New pope key to Vatican’s response to sex-abuse scandal, says Judge Burke

[The Straight Story]

New pope key to Vatican’s response to sex-abuse scandal, says Judge Burke

Chicago, May. 05, 2005 (CNA) - Pope Benedict XVI is fully aware of the sex-abuse scandal in the U.S. Church and was instrumental in the Vatican’s response to the crisis more than a year ago, when he served in the curia as Pope John Paul II’s key aide, said the USCCB’s former review board president, Judge Anne Burke.

Burke was chosen by the U.S. bishops to investigate the priest sex-abuse scandal on the review board. In an interview with CBS, Burke said she traveled to Rome in January 2004 to meet with then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and to offer Vatican officials the full story of the sex-abuse scandal.

Cardinal Ratzinger spent nearly three hours with Burke, who said she thinks he was “surprised at what we had to tell him.”

One month later, her committee released its report and recommendations. In a March 2004 letter, Cardinal Ratzinger echoed the committee’s suggestion that the bishops examine their role in the scandal. Pope John Paul II followed up in April, urging the bishops to start listening to lay people the way Cardinal Ratzinger had listened to Burke.

http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=3815

[Verve]

1. I hope he is serious about this issue! So far I am not impressed.

I did not grow up Catholic but converted when I married. My husband is from a Catholic family and we live in a large Catholic community. Hence, my third grader attends a Catholic school. Last week my son and his friends were talking about confession and how what they say to the priest is a secret between them and the priest.

I had a tizzy fit. I have worked with pedophiles in my mental health work in the past. Pedophiles try to isolate their victim from other adults by "being their friend and keeping secrets". (Micheal Jackson's behavior, by the way, fits the stereotypical pedophile profile). This confession policy is setting up an ideal situation for a pedophile priest!

I explained to the kids they do not have to keep their confession secret and definitely would not get in trouble for telling what was told. In fact, it is only the priest that cannot tell people what was said, not the kids.

I am still fuming about this and am strategizing how to discuss this with the principal and the priest. My husband and several Catholic friends do not see anything wrong with the confession policy as they grew up with this.

I got the impression that they thought I was being over controlling by even asking about confession. I completely disagree and understand that my son is obviously going to keep secrets from his parents. But, over my dead body, will he be keeping secrets with a non family member adult when he is a minor.

[sueh]

2. Hmmm, me thinks the new pope was key in sweeping it under the rug.

Andrew Sullivan was on Bill Maher. Sullivan said Ratz knew about the scandal in 1997 and ignored it. Below is article from Wikopedia with a link. Sorry for the length. Ratz's whole life in covered in one single link.

From Wikopedia

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

Sex abuse scandal


Regarding the Roman Catholic Church sex abuse scandal, he was seen by critics as at best, indifferent to the abuse and at worst, complicit in covering it up, both in specific cases and as a matter of policy. As prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), such abuses were ultimately his responsibility to investigate within the Church.

On May 18, 2001, Cardinal Ratzinger, as part of the implementation of the norms enacted and promulgated on April 30, 2001 by Pope John Paul II, sent a Latin language letter to every bishop in the Catholic church reminding them of the strict penalties facing those who revealed confidential details concerning enquiries into allegations against priests of certain grave ecclesiastical crimes, including sexual abuse, reserved to the jurisdiction of the CDF. The letter established a prescription (statute of limitations) of 10 years for these crimes. However, when the crime is sexual abuse of a minor, the "prescription begins to run from the day on which the minor completes the eighteenth year of age." <13>

According to Catholic News Service, "One bishop who is well informed on the issue and asked not to be named said the secrecy demanded by the new norms gives the appearance of a “cover-up” by the church." Lawyers acting for two alleged victims of abuse in Texas claim that by sending the letter the cardinal conspired to obstruct justice. However, the letter did not discourage victims from reporting the abuse itself to the police; the secrecy related to the internal investigation. "The letter said the new norms reflected the CDF’s traditional “exclusive competence” regarding delicta graviora—Latin for “graver offenses.” According to canon law experts in Rome, reserving cases of clerical sexual abuse of minors to the CDF is something new. In past eras, some serious crimes by priests against sexual morality, including pedophilia, were handled by that congregation or its predecessor, the Holy Office, but this has not been true in recent years."

The promulgation of the norms by Pope John Paul II and the subsequent letter by the then Prefect of the CDF were published in 2001 in Acta Apostolicae Sedis which, in accordance with the Code of Canon Law is the Holy See's official journal, disseminated monthly to thousands of libraries and offices around the world.

On April 23, 2005, The Independent reported that Ratzinger had since 1997 ignored specific sex abuse allegations made by nine different people against Friar Marcial Maciel, the founder of the Legion of Christ. Cardinal Ratzinger is quoted as having said "One can't put on trial such a close friend of the Pope's as Marcial Maciel."

After the nine brought claims—many corroborated by each other's detailed testimonies—before the Vatican's courts in the mid-1990s, on December 24, 1999, Ratzinger's secretary, Father Gianfranco Girotti, wrote to the men saying that the Vatican considered the matter closed. In a last-ditch attempt to persuade Ratzinger to change his mind, another letter was despatched to him in 2002 through an intermediary. It went unanswered. Cardinal Ratzinger re-opened the investigation in December of 2004.

In 2002 Cardinal Ratzinger told Catholic News Service that "less than one percent of priests are guilty of acts of this type." Opponents saw this as ignoring the crimes of those who committed the abuse; others saw it as merely pointing out that this should not taint other priests who live respectable lives.

A report by the Catholic Church itself estimated that some 4,450 of the Roman Catholic clergy who served between 1950 and 2002 have faced credible accusations of abuse. His Good Friday reflections in 2005 were interpreted as strongly condemning and regretting the abuse scandals, which largely put to rest the speculation of indifference. Shortly after his election, he told Cardinal Francis George, Archbishop of Chicago, that he would attend to the matter.

The End