Poznan, Poland, Sep 18, 2018 / 06:00 pm (CNA).- Increasing the role of women in screening and training priests is among the steps that should be taken to prevent future sex abuse, said Cardinal Marc Ouellet, prefect of the Congregation for Bishops.
“We would need participation of more women in (training) of priests,” the Canadian cardinal told AFP reporters at a recent meeting of the Presidents of the Bishops’ Conferences of Europe, a four-day assembly in Poznan, Poland.
He said bishops need to be chosen more carefully and that women should have more involvement in the selection of potential priests by assessing candidates’ suitability.
“We are facing a crisis in the life of the Church,” he said. “This is a very serious matter that has to be dealt with in a spiritual way, not only in a political way.”
Ouellet’s comments come amid a string of revelations regarding allegations of sexual abuse and cover-up by clergy in several regions of the world.
In late July, Pope Francis accepted the resignation of retired Washington, D.C. Archbishop Theodore McCarrick from the College of Cardinals, and suspended him from the exercise of any public ministry, amid allegations of sexual abuse and coercion.
Last month, a Pennsylvania grand jury report found more than 1,000 allegations of abuse at the hands of some 300 clergy members in six dioceses in the state. It also found a pattern of cover-up by senior Church officials.
Recent reports of clerical abuse and cover-up have also rocked Germany, the Netherlands, Chile, and Australia in recent months.
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St. Hedwig’s Cathedral in Berlin, Germany. / Cedric BLN via Wikimedia (Public domain).
CNA Newsroom, Jun 19, 2023 / 16:40 pm (CNA).
Ahead of a crucial meeting on the German Synodal Way, one diocese has signaled its opposition to plans for turning the controversial event into a permanent Synodal Council — a new controlling body of the Church in Germany.
The official for the Synodal Way in the Diocese of Regensburg, cathedral chapter Josef Kreiml, warned that the preparatory work for a German Synodal Council contradicts a clear instruction from the Vatican, reported CNA Deutsch, CNA’s German-language news partner.
The prelate also said that the concept of synodality underlying the Synodal Way isn’t in line with either canon law or the ideas of Pope Francis.
The bishops of Germany’s 27 dioceses are expected to make landmark decisions at their meeting in Berlin on June 19-20 regarding the establishment and funding of the so-called Synodal Committee, which is to then establish a permanent German Synodal Council by 2026.
Some bishops had reportedly considered blocking the move by not providing funds for the body, which could prevent a permanent superstructure overseeing the Church in Germany modeled on the German Synodal Way.
The German Synodal Way was a multi-year process initiated by Cardinal Reinhard Marx and co-organized by the German Bishops’ Conference and the Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK), a lay body financed by the German bishops. Its official purpose was to discuss four main issues: the way power is exercised in the church, sexual morality, the priesthood, and the role of women.
The process was criticized by many cardinals and bishops from around the world, as well as by Pope Francis, who warned of disunity and schism in his 2019 letter to German Catholics.
The Vatican has issued a statement saying that the Synodal Way does not have the authority to oblige bishops and the faithful to accept new forms of governance and new orientations in doctrine and morals.
Citing these statements, Kreiml said that the Synodal Way had greatly interfered with the forms of ecclesial governance and had disregarded the general law of the Church, its sacramental constitution, and the proper duties of the bishops.
He urged the German bishops to respect the unity of the Church and to follow papal guidance on synodality.
Pope Francis and other Church leaders have expressed serious concerns about plans to create a permanent synodal council for the German Church.
Such a body would function “as a consultative and decision-making body on essential developments in the Church and society,” according to a Synodal Way proposal.
More importantly, it would “make fundamental decisions of supra-diocesan significance on pastoral planning, questions of the future, and budgetary matters of the Church that are not decided at the diocesan level.”
Warning of a threat of a new schism from Germany, the Vatican already intervened in July 2022 against a German synodal council.
In January 2023, the Vatican asserted “that neither the Synodal Way, nor any body established by it, nor any bishops’ conference has the competence to establish the ‘synodal council’ at the national, diocesan, or parish level.”
A Soviet-style council in Berlin?
In June 2022, Cardinal Walter Kasper, a theologian considered close to Pope Francis, said there could be no Synodal Council, given Church history and theology.
“Synods cannot be institutionally made permanent. The tradition of the Church does not know a synodal Church government,” he said. “A synodal supreme council, as is now envisaged, has no basis in the entire history of the constitution. It would not be a renewal but an unheard-of innovation.”
Cardinal Walter Kasper. . CNA/Bohumil Petrik.
The president emeritus of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, who was bishop of the Diocese of Rottenburg-Stuttgart from 1989 to 1999, said the German process had invited comparisons to communist structures in the Soviet Union. “It was a political scientist, not a theologian, who recently expressed this notion somewhat strongly, referring to such a Synodal Council as a Supreme Soviet,” Kasper said.
The cardinal continued: “‘Soviet’ is an old Russian word that means exactly what we call a ‘Rat,’ a council in German. Such a Supreme Soviet in the Church would obviously not be a good idea. Such a council system is not a Christian idea, but an idea coming from quite a different spirit or un-spirit.”
The German theologian and prelate also warned this “would choke off the freedom of the Spirit, which blows where and when it wants, and destroy the structure that Christ wanted for his Church.”
Further concerns were raised by a professor of theology from the University of Vienna in June.
The dogmatist Jan-Heiner Tück warned that a German Synodal Council would transfer leadership authority “from sacramentally ordained persons to bodies, a conversion of power that shows a clear closeness to synodal practices in the Protestant Church in Germany.”
Deacon Nathan Ledoux and his friend Michael Figura at the National Art Gallery in London on Dec. 27, 2023. / Credit: Photo courtesy of Deacon Nathan Ledoux
Rome Newsroom, Dec 23, 2024 / 17:45 pm (CNA).
Christmas abroad for American seminarians … […]
EWTN Poland’s YouTube channel features a live broadcast from the Adoration Chapel in Niepokalanów, the monastery founded by St. Maximilian Kolbe, that attracts almost one million users a month. / EWTN Polska YouTube
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 25, 2022 / 18:00 pm (CNA).
For the second time in less than two years, EWTN’s affiliate in Poland has had its YouTube channel suspended, reported Father Piotr Wiśniowski, general director of EWTN Poland.
Without any warning or explanation, on Oct. 22 YouTube shut down the Catholic programming channel, which features a live broadcast from the adoration chapel in Niepokalanów Monastery in Teresin, Poland, which was founded by St. Maximilian Kolbe. Almost one million viewers visit the channel each month for what is known as the world’s most popular televised eucharistic adoration.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the chapel was a lifeline to the faith for those who could not leave their homes to go to Mass. Apart from the adoration chapel, the content of the channel is not unlike EWTN’s English-language programming. There is Catholic news along with 4,500 videos of devotional content, movies, lectures, and homilies.
To Wiśniowski, the move smacked of censorship.
“I am disappointed by the politics of YouTube, which, after all, was born in a country for which freedom of speech and respect for dissenting views is a benchmark for the growth of prosperity and security of its citizens,” the priest wrote in a statement issued to the media.
The first time it happened, on April 10, 2021, the channel was notified that it was suspended for “violation of community rules.” The channel was restored after 24 hours and many complaints from loyal users.
After it happened again last Saturday, Wiśniowski and the staff at EWTN Poland appealed to get the channel started up again and were told confusing and contradictory reasons for the shutdown.
At one point there were told the channel was suspended because of a “violation of community rules”; then that there was a “takeover [by a third party] of a Google account that was sending SPAM”; and then they were told that there had been a “takeover of the YouTube channel.”
“What rules of the YouTube community are violated by, for example, the adoration of the Blessed Sacrament from Niepokalanów?” the priest asked.
“I kindly ask all Catholic circles, especially media circles, to stand in solidarity with our TV EWTN Poland, to support it spiritually, and to express their dissatisfaction with the situation,” he wrote.
Three and a half days later, after much prayer and many complaints from viewers directed to YouTube’s parent company, Google, the channel was restored. Still, Wiśniowski was left none the wiser for the reason why the channel was shut down in the first place.
When asked if the company offered any explanation, he told CNA: “No. Simply no. Never.”
He seems to be assuming that women are without sin, too. Women can and are often also predators. And this problem obviously isn’t just to the Church, even though that’s the long-standing association in secular minds. This abuse happens EVERYWHERE when there is someone in a position of power and someone in a position of learning and submission. Teachers, coaches, pastors.
The big problem that I see is that because the Church is so vast and the problem has been covered up so much for so long then it’s never going to stop until something fundamental is changed in the law of the Church itself. I’m not saying that priests should be allowed to marry or something like that, where would they find the time, but I am saying that there must be some type of more rigorous screening that can be done to find these predators before they are put in a position of power over a child or vulnerable person. Background checks do NOTHING since these crimes often go unreported.
Anyone other than the vetters of the last five decades…women, state troopers, retired fbi and cia, retired lawyers…all could do better than the past wisemen. I was rejected for jury duty in four Federal cases by defense lawyers because I made a citizen’s arrest. That was some trial. His defense lawyer accused me of strangling him….to which I retorted, “ In the words of a future Pope, ‘ I will not say a single word about that ‘ “.
Is this guy kidding? This is an open invitation for some woman either to scoop up a seminarian as a play thing, or make an unfounded accusation. Its interesting how the vatican manages to promote to it’s highest levels the nuttiest of nut bars in the priesthood.(This Canadian most know some German bishops, for sure.) How about, instead of promoting the politically connected, they push for promotion the priest who the people LOVE , knows his theology and has a good heart?
He seems to be assuming that women are without sin, too. Women can and are often also predators. And this problem obviously isn’t just to the Church, even though that’s the long-standing association in secular minds. This abuse happens EVERYWHERE when there is someone in a position of power and someone in a position of learning and submission. Teachers, coaches, pastors.
The big problem that I see is that because the Church is so vast and the problem has been covered up so much for so long then it’s never going to stop until something fundamental is changed in the law of the Church itself. I’m not saying that priests should be allowed to marry or something like that, where would they find the time, but I am saying that there must be some type of more rigorous screening that can be done to find these predators before they are put in a position of power over a child or vulnerable person. Background checks do NOTHING since these crimes often go unreported.
Anyone other than the vetters of the last five decades…women, state troopers, retired fbi and cia, retired lawyers…all could do better than the past wisemen. I was rejected for jury duty in four Federal cases by defense lawyers because I made a citizen’s arrest. That was some trial. His defense lawyer accused me of strangling him….to which I retorted, “ In the words of a future Pope, ‘ I will not say a single word about that ‘ “.
“women, state troopers, retired fbi and cia, retired lawyers…all could do better than the past wisemen.”
That’s not exactly saying much – a brain-damaged gopher could do better, judging by what we’ve read.
It hurts me that the innocent – good priests, good bishops – are having their reputations tarnished by this.
The abuse scandal within the church is predominately a male on male abuse, so Cardinal Marc Ouellet comments just confuses the issue.
Is this guy kidding? This is an open invitation for some woman either to scoop up a seminarian as a play thing, or make an unfounded accusation. Its interesting how the vatican manages to promote to it’s highest levels the nuttiest of nut bars in the priesthood.(This Canadian most know some German bishops, for sure.) How about, instead of promoting the politically connected, they push for promotion the priest who the people LOVE , knows his theology and has a good heart?