exasperated by reports claiming Archbishop Leanza was being moved to Prague in the Czech Republic as a mark of his disfavour with his superiors in Rome.
I should think so! Poor Vatican, being talked about behind its back in that shameful way. If there's anything the Vatican hates it's gossip.
In its response, the Vatican will point out the weakness of Irish state monitoring of child abuse. And it will insist that the Taoiseach's comments failed to recognise the efforts of Pope Benedict XVI to ensure bishops comply with national laws.
The Government will also be told that the seal of the confession is
sacrosanct.
And that therefore priests and bishops have every right to ignore the law and do whatever they like, so children will just have to put up with it.
Vatican demanded immunity from testifying
That's more like it
Parking tickets are one thing, and…
Vatican fuming
Another bit of postmodernist irony from the Vatican
27 Responses to "The Vatican reaches out"
What Tim Minchin said. (NSFW)
Tim DeLaney
Tim (love that name) Minchin says it so eloquently!
Graham Martin-Royle
What they said (#1&2)
skepticlawyer
The behaviour of celibate Christian clergy towards young people is a documented fact of history for anyone who takes an interest in classical antiquity; indeed, one of the standard pagan attacks on Christians dating back to the Roman persecution of Christians prior to the Edict of Milan in 313 AD is that the 'new religion' provided a cover for men who were uncomfortable with their sexual inclinations to abuse children.
Much of the material on this issue is very hard to read, for the simple reason that Greek and Roman civilisation tolerated both heterosexual and homosexual relationships where there was a large age gap between the partners (the Romans were better, preferring that the younger partner never be younger than about 18, and having an upper age gap limit — any more than 15 years was considered abusive — see Treggiari for details). That said, intelligent pagans were alert to the fact that there was 'something funny' about Christianity and the way it facilitated same sex relationships while denigrating women, lesbians and gay men. Much of the best documentation is collated by two Jesuit scholars in this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Sex-Priests-Secret-Codes-Catholic/dp/1566252652/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1312323448&sr=1-6
The first scandal (where a pagan woman lined up the early Christians as 'kiddy fiddlers') happened in about 150 AD. This is a very old problem, and is suggestive of institutional failure (pagan critics suggested that Christianity would never be moral all the while that it used Christianity as a 'cover' for behaviour that other people had no problem with).
*it condemned* should read 'it facilitated'.
Fumble fingers strikes again…
The Government will also be told that the seal of the confession is sacrosanct.
In other words, the Irish government is being told that it must conform to the laws of a foreign pseudo-nation.
Because SACROSANCT so shut your face.
Steve Zara
In its response, the Vatican will point out the weakness of Irish state monitoring of child abuse.
Sometimes a response is so jaw-dropping that it makes any attempt to comment other than highlighting rather pointless.
Excellent excellent.
Oh, Vatican, please keep digging.
Quite. An informant in Dublin tells me the talk in pubs is all but pitchforks and bonfires. Yesssssss!
Deepak Shetty
Lawyers (and to some extent journalists) will maintain confidentiality even if it means not providing information about a criminal activity(Im not sure if this applies to doctors as well). Though I suppose the law only covers lawyers? If I remember my Erle Stanley Gardener a spouse cannot testify against a spouse against his/her will. So it looks like we as a society do make exceptions with regards to revealing incriminating information.
@vincent
Excellent excellent. Oh, Vatican, please keep digging.
Yes. its pretty hard to imagine worse(in terms of a PR perspective) responses from the Vatican – which is of course excellent.
C. Mason Taylor
This is sincerely unbelievable. "oh, we'll show you!" they say. Are they serious? They're announcing their intention to not say they're sorry a month in advance?
Erm, Holy See? The Fonz called. He wants his pathological inability to apologize back.
Improbable Joe
Does Ireland have anything remotely like the RICO Act? Because that sounds like a useful direction to go in.
zackoz
The Catholic church in Australia is being similarly idiotic:
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/suicide-inquiry-wont-shed-light-bishop-20110802-1i9yc.html
picklefactory
Watch out, or you'll have that Rory fellow back here spouting more nonsense about "anti-clerical hysteria" and "The Mob."
sailor1031
"weakness of Irish state monitoring of child abuse"
In other words if you let RCC Inc. get away with anything criminal it's your fault and they are once again blameless because – well, you didn't stop them because you didn't know they were doing it! Surely they don't think people are so stupid as not to see the fallacy here? Oh wait – yes they do!!
Will they never take responsibility for their crimes? Oh wait – I know the answer to that one too, don't I?
The one thing I don't understand is why anyone other than the Rattenfaenger and his cronies are still catholic. Makes no sense to me – they won't leave and they won't clean out the Augean stables either! Why don't they just fire the [redacted] in the hat and his cronies. – it's so depressing…
Pogsurf
Sadly, the Vatican does actually have a point here. Take a look at this news report from the same paper:
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/abuse-survivor-battled-secretive-church-for-26-years-2835622.html
It took victim 26 years to get anyone to take action, including the Garda who failed to act after a direct report from the Metropolitan Police in the UK. It says:
No garda investigation was launched. Instead, the Garda Commissioner met with the Archbishop of Dublin, John Charles McQuaid, who took no action against the priest.
The situation in Ireland seems to have three factors. Priests who felt they could abuse with impunity. A lax state. And a Vatican who are obstructive and willing to assist in any cover up.
In diplomatic terms, withdrawing your ambassador is usually seen as the last step before war. When Austria-Hungary threatened to remove its ambassador from Serbia in July 1914 it was enough to set the First World War into motion. The Papal States have not been in an actual war since around 1860, so I don't expect they will use real guns, but when the reply to Enda Kenny's speech does come, do expect fireworks, and causalities on both sides.
Josh Slocum
My. Rome's got the cheek, donnit? Why does it think it gets to do so much telling?
The post might be more aptly titled The Vatican reaches around
MadScientist
I wouldn't mind living in Prague; moving a priest there is hardly any sign of disfavor – but that's probably just the pope's strawman. I would like to see the Irish government respond by removing all the special privileges which the state grants to religious institutions, starting with the various tax concessions.
I don't see what (religious) confession has to do with things either. Victims and their families have complained and been fobbed off by a whiny church which claims to be the victim. The crimes have been hidden by the church and the victims told to just lump it. Is the church now pretending that they couldn't turn in the priests because their confession was the only thing that tipped them off about the crimes? As I wrote on PZ's site – the newspaper calling the pope "Persona non grata" was soft – "Corpora vile" is definitely the phrase to use.
Bear in mind that 'nuncio' is literally a messenger – the Papal Nuncio is there to deliver the Pope's instructions, not facilitate discussions.
The whole confession thing is a distraction. Every profession now has rules about when it is critical to break confidentiality — in Australia it is *mandatory* for doctors to report child abuse to the appropriate authorities. That is, you will be in deep trouble if you maintain confidentiality.
Maintaining the confidentiality of confession is just a way of protecting the church from scrutiny. Hear some nasty complaints from parishioners? Quick, take a confession so that you don't have to report the guy.
It isn't parisoners that they are worried about. Priests are required to go to confession regularly in order to qualify to work their magic at the altar. I suspect one reason the Vatican cares so little about these abuses is because the rapists have been "forgiven" in the confession box.
Actually, confession may be the hook you hang your criminal conspiracy hat on. Imagine this sequence of events:
-Parishioner comes to Priest A, accuses Priest B of rape
-Priest A runs straight to Priest B, drags him into the confessional as fast as possible
-Priest A informs Priest B that he knows everything, and the church can't help him unless he confesses
-Priest B confesses, enveloping himself in the protection of the entire church
-Priest A confronts the parishioner, explains that the confession means that no one in the entire catholic church can help her in any way besides prayer. Priest A further explains that any attempt to compel any action from the church in violation of their rules will lead to her excommunication and eternal torture in hell.
Establish the timeline, maybe you establish a criminal conspiracy.
The Vatican isn't nearly that considerate.
@24…you win the internets for today.
oldebabe
Even tho organized religion is slowly losing ground everywhere (no matter what true believers tend to believe especially here in the US), it seems the Catholic/Vatican hierarchy is decapitating its creeds, coercsions, etc. all by itself, and in a hurry. And that's a good thing, IMO.
Steve Bell
"Rebuffing". Interesting word; looks like "rebutting" at first glance, but is considerably weaker. And a long, long way from "refuting".