Saturday, May 28, 2005
EMAIL FROM LEE PENN
FYI
This Jason Berry story, published in the San Francisco Chronicle on April 10, during the interregnum, corroborates John Allen's recent analysis of the tug-of-war within the Vatican on whether to investigate and try Maciel. It does appear that Sodano and his staff are on the side of the Legionaries, and they have made their influence felt this week. And Berry got the essence of the story more than a month ago.
Click here: Next pope must forthrightly confront church sex scandal / Bishops with a history of sheltering priests who moleste
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/04/10/ING0UC4KOM1.DTL
The whole story is below: I have added some bolding for emphasis.
Lee
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In the interests of not violating copyright laws, I have not copied the whole story. It can be read at the link. The passages Lee highlighted are the following.
Carrie
But a clergy "sexual underground" -- a term coined by Barry Coldrey, an Australian member of the Irish Christian Brothers -- has rocked the church not just in the United States but in many countries. ...
In 1994, Brother Coldrey spent six weeks in Rome doing research at his order's archives for an internal report, which found its way to the media. Ten percent of the Irish Christian Brothers members -- a huge percentage -- had sexually assaulted youths, he wrote, and hid "within a sympathetic underworld of other clergy and church workers who are merely breaking their vows by having heterosexual or gay sex with consenting adults."
Pope John Paul II's first extensive briefing on the issue came in March 1993 by bishops and cardinals from several countries, just as the archbishop of Santa Fe, N.M., Robert Sanchez, resigned because of a "60 Minutes" report of his abuse of teenage girls. John Paul called for prayers for Sanchez, expressed concern for those harmed, and scored the media for sensationalism. ...
A champion of human rights to people under dictatorships, he chose as secretary of state Cardinal Angelo Sodano, a former papal ambassador to Chile who befriended the sadistic dictator Augusto Pinochet and tried to intervene on Pinochet's behalf when he was under house arrest in London, facing indictment by a Spanish court. Several weeks ago, when Sodano met with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, he asked her to help defuse a class- action sex-abuse lawsuit against the Vatican by a Kentucky lawyer, something over which she had no control.
Within the Roman Curia, Sodano is a powerful supporter of another man who stands today as perhaps the most notorious priest in Rome: Marcial Maciel Degollado, a Mexican who founded a religious order called the Legion of Christ. In documents sent by a Long Island bishop to the Vatican in 1976 and 1978, Juan Vaca and Felix Alarcon -- who had left the legion but remained priests -- accused Maciel of sexually assaulting about 20 seminarians. ...
John Paul never acknowledged the allegations. He praised Maciel in Mexico City as an "efficacious guide to youth" in 1994 and for his "integral promotion of the person" in a November 2004 ceremony at the Vatican. ...
In a split at the highest levels of the Vatican, as Sodano heaped praise on Maciel, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the chief theologian, reopened the dormant canonical investigation just before John Paul died.
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A few thoughts of my own
- Benedict kept Sodano.
- Will Benedict defer to Sodano in this instance, and if so, why, when it will be a polar opposite from his position at the CDF?
- If he does defer to Sodano, does that indicate a real "power behind the throne", which would mean that the apparent leader in the Vatican has become a puppet?
Carrie
Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!
