Saturday, January 13, 2007
THE SMOKING GUN LETTER
is back in the news. First of all, here is
the letter itself.
Dom has given a synopsis of the development of thinking on this letter in a blog he has posted in response to a recent announcement that the Vatican can be sued. Links are over there.
Dom's argument rests on the long-standing seal of confession. Technically, that may be a valid legal argument regarding this particular document. I'll leave it for the lawyers to sort out. However, the argument does not address the bigger picture of a world-wide lock-step cover-up, and it is that evidence of unity that has not been explained. On cue the bishops around the world acted to hide the developing scandal of sexual abuse of the laity's children, and did nothing to stop it. Why?
I can understand that some bishops would act this way given the situation. But what I would expect is that the majority of bishops would act in communion with the beliefs of the faith. Yet that is not what happened. The cover-up by its very nature involved lying which is contrary to the Eighth Commandment. It violated the requirement to avoid the near occasion of sin as again and again sinful priests were put back into environments that would encourage repeats.
As Dom and other commenters have demonstrated in a previous blog, it prompted Cardinal Law to act contrary to his established pattern of response to the downtrodden and hurting. Law's response to the abused was out of character.
Why did the great majority of American bishops handle priestly sexual abuse in this manner? It speaks of collusion. It speaks of direction given and taken. It speaks of consensus. Why was there consensus? What was the source of that unity of approach to the scandal? If it were a bishop's conference, why are we reading stories of the same thing taking place in other countries? It must have a higher source.
Given this lock step on the part of the American bishops and even the bishops of the world, my attention is directed to the oversight of the world's bishops. That oversight can only come from the Vatican itself, and the Congregation that had oversight responsibility.
If this smoking gun letter can be demonstrated to be a red herring, the matter of that lock step is not mitigated by the demonstration. If not this letter then what document? If this letter cannot be demonstrated to prescribe a general atmosphere of cover-up where any scandal would result and not only where the seal of confession is concerned--and I believe that it can, in the absence of specific written direction to the contrary, be so demonstrated--then what edict? what document? what instruction is the source of the bishops action in unison on sexual abuse cover-up? There has to be one.
