Tag: Rome

Gay clergy can hardly be blamed for abuse of nuns

Pope Francis has conceded that priests and bishops have sexually abused nuns, including one case where nuns were reduced to “sexual slavery.” He said it’s an issue the church is trying to address. A couple of things we can say straight out:

Gay clergy cannot be held responsible for this scandal. Right-wingers in the church have tried to pin the sex abuse and harassment scandals in the church on gay clergy. Root out homosexual priests and the problem would be solved, they say. Ban gay seminarians and the clerical church would be healthier. Those with ‘deep-seated homosexual tendencies’ should never be admitted to holy orders. But those with so-called deep-seated homosexual tendencies are surely not the ones who have sexually assaulted nuns or held them as sex slaves. Right-wingers will have to come up with another group or fault to blame this on.

Mandatory celibacy is a scandal that must be addressed. The late Daniel O’Leary in his final piece of published writing described it as a ‘kind of sin’ for the damage it has done to so many men. Even those (many) who have never broken their vow of celibacy have been damaged by it. Clearly, if what Pope Francis says is true, clergy with deep-seated heterosexual tendencies are also a danger to the church. Perhaps they should be banned from the priesthood too.

The problem isn’t gay priests or straight priests. The problem is mandatory celibacy and an unhealthy approach to sexuality within the church. Church language and teaching around sexuality need to be examined. Too many innocent people have suffered because of the failure of those in authority to face up to this thorny issue.

The conspiracy against Pope Francis

Even as Westminster bristles in turmoil and Washington simmers in shutdown, another battle is being fought at the Vatican. The papacy of Pope Francis is under attack from people in the upper ranks of the church. These men are not only trying to undermine him but to drive him from office. They are taking advantage of the abuse crisis as a platform to get the pope to resign.

“There are people who simply don’t like this pontificate,” says German Cardinal Walter Kasper. “They want it to end as soon as possible to then have, so to say, a new conclave. They also want it to go in their favour, so it will have a result that suits their ideas.”

Some powerful enemies have never liked Francis’s style or his policy of glasnost or his efforts at reform and at giving more power to local churches. These same enemies were appalled by his letter on Marriage and Family, which they feel is confusing to the ‘simple faithful’ and not doctrinally sound. Four of them, lead by Cardinal Raymond Burke, published an open letter criticising the pope’s teaching and demanding clarifications.

Last August, on the last day of the World Meeting of Families in Dublin, ex papal nuncio to the United States, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, published a letter accusing Francis of ignoring allegations of misconduct against ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, and calling for the pontiff to resign. The letter and its timing were deliberately calculated to cause the greatest possible embarrassment to the pope. While most senior clerics publicly defended Francis, dismissing the allegations as a smear, some on the Burke wing of the church did not. The irony is that McCarrick wasn’t promoted by Francis but by Francis’s predecessors.

To many casual observers, the Catholic Church gives the appearance of being a monolith and that a monolithic unanimity exists at the top. This has never been the case but the divisions and dissension at the top are clearly visible today. These divisions exist also in the lower ranks of the church. They are especially strong in the American church, aided by right-wing Catholic media such as EWTN. Just check out the twitter accounts of cardinals like Joe Tobin of Newark and Blaise Cupich of Chicago. Every day they are viciously trolled on social media by ‘good’ Catholics, defenders of the faith, who abuse these men because they see them as Francis supporters. The level of vitriol is astonishing.

The sad irony is that the very churchmen and their supporters who attack Pope Francis are the same people who would not tolerate any criticism of John Paul II or Benedict XVI. In the years before Francis, they used to demand total obedience to the Holy Father, and were eager to publicly discipline small fry like me who stepped out of line. They don’t seem to be aware of their own hypocrisy, or maybe they couldn’t care less.

I have no doubt Francis is doing his best, but it is difficult to make progress when there are enemies in the camp.

Last chance saloon for the US bishops

This week the US Catholic bishops are making a retreat together in a centre outside Chicago. It is an unusual occurrence. At the request of Pope Francis, they have gathered for a silent retreat to discern God’s will for the church in the United States.

The retreat is in response to the terrible year that Catholics in America have suffered. Revelations about the appalling actions of former Washington Cardinal Theodore McCarrick (and their cover up) as well as the fall out from state-level investigations into clerical sexual abuse have had a devastating impact. Many in America thought that, after the crisis had first blown up in Boston in 2002, the bishops had got a handle on it. The fact that someone like McCarrick could have been promoted afterwards, and that many of his colleagues turned a blind eye, has shattered trust between people and their bishops.

And so the US bishops were asked by Pope Francis to go on retreat together to pray and prepare to take action to deepen their commitment to keeping young people safe.

Bishops from around the world will then gather in Rome with Pope Francis from February 21-24 to discuss abuse and child protection. A lot is expected from this February summit. If nothing decisive comes out of it, if it is back to business as usual for bishops’ conferences and individual bishops throughout the world, if the Vatican itself does not act more decisively, then those who have remained loyal to the church through the trauma of the last 25 years will feel utterly betrayed.

This is last chance saloon time for the church to get it right. We can only hope the US bishops’ retreat and the prayers of the rest of us will move those in church authority to do what they should have done all along.

My problem with saint-making

All Saints is one of my favourite feasts. It’s an opportunity for me to remember the many saints I have known over the years who have passed from this life – family members, colleagues, friends – and to celebrate also the countless others who have lived saintly lives throughout history. I think this year especially of my father, who died 11 months ago, and my Aunt Mary, who died two weeks ago, as well as Fr Jacques Hamel, brutally beheaded in France, and of all those Christians who are being martyred every day in Syria and Iraq.

It’s a reminder also of my call to become a saint, even if I will never get to join the list of those in the official calendar of the church’s saints.

One thing’s for sure – there is no shortage of saints in the Catholic calendar. Pope John Paul II made sure of that. During his 26-year pontificate he canonised 482 saints and beatified 1,300 – far more than any pope in history. Indeed, between 1000 a.d. and 1978 a.d., fewer than 450 men and women were made saints by the Catholic Church. In other words, John Paul doubled this number all on his own.

He loved making saints. Many people would see that as a good thing. After all, we are all called to be saints, and surely we can never have too many of them.

But I have a number of problems with the saint-making process, especially as it developed under John Paul.

The first has to do with changes that made canonisation easier. The ‘Devil’s advocate’ was thrown out the window or, at least, downgraded to such a degree that the role is no longer recognisable. I’d prefer the more stringent process that existed in the past.

Then there is the speed of some canonisations. Several saints have been canonised within a very short period of their deaths. Yes, that happened occasionally in the past too, but what’s the rush? A wait-and-see attitude is always wise so that nothing might emerge in later years to cast a shadow on a particular saint.

Another issue has to do with the criteria John Paul II used when saint-making. He canonised more saints in his 26 years as pope than all popes of the previous millennium combined. He canonised all types. So, it’s extraordinary that he ignored Oscar Romero. Many people in El Salvador and throughout the Catholic world consider Romero to be a martyr for the faith, and yet the Vatican under John Paul and Benedict made no move to advance Romero’s cause. Why was Romero not canonised when so many others were? One would have to conclude that ideology and politics were at play; that JPII did not want to endorse someone so publicly associated with liberation theology, even though he was himself the most political of popes.

Pope Francis, of course, has no such hesitation. One of his first acts as pope was to put Romero on the road to sainthood.

Then there is the policy of almost automatically canonising popes. People accept that those elected to the papacy, at least in modern times, are good and holy men. Why, then, the need to canonise them? And if some popes are not canonised, does that mean they were less holy or great than those who were?

Of course, a danger with canonising popes is that it becomes all about church politics. Conservative Catholics will always refer to Pope John Paul as Saint John Paul the Great, whereas liberal Catholics – who prefer Saint John XXIII – are more likely to refer to him simply as John Paul. Indeed, it was to appease both right and left that canny Pope Francis canonised JPII and John XXIII on the same day. When I hear someone talk about Saint John Paul the Great, I know exactly where he or she stands theologically. Better not to canonise any pope than to turn the whole process into a political and ideological battle.

Then there’s the money involved. Saints don’t come cheap. Unless a group or religious order has the cash and resources to promote the cause of someone they would like to have canonised, it’s not going to happen quickly or at all. There’s something unseemly about mixing cash and saint-making.

So, let’s ease off on the saint-making and focus more on All Saints, those we have known and those who have gone before us, too numerous to tally.

The way bishops are chosen is broken – we need to fix it

The current papal nuncio to Ireland has found himself in a uniquely privileged position. He got the job in 2011 at a moment of extraordinary crisis in the Irish church and, as luck or otherwise would have it, he has had the opportunity to put his mark on the shape and orientation of the Irish bishops’ conference for many years to come. Since his arrival, Archbishop Brown has appointed 10 bishops, and is in the process of appointing six more. That amounts to 16 dioceses out of a total of 26. That’s a whole lot of influence and power. 

But even with all this influence and power, when it comes to selecting bishops, the nuncio faces a number of problems.

One problem is that there is a shrinking pool of men from whom to choose. There are fewer available priests out there and fewer still who are under 60 years old.

A second problem is finding suitable candidates from among that under-60 age group. With a shrinking pool of priests and scare vocations, the number of clergy with the requisite education, pastoral skills and leadership ability has also gone down.

A third problem is the reluctance of clergy to become bishops. It’s impossible to prove because the process is so secretive, but anecdotal evidence suggests that a significant number of priests have said no to episcopal office in recent years. Who could blame them? They are all too aware of the challenges facing the church in Ireland today. They don’t feel qualified enough for the job, or would rather not have to spend years trying to staff parishes and find vocations and close churches and administer dioceses with ever dwindling resources.

But though all these problems exist, there still remains a pool of priests out there who would make fine bishops, if only chosen and encouraged.

Imagine, though, if bishops were chosen in a different way, if they were chosen along the lines adopted by the early church.

If that were to happen, each diocese would nominate its own bishop. The bishop would be chosen after wide consultation among priests and people in a manner that was open and transparent. The bishop would be elected at a synod attended by priests and people from throughout the diocese. The pope, who would be obliged to accept the candidate unless there was clear evidence of his incompetence and/or unorthodoxy, would then ratify the new bishop formally.

Imagine if each bishop came from within his own diocese. He would not be a ‘blow-in’ from another diocese or be from a religious order or congregation but would be one of the clergy of that diocese. From the local church, of the local church, called by his own people into leadership, he would know the smell of his sheep and their needs, and they would have knowledge of him. Only in exceptional circumstances, such as the danger of political interference in the selection process or major disunity in the diocese, would a non-native be appointed.

Imagine if each bishop remained in his diocese for the duration of his episcopal ministry. Chosen by the priests and people as their shepherd, it would be unthinkable that he would transfer elsewhere, or use his appointment as a stepping-stone for promotion to a larger or more significant diocese. In keeping with the understanding of the early church, his relationship with his diocese would be seen as being like a marriage relationship, and so to break that bond would be akin to divorcing the community he was ordained to serve.

When you compare how things were done in the past with how bishops are appointed today, it is clear that there have been significant changes from the practice and understanding of the early church.

The method of selecting bishops today is secretive. Some consultation is done but only with a select few whose recommendations do not have to be accepted. How the consultation is done and what questions are asked is never revealed. The local church gets very little say in the selection of its leader. The first engagement most people and priests of the diocese have with the process is when their new bishop is presented to them.

Nor is every bishop from the diocese he has been chosen to lead. In fact, all of the recently appointed bishops are from another diocese. When you are an ‘outsider,’ it inevitably takes time to settle in, to get to know priests and people, to understand the issues and challenges the diocese faces, as well as its history and heritage. It also weakens the sense of the shepherd as one of the local presbyterate who is called into leadership by his own flock.

And, of course, there is the long-established practice of transferring – or promoting – bishops. There is no guarantee that a bishop, once ordained, will remain always in the same diocese. Quite a bit of moving around takes place, which leads to the danger of careerism and undermines the image of bishop as being wedded to his diocese. There will always have to be some moving around, moving upwards, but it should be the exception.

One can debate how lucky or unlucky the Irish church has been in the bishops chosen to lead it. But what is clear is that the system of selection needs urgent reform. Given the many pressing problems that confront the church today and in order to reclaim the understanding of bishop as one who is called by his local ecclesial community to be its leader and shepherd, it’s time to change how bishops are chosen and return to our ancient, more transparent, practice.

 

Medieval Vatican practices broke my heart

My life changed forever on a sunny afternoon in late May 2011. I was about to head out on a walk when I happened to run into my religious superior, who asked me if he could talk to me for a minute. No problem there. But what he proceeded to tell me left me flabbergasted.

He said that a discussion had been ongoing for some time about my role as editor of Reality magazine, the monthly publication of the Irish Redemptorists. He said that people in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the chief enforcer of orthodoxy in the Vatican, were not happy with some of the content of the magazine, and that the Redemptorist superior general in Rome had been instructed to inform the superior in Ireland that I was to be removed from my position as editor with a month’s notice.

I tried to take all this in but was dumbfounded. It couldn’t be true. It sounded like a joke.

My superior went on to say that both he and the Redemptorist head in Rome had lobbied hard on my behalf and that they had been able to hammer out a compromise. I could remain as editor subject to five conditions: I could not publish anything that was 1) supportive of the ordination of women, 2) critical of mandatory celibacy, 3) in favour of general absolution, 4) opposed to the church’s stance on homosexuality, and 5) could be seen as disrespectful of the person of the Holy Father. Furthermore, the content of every issue would have to be approved by a censor prior to publication.

I was told that all of this had been hammered out in talks at the highest level over the previous several weeks, and that I was being informed of it now because the Redemptorist head in Rome was coming to see me in two days’ time. A cover story would be invented to explain the sudden appearance in Dublin of the superior general of the Redemptorists.

I was also told that I had to keep this information to myself, that it was highly confidential, and that I shouldn’t talk about it even to my family and friends.

And that was it. I went on my walk with my head spinning.

The superior general did visit for a couple of days and he told me the story from scratch, how one day a file appeared on his desk from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) with a list of allegations/findings against me and a demand that I be removed from office. The superior general could not have been nicer to me during that visit, and expressed amazement time and again at the shoddy case that the CDF had put together against me. He had met several times with Cardinal Levada, head of the CDF, and the best compromise they could reach was to leave me in office but under the restrictions outlined above.

Again the importance of secrecy was emphasized. I was not to talk to anyone about it. It was not a matter for public consumption.

And that was it.

During those first few days, I felt numb. I was bombarded with so much information that was shocking to me, but it was almost as if they were talking about someone else, not me. I couldn’t understand why people in the Vatican would be getting their knickers in a twist about a small magazine published on the periphery of Europe. I couldn’t believe that people would spend time trawling through back issues looking for evidence to build or substantiate a case against me. I couldn’t believe that the head of the CDF would himself become personally involved. And, most of all, I couldn’t believe that my case had been discussed for weeks or months without anyone talking to me about it. I was allowed to go about my daily business totally oblivious to what was happening.

It took a while for the enormity and injustice of what happened to me to sink in. I grant that there was a small bit of me that was chuffed that the Vatican had noticed our magazine and got themselves in a lather over it. But then I began to feel angry and betrayed. I was angry not so much that self-appointed defenders of the faith had reported me to the Vatican but that faceless bureaucracts had taken these delators so seriously. I was angry that they would begin a process against me without ever letting me know I was being investigated.

How can you defend yourself if you don’t know you are on trial? How can you defend yourself if you don’t know who your accusers are? How can you defend yourself when your fate has been decided even before you discover you have been on trial? It is an utterly unjust and unchristian system.

I couldn’t believe that I had been walking around for weeks, doing my work in the office and in the parish, while all the while my loyalty and my future was being discussed behind my back. I met my superior and the others on his leadership team many times during those weeks, at meals, on the corridors, out and about, and none said a word to me about what was going on. I know that they were in a difficult situation too and they were were not allowed to talk about it but it just goes to show how flawed and unjust the CDF process is. One is tried, found guilty and sentenced, before you even know you were on trial. And yet next Sunday’s gospel will tell us that people will “know we are Christians by our love.”

I felt angry and hurt that this is how the church would treat me after I had devoted my whole life to it. The powers that be in Rome would accept the word of (anonymous) delators against my solid record of a quarter century of loving service of the church. It took a few weeks before I started to cry whenever I thought about it. Tears of anger, shock, self-pity and betrayal. I had given my life to the church, and this is how I had been repaid. Any criticism I had made of the church was out of love, and they didn’t even have the decency either to ignore the delations or give me a chance to reply to them before they handed down sentence. They didn’t give me the chance to defend myself, privately or publicly.

All communication was through my superiors. The CDF people never communicate directly with the person under investigation. They knew my address, they knew my email, they could find my phone number, but they always go through higher channels. They never dignify the culprit with a direct and personal response. I don’t think it’s how Jesus would have done it. Something is rotten in the state of the CDF, and while the current people and processes remain in place, nothing will change. Priests, sisters and brothers will continue to be treated as less than human, and will have their lives hurt or broken.

It’s been almost two years since I woke up with chronic lower back pain that has never gone away. I wonder how much of it is due to the way I was treated by the CDF? I think the stress that experience caused me is one of the main reasons why today I am broken in body as well as in spirit. Stress takes a toll, injustice has a price, and I am paying it every day.

Today a group of 15 people who have fallen foul of the CDF have published a letter we sent to Rome asking for reform of the system. The letter was sent about seven weeks ago. As one would expect, there has been no formal acknowledgement or reply. I won’t hold my breath.

Media Release

Embargoed until Wednesday 20 April 2016

 

Catholics decry modern-day inquisition

 

An international group of Catholic sisters, priests and lay people, all of whom have been ‘delated’ (i.e. reported) and subjected to ‘examination’ by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), formerly known as the Holy Office of the Roman Inquisition, have said that this body “doesn’t reflect the gospel values of justice, truth, integrity and mercy that the Catholic Church professes to uphold” and that are called for by Pope Francis. They also say that the CDF “acts in ways that are out of keeping with contemporary concepts of human rights, accountability and transparency that the world expects from the Christian community and which the Catholic Church demands from secular organizations.”

 

“Can you get justice from a body that acts as investigator, accuser, judge and jury and then imposes the penalty?” spokesman for the group, church historian Paul Collins asks. “And then, if an appeal is made, it is heard by the same people,” Collins adds. The accused have to deal with secrecy and anonymity, often having to negotiate with the CDF at third or fourth hand via a network of superiors and bishops. “People are not informed as to who accused them,” Collins says, “there is no presumption of innocence, the accused don’t know who is judging them with prosecutors acting as judges; they don’t even know who their defense counsel is. They are usually never given a chance to defend themselves verbally and in person. Letters go unanswered for months, or are “lost”.

 

“Many of those investigated find the process completely draining, isolating and exhausting because it can involve excommunication and exclusion from ministry. It seems designed to wear you down psychologically. It is completely alien to the values of Christ and the gospels,” Collins says.

 

The group of fifteen, which includes two bishops, prominent theologians, people working in creative areas of ministry, and Catholic writers and broadcasters, have written to Pope Francis and to the Prefect of the CDF, Cardinal Gerhard Müller, asking for an open discussion about the procedures of the Congregation and calling for approaches that respect human rights and the need for free speech, pluralism, transparency and accountability within the church community. Among those who have signed the letter are two pastorally effective and highly respected bishops, Bishops Patrick Power and William Morris of Australia, one of the United States’ most influential moral theologians, Father Charles Curran, long-term minister to gay people and Co-Founder of New Ways Ministry, Sister Jeannine Gramick, SL, prominent systematic theologian, Sister Elizabeth Johnson of Fordham University, New York, Spanish Sister Teresa Forcades, OSB, Benedictine nun and physician, Irish communicators and writers Fathers Tony Flannery, CSsR and Brian D’Arcy, CP, and American Father Roy Bourgeois, priest and human rights activist.

 

One of those recently investigated by the CDF, Father Tony Flannery, says that “Under the last two popes, as the Church became increasingly centralized, the Magisterium was understood as the Vatican, or, more specifically, the Curia, and in particular the pre-eminent body within the Curia, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. But an older understanding, which was central to the Second Vatican Council, has a more complex, wider view of what constitutes the Magisterium. According to this perspective, it consists of the Vatican, the bishops of the universal Church, the body of theologians, and, most significantly of all, the sensus fidelium, the good sense of the ordinary Catholic faithful. The Council goes so far as to say that unless a teaching is accepted by the consensus of the faithful it cannot be considered a defined teaching. This is the kind of theology we are trying to get through to the CDF.”

 

The letter to the CDF’s Cardinal Müller was sent in late-February 2016. As of 18 April 2016 no acknowledgement or response had been received from the CDF. “This,” Collins says, “is par for the course. They don’t even acknowledge letters from people they have ‘examined’ This follows a pattern that is typical of the clerical culture of the church.”

 

Pope Francis has said that: “Christian doctrine is not a closed system incapable of generating questions, concerns, investigation, but it is alive, knows how to disturb, and knows how to animate. It does not have a rigid face. It has a body that moves and develops’ (To Italian bishops and Laity, 9 November 2015). In his recent Apostolic Exhortation Amoris laetitia in response to the Synod on the Family, Pope Francis has also said: “Not all discussions of doctrinal, moral or pastoral issues need to be settled by interventions of the magisterium. Unity of teaching and practice is certainly necessary in the Church, but this does not preclude various ways of interpreting some aspects of that teaching, or drawing certain consequences from it. This will always be the case as the Spirit guides us towards the entire truth.”

 

Our experience is that the Congregation has some distance to go to live up to the Pope’s expectations and his calls for a better approach to deciding doctrinal matters.

 

Contacts:

Sister Jeannine Gramick 1301 864304

Fr Roy Bourgeois 1 706-682-5369

Dr Paul Collins 61 412 550 370 (cell) or 61 2 6262 6159

Fr Tony Flannery 353 8768 14699

Fr Marciano Vidal

Attachment: The New Process

 

A New Process for the Church and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith

 

 

He who is the object of an enquiry should be present at the process, and, unless absent through contumacy, should have the various headings of the enquiry explained to him, so as to allow him the possibility of defending himself. As well, he is to be informed not only of what the various witnesses have accused him of, but also of the names of those witnesses. (Fourth Lateran Council, 1215)

 

 

Introduction

 

Nowadays it is widely agreed in the church that the processes and procedures of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) are contrary to natural justice and in need of reform. They represent the legal principles, processes and attitudes of the absolutism of sixteenth and seventeenth century Europe. They don’t reflect the gospel values of justice, truth, integrity and mercy that the church professes to uphold. They are out of keeping with contemporary concepts of human rights, accountability and transparency that the world expects from the Christian community and which the Catholic Church demands from secular organizations. The purpose of this proposed new approach is to reflect the attitude of Jesus (Matthew 18:15-17) and to integrate values that the world sees as basic to a functioning, civilized society.

 

Principles Underlying any New CDF Process

 

Underlying any church procedures must be a set of principles that involve a just and equitable process, accountability on the part of the CDF and Bishops’ Conferences, the presumption of sincerity, innocence, and loyalty to the church on the part of the person being investigated, as well as transparency and the wider involvement of the local Catholic community and the Synod of Bishops representing the universal church. The process appended to this set of principles tries to avoid some of the worst aspects of the present CDF’s investigations as experienced by the signatories and others who have been involved in dealing with the CDF over the last decades.

 

1 The basic principle must be to avoid anonymous denunciation by person(s) unknown to those being investigated. By naming them publicly, you stop frivolous claims by often totally unqualified individuals or organizations.

 

2 The same applies to the secret CDF appointed consulters. Consulters need to be named and their qualifications or otherwise in the area under consideration, be scrutinized. This also gives the one being investigated a chance to know the biases and expertise/training or otherwise of each of the consulters appointed by the CDF.

 

3 The whole issue of enforced secrecy and the often crippling isolation of the person being investigated must be circumvented by the CDF being made to deal directly and personally with them. They should be no longer be dealt with at third and fourth hand via a network of bishops and superiors – who might even have been the primary accuser of the person being investigated in the first place.

 

4 People being investigated have very often found that their work is inaccurately or unfairly interpreted by CDF consulters, or sentences or opinions are taken totally out of context and that the qualifications that they have made are completely ignored. Consulters they have never heard of, or are completely unknown to them, become the sole arbiters of the correct interpretation of their work. Even opinions they don’t hold are attributed to them. The involvement of the persons being investigated and their counsel from the beginning to some extent circumvents this. It also makes sure that consulters, whose sole experience is of the Roman schools of theology with its emphasis on propositional approaches to doctrinal positions, are challenged, and are not accepted as normative for those working on the prophetic edge of theological and ministerial frontiers.

 

5 People under investigation have often complained of the sheer rudeness and lack of even basic politeness – let alone Christian charity – on the part of CDF personnel. Letters are ignored, or lost. Processes are dragged out in an attempt to wear down the resistance of those being investigated. Even extremely sick or dying people have been investigated and forced to respond to often silly accusations. Strict time limits and direct personal face-to-face communication would circumvent this. With supporting counsel present and the knowledge that all documentation and the names of accusers and all personnel involved will be revealed to the wider Catholic community and the media will bring about at least some measure of accountability which at the present moment is totally lacking in CDF processes.

 

6 The process must prevent the same people acting as investigators, prosecutors and judges. By referring on-going cases to the Synod of Bishops the process takes decision-making out of the hands of CDF, and re-situates the views under investigation within the broader cultural context in which they were first articulated.

 

7 The wider community of theologians, the faithful people of God and the sensus fidelium are involved in the discernment of the faith and belief of the church. No longer should the CDF and its Rome-based advisers be the sole arbiters of correct doctrine and belief.

 

8 The process should be no longer characterized by the absolutist presumptions of an antiquated legal system that has nothing to do with the Gospel. The process should be tempered by the mercy and forgiveness of God, and by the open dialogue that should characterize the community of Jesus. It integrates something of the contemporary emphasis on human rights and the need for free speech, pluralism, transparency and accountability within the church community.

 

Signatures:

 

Dr Paul Collins, writer and broadcaster, Australia

Rev Charles Curran, Scurlock University Professor of Human Values at Southern Methodist University, Dallas, USA

Rev Roy Bourgeois, priest and activist, USA

Rev Brian D’Arcy CP, writer and broadcaster, Ireland

Rev Tony Flannery CSsR, writer and broadcaster, Ireland

Sister Teresa Forcades, OSB, Benedictine nun and physician, Spain

Sister Jeannine Gramick, SL, Loretto Sister, Co-Founder, New Ways Ministry, USA

Sister Elizabeth A. Johnson, CSJ, Distinguished Professor of Theology, Fordham University, New York, USA

Professor Paul Knitter, Emeritus Paul Tillich Professor of Theology, World Religions and Culture, Union Theological Seminary, New York, USA

Rev Gerard Moloney, CSsR, Editor, Ireland

Bishop William Morris, Bishop Emeritus of Toowoomba, Australia

Rev Ignatius O’Donovan, OSA, Church Historian, Ireland

Rev Owen O’Sullivan, OFM Cap, Chaplain and Writer, Ireland

Bishop Patrick Power, retired Auxiliary Bishop of Canberra- Goulburn, Australia

Rev Marciano Vidal, CSsR, Former Ordinary Professor, Pontifical University Comillas, Madrid, Spain, Extraordinary Professor, Alphonsian Academy, Rome