For Catholics and non-Catholics alike

[flyingfish]

The entire article appears in
www.pittsburghcatholic.org
Only part of the article is copied below.
Since so many on here were so quick to jump the gun on the meaning of the 1962 Vatican document, here is what is really states.

Reports distort meaning of 1962 Vatican document
by: Robert P. Lockwood

In one of the strangest stories of the year, an English translation of a 1962 Vatican document written during the papacy of Pope John XXIII and before the Second Vatican Council grabbed headlines last week.

It was reported on CBS news and elsewhere that the 40-year-old document allegedly provided proof of a Vatican-mandated “coverup” of criminal accusations of sexual abuse by clergy.

Investigation showed, however, that the news reports distorted completely the meaning of the 40-year-old document, its roots in church law and its intent in dealing primarily with attempts at sexual solicitation through the sacrament of confession.

Rather than a coverup, the March 1962 document restated norms to deter any sexual misconduct related to the sacrament of confession, including dismissal from the clerical state.

The document was not intended to address civil or criminal behavior on the part of the clergy, but related specifically to violations of church law.

“To see this as a blueprint for any form of behavior is simply to misunderstand history and to misunderstand the document,” according to a response released by the Department for Communications of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The decades-old document titled “Crimen Sollicitationes” (“the crime of solicitation”) was portrayed, particularly in reports from CBS news, as a “smoking gun” that established a “ground plan” for the church universal for covering up crimes of sexual abuse of minors by clerics.

That charge

[searchingforlight]

1. I never thought the document was a "smoking gun".

To me the smoking gun is the fact that systematic cover-ups were the accepted practice.

If we demand accountability from GWB (and we should). Then the same should be true of the leadership of the Catholic Church. I believe that the cover-up was sanctioned by and encouraged by the Vatican.

I am not a Catholic hater or baiter. All churches and organizations have skeletons but when one is exposed, it is up to the body of the organization to demand full and complete disclosure and fair restitution.

[flyingfish]

3. Uh, but many did think it was a smoking gun!

Including many here on DU.

[OrdinaryTa]

2. Catholic-Bashers Don't Want the Truth

They'll go for the sensational story over the truth every time. According to them, there's no end to the evil that the Church is guilty of. They pounce on child abuse stories without even checking them out.

[searchingforlight]

4. That is a fact and it distorts the truth by it's very nature.

Mother Theresa was one of the most admired people of her day. The Catholic Church has been responsible for a great many good and selfless acts.

Unfortunately, power corrupts and control is a form of power. The abuses stand out because the Church demands by it's very teachings blind obedience to THE higher authority through men/women of higher authority.

I do believe that today's Church is more good than bad and that it is wrestling with it's demons every day.

[Blue_Chill]

5. I knew it was bullshit

when no one could actually show me the document. Only detail 'light' articles on it.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

6. flyinfish thank you for post,& i never thought otherwise for a minute

i knew it was meant in context to Sacrament of Reconciliation

[flyingfish]

7. Read the article in the paper format and instantly thought DU

Funny how no one is apologizing on here for posts in the recent past that were distortions and not the "truth".

[Devils Advocate NZ]

8. Wow...

The Catholics say this document doesn't mean what it seems to mean, and we are supposed to believe them? Yeah right. I see some people on this thread have said that they "knew" that the allegations were suspect because the news agencies didn't show the entire document, but merely quoted from specific sections. But guess what? The article from Pittsburgh Catholic DOESN'T QUOTE THE DOCUMENT EVEN ONCE!

What we are in fact given are many quotes of how the Catholic League president interprets the document. For instance, he claims that the rules requiring confedentiality were to protect the confessional rights of the accuser. Well excuse me, but doesn't the accuser have a right to break the confidentiality of his or her confessional in order to accuse the priest? Not according to this interpretation.

Apparently, the accuser is not allowed to break his or her own confidentiality in order to report abuse so that his or her confidentality can be protected! In other words, the accuser has to be protected from him or herself! Who is REALLY being protected by these rules? It's pretty damned obvious, isn't it?

Of course, you can point to punishment of the priest as "proof" that this was not meant to protect the priest. But who said the priest is the ONLY one being protected? What about the church itself?

It is clear that this document is meant to protect the church from allegations laid against individual priests. The church didn't want the church itself to be brought into disrepute, even though the church is responsible for putting these priests in a position of power over their congregation.

This "defense" is bollocks pure and simple, and once again shows the exact point of these alleagations: the church will do anything to protect itself, including covering up crimes.

[NashVegas]

9. From What I Can See

It seems to be a policy of how to deal with a situation when someone reports a priest was hitting on them in confession.

Not quite a smoking gun, but it raises more questions, such as "why did Rome feel it necessary to form a policy to deal with the issue in the first place?" And "was this document also used as a guideline for dealing with reports of clergy who took the next step and went to physical contact?"

[Merlin]

11. Have you read the document?

You acknowledge the charge that quotations from it were taken out of context. As I understand it, the document itself has not appeared in print. So how can you be so sure what precisely it says?

Just wondering.

[Devils Advocate NZ]

19. I never refered to the contents of the document...

I was refering to what the Pittsburgh Catholic said the document meant.

If you read the article you will see this:

The document did call for confidentiality in dealing with this issue, which led in part to the charge that the document was evidence of a 40-year Vatican-mandated “coverup.”

But the document raised the issue of confidentiality from the context of church law involving the sanctity of the sacrament of confession. As the document dealt with solicitation in the confessional, the accused priest could not break the seal of confession to defend himself. At the same time, the person making the charge was held to confidentiality to protect that person’s confessional rights, the rights of the accused priest and the sanctity of the sacrament.

Now tell me, does it or does it not say that the accuser was prevented from talking about the charge to protect the accuser's rights? That is one of the things I was refering to. Another was the mention of the priest being punished, which was also claimed in the Pittsburgh Catholic article:

Responding to news reports, Donohue said that “the document did not apply to sexual misconduct — it applied only to sexual solicitation. Second, the only venue the document addressed was the confessional. … Third, because the policy was specifically aimed at protecting the secrecy of the confessional, it called for an ecclesiastical response: civil authorities were not to be notified because it involved a sacrament of the Catholic Church, not a crime of the state. Fourth, if a priest were found guilty, he could be thrown out of the priesthood.”

You will notice that Donohue states that the document was specifically aimed at protecting the secrecy of the confessional and called for an "ecclesiastical response: civil authorities were not to be notified because it involved a sacrament of the Catholic Church". Of course there is no mention of there being an exclusion based on soliciting an underage child which is of course a crime and should be reported to police.

The confessional is supposed to be secret to protect the confessor - NOT the church. But that is what is being done here. The church itself is being protected from the accusations of the confessor, because no-one outside the church was to be told of the accusation.

Even if the accusation did not involve a crime, there is a public interest in the airing of these complaints. Catholic worshipers should be informed that Catholic priests may solicit sex, and that such acts are breaches of the church's rules and NOT holy orders from god! How many people submitted to sex because they thought that god wanted them to? Is this not a form of rape?

Besides, who would ever take the rules seriously, if they knew that the very people enforcing those rules (which is what confessional is all about) regularly break them?

That is what this document is about: protecting the church at the expense of the victims and other members - and you don't need to refer to the document to see this, what the Pittsburgh Catholic says the document means is more than enough to see it.

[flyingfish]

14. Denial is just not a river in Egypt

Anti-Catholic bigot who will do anything to discredit the Church.

[Devils Advocate NZ]

20. Denial is not just a river in Egypt: (The Pittsburgh Catholic lied!)

You're a pro-catholic bigot who will do anything to protect the church.

See, turn about is fair play.

On edit: The Pittsburgh Catholic lied! Its said:

The document was not intended to deal with the issue of reporting a civil crime, and nowhere in the document does it forbid that anything involving actual criminal sexual activity not be reported by the victim to civil authorities.

However, the document does say that the crime of solicitation must be kept secret. This seems fair enough because asking someone for sex is not illegal (depending on the age of the person asked that is). However in the document it has a section ("TITLE V THE WORST CRIME") that states:

Those things that have been stated concerning the crime of solicitation up to this point are also valid, changing only those things necessary to be changed by their very nature, for the worst crime...

The "worst crime" is defined as:

any obscene, external act, gravely sinful, perpetrated in any way by a cleric or attempted by him with youths of either sex or with brute animals

So this document does deal with more than just solicitation, and it does deal with acts that are illegal under civil law as well as church law.

[CWebster]

30. If the belovedJohn the 23rd was pope today

homosexuals and women would be accepted without question.

[Merlin]

10. This is horrible!

As critical as I am of the Vatican, this is a travesty, and CBS has a hell of a lot of apologizing to do.

The irony is that John XXIII is the one truly excellent Pontiff we've had in two or three centuries.

[Tinoire]

12. CBS will not apologize nor will any of the frauds who pushed this story

nor will any of the frauds who pushed this story, be it here at DU or elsewhere, because the main goal right now is to weaken and shut-up the Catholic Church with all its talk of Social Justice for the poor, denunciation of Capitalistic Materialism that destroys the people, and its anti-Bush/anti-war stance.

Bush doesn't like this and neither do his operatives. This picture sums up the relationship of the Chuech and Bush rather nicely.



Coming from this thread: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=191761&mesg_id=191761 I am giving up on the ability of Liberals to think and reason critically enough to beat Bush. There is no end to the gullibility of the American people and the right-wing cabal is playing us brilliantly. 7 years from now we'll still be blaming Nader instead of ourselves.

[Tinoire]

13. Stick around! The Religious Intolerance that passes for Free Speech

is only going to get worse as we not only allow people to peddle their hate and snake oil but fall for it.

[flyingfish]

15. I declare a Catholic jihad here

If that makes sense. To borrow a Muslim phrase. Defender of the faith on DU. I am tired of all these Catholic bashers on DU willing to say or believe anything without finding out the the truth.
Next time you want to bash the Catholic Church, look in the phone book at all the Catholic charities in your area.
Then think how charitable you are.
Bashing someone else to make yourself or your position look good is the lowest form of self-promotion.

[NashVegas]

16. Perhaps these Document Excerpts Will Help Your Jihad

BBC:


The crime of solicitation takes place when a priest tempts a penitent, whoever that person is, either in the act of sacramental confession, whether before or immediately afterwards, whether on the occasion or the pretext of confession, whether even outside the times for confession in the confessional or in a place other than that usually designated for the hearing of confessions or in a place chosen for the simulated purpose of hearing a confession...

The object of this temptation is to solicit or provoke toward impure and obscene matters, whether by words or signs or nods of the head, whether by touch or by writing whether then or after or whether he has had with that penitent prohibited and improper speech or activity with reckless daring...

more -


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3157859.stm

on edit - some bracketed text wasn't coming through

What the excerpts seem to be saying is, this is how you deal with situations where a priest, under the pretext of confession, messes with someone. It does not confine itself to matters strictly inside the confessional booth.

Now, if none of the accused clergy ever tried to help themselves to some booty under this pretext, you may be right - the document may be meaningless.

[JVS]

17. I believe the proper term is Crusade

The RCC doesn't do Jihads

[RapidCreek]

32. I think Catholics refer to it as a crusade.

Fact is the Catholic Church stole 2.8 million dollars worth of land from my great grandmother....it was alledged by some that her husband committed suicide. She was instructed by her priest that giving the land to the Church was the only way he could gain absolution. What would my family have done without Catholic Charities after that?

[Liberator_Rev]

18. Catholic Lay People join Bishops in COVERUP ATTEMPT.

It's not just BISHOPS who try to cover up the pedophilia of its priests. Just look at the Catholic lay people here at DU doing their utmost to "defend the honor" of the Vatican and the hierarchy. Having created this illusion for themselves that theirs is such a holy divine creation, they have this compulsion to deny any evidence, no matter how compelling, that would shatter that illusion. And that requires blackening the names and reputations of any messengers delivering such evidence.

It's not Catholic newspapers of PR experts like Donahue or DU members who are definitely CONSERVATIVES, where the Catholic Church is concerned who are going to decide the significance of the documents recently uncovered. (If the Catholic Church wasn't ashamed of these documents, why did it threaten anyone who would reveal them WITH EXCOMMUNICATION ?!?)

Eventually these documents are going to be studied in courts of law and juries will decide how significant and/or damaging they really are. Until then you can read the document yourself. But without a background in Catholic Canon Law, you might not be able to understand it. Here's what someone who HAS such expertise had to say about it:

from http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1020400,00.html

"Rev Thomas Doyle, a US Air Force chaplain in Germany and a specialist in Church law, has studied the document. He told The Observer: 'It is certainly an indication of the pathological obsession with secrecy in the Catholic Church, but in itself it is not a smoking gun.

'If, however, this document actually has been the foundation of a continuous policy to cover clergy crimes at all costs, then we have quite another issue. There are too many authenticated reports of victims having been seriously intimidated into silence by Church authorities to assert that such intimidation is the exception and not the norm.

'If this document has been used as a justification for this intimidation then we possibly have what some commentators have alleged, namely, a blueprint for a cover-up. This is obviously a big "if" which requires concrete proof.' "

[CBHagman]

21. We need to see the text.

I would genuinely like to know what's in the translation before offering comment.

[Liberator_Rev]

23. Here's the text you requested

Eventually these documents are going to be studied in courts of law and juries will decide how significant and/or damaging they really are. Until then you can read the document yourself. See the link below: http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1020400,00.html

Without a background in Catholic Canon Law, you might not be able to make much sense of it, however. Here's what someone who HAS such expertise had to say about it:

"Rev Thomas Doyle, a US Air Force chaplain in Germany and a specialist in Church law, has studied the document. He told The Observer: 'It is certainly an indication of the pathological obsession with secrecy in the Catholic Church, but in itself it is not a smoking gun.

'If, however, this document actually has been the foundation of a continuous policy to cover clergy crimes at all costs, then we have quite another issue. There are too many authenticated reports of victims having been seriously intimidated into silence by Church authorities to assert that such intimidation is the exception and not the norm.

'If this document has been used as a justification for this intimidation then we possibly have what some commentators have alleged, namely, a blueprint for a cover-up. This is obviously a big "if" which requires concrete proof.' "

[flyingfish]

22. Rev, what planks are in your eye? take the Jerry Falwell one out

Honestly rev, you sound just like Jerry Falwell did 30 years ago.

Bash others so you look good. Lowest form of self-promotion.

Funny, rev, how you never seem to post anything positive about your beliefs, only negatives against others.

[Liberator_Rev]

24. Great line of defense, Flyingfish!

Cardinal Law shouldn't have resigned. The priests shouldn't have been removed. They should have chanted "What planks are in your eye?" and stayed in place.

[flyingfish]

25. Rev, why not admit the errors of your own behavior?

You bash others to make yourself look good.
Admit it. You avoid defending yourself when I state that because you know it is true.
You exhibit the lowest form of self-promotion, pulling others down so it looks like you are high up.

[flyingfish]

26. Rev, think of it this way

You write a letter. Someone tells you what you meant by that letter.
You tell them they are wrong, you meant something else. They tell you that you do not know what you are talking about.
Think about it, Rev.

[Devils Advocate NZ]

27. I notice that you haven't responded to my posts above that prove...

that the Pittsburgh Catholic is wrong. Why is that?

[NashVegas]

28. Give 'em Time

I'm sure FF is still studying the raw document and examining the implications.

[flyingfish]

29. Put it this way,

You belong to an organization that writes a letter.
Another organization tells your organization what it meant by that letter.
Your organization tells that organization that is not what was meant by the letter.
The other organization says your organization is wrong.
Think about it.

And you are on freaking person who doesn't seem to like the Catholic church. Oh, yeah, YOU are REALLY credible on this issue.

[Spentastic]

31. Alternatively

Your organisation writes a letter which says "Let's cover everything up"

Another or organisation looks at letter and says "Well it sure looks like you are trying to cover something up"

Your organisation then says "No not at all, It's a recipe for Scones. "Cover up" means use extra flour. EVERYONE who wishes to remain in our organisation knows this."

Other organisation gives up and goes to the pub.

[flyingfish]

33. Your analogy is incorrect

The letter had to do with the confessional.
Legally, the confessional is like a wife/husband, lawyer/client, relationshiop, or the same as other clergy of other faiths and their followers.
The letter had nothing to do with covering things up.
The translation in the popular media was a distortion of the translation.

Seems like you have fallen for the popular media's translation.
Maybe you listen to Rush Limbaugh, also.

[Spentastic]

34. That would be hard

He doesn't get much air time in the U.K.

If you're not willing to engage me, I suggest you rebutt Devils Advocate.

Alternatively just answer this.

Has the Catholic Church done everything in its power to expose clergy involved in abusing children?

Note I'm not accusing the church of being instituiionally bad on every count.

[NashVegas]

35. One Would Need Some Statistical Analysis, I Guess

Of reported instances wherein the complain came from someone reporting inappropriate conduct revolving around the pretext of confession (not just restricted to the booth, which the document clearly states).

The document is also clear that accusers are to take a vow of silence, else face excommunication. Depending on statistical analysis of the above situations, one might construe that as a cover-up.

[Az]

36. Read it for yourself (PDF copy of the original)

Both sides may spin this. Read the document for yourself and decide for yourself.

http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Observer/documents/2003/08/16/Criminales.pdf