‘Truly not an easy task’: German bishops begin talks in Rome amid Synodal Way concerns

Vatican City, Feb 15, 2018 / 05:45 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In a conversation with Jesuits during his recent visit to Peru, Pope Francis said he regularly meets with victims of sexual abuse on Fridays, and that while the percentage of priests who abuse is relatively low, even one is too many.

When it comes to sexual abuse, if you look at the statistics, roughly “70 percent of pedophiles are in the family environment, acquaintances. Then in gyms, at the pool,” the Pope said in a conversation with Peruvian Jesuits, published Feb. 15.

The meeting took place Jan. 19 after a courtesy visit to Peruvian President Pedro Kuczynski during a three-day visit to the country, which was part of a wider, Jan. 15-21 visit to South America.  

“The percentage of pedophiles that are Catholic priests doesn’t reach 2 percent, it’s around 1.6 percent. So it’s not a lot,” he said. However, Francis stressed that “it’s terrible even if it were just one of our brothers!”

“God anointed them for the sanctification of children and adults, and he, instead of sanctifying them, has destroyed them. It’s horrible!” he said, and underlined the importance of listening to victims and hearing directly about the suffering they’ve undergone.

To this end, he said he regularly meets with victims of abuse on Fridays, and “their process is so difficult, they are annihilated. They are annihilated!”

For the Church, abuse is “a great humiliation,” he said. “It shows not only our fragility, but also, let’s say it clearly, our level of hypocrisy.”

Vatican spokesman Greg Burke confirmed the news about the Friday meetings, saying in a Feb. 15 statement that “several times a month” Pope Francis meets with victims of sexual abuse either individually or in groups.

Pope Francis, he said, “listens to the victims and tries to help them heal the serious wounds caused by the abuses they’ve undergone. The meetings are held with the utmost privacy, in respect of the victims and their suffering.”

The Pope’s comments were made to Peruvian Jesuits during his recent Jan. 15-21 visit to Chile and Peru. He met privately with Jesuits in both countries, taking questions from attendees and listening to their concerns.

The conversations, published in Jesuit journal La Civilta’ Cattolica, touched on a variety of issues, and included his discussion with both the Chilean and Peruvian Jesuits. Both Chile and Peru are currently at the center of two major, high-profile cases of sexual abuse, carried out by a Chilean priest and a Peruvian layman.

Francis met privately with abuse victims in Chile, and spoke openly about the tragedy in his Jan. 18 meeting with priest and religious in the country. His comments on abuse were made in response to a question posed by a Peruvian Jesuit about how to handle sex abuse, and whether he had any encouragement to give.

Speaking to the some 100 Jesuits present for the Jan. 19 encounter, Francis responded to the question saying sex abuse is “the greatest desolation that the Church is undergoing.”

He recalled a time when was returning home after hearing the confessions of Carmelite nuns on Argentina’s March 24 “Plaza de Mayo” celebration, which commemorates all those who were “disappeared” during the country’s military dictatorship.

After getting off the metro, Francis said he saw a couple with a young toddler walking down the street. When the child started to run in his direction, the father immediately yelled for the child to come back, and to “watch out for the pedophiles.”

“What shame I underwent! What shame!” Pope Francis said. “They didn’t realize that I was the archbishop, I was a priest, and what shame!”

He noted that often times abuse, particularly in new and flourishing communities, is linked to corruption, citing three types of abuse which often go together.

“Abuse in these congregations is always the result of a mentality linked to power, which must be healed at its evil roots,” he said, explaining that the various communities undergoing scandals generally all suffer from a deadly trio of “abuse of authority – with which it means to mix the internal and external forum – sexual abuse, and economic messes.”

Noting how both he and Benedict XVI have had to “suppress” various communities, such as the Legionaries of Christ, Francis said there are “many painful cases,” and that this phenomenon has also affected new and prosperous congregations, most notably the Peruvian-born Sodalitium Christianae Vitae.

In cases like this, “money is always in the middle,” he said, adding that “the devil enters through the wallet.”

According to St. Ignatius, one of the first steps of temptation is for wealth, he said. “Then come vanity and pride, but first there is wealth. In the new congregations that have fallen into this problem of abuse these three levels are also found together.”

However, citing the Ignatian spiritual exercises, the Pope said the shame experienced can also be a grace, and urged his fellow Jesuits to accept these experiences “as a grace and be deeply ashamed,” because “we must love the Church with her wounds.”

Though spoken beforehand, the Pope’s comments have been made public at a time when he’s currently under fire for his reaction to accusations of abuse cover-up on the part of Bishop Juan Barros of Osorno, Chile.

Appointed to head the Osorno diocese by Pope Francis in 2015, Barros is accused of both witnessing and covering the abuse of his longtime friend Fr. Fernando Karadima, who was found guilty of abuse in 2011. Barros has repeatedly denied these claims.

Opposition to Barros and his appointment has been relentless since his installment in 2015. Pope Francis faced major blow-back during his visit to Chile for saying the accusations were unfounded, and amounted to “calumny.”

On his flight back to Rome Francis apologized for the comment, saying he had intended to say that there was not enough evidence to convict Barros of cover-up, and that no victims had come forward with information that could prove the Chilean prelate’s guilt.

Shortly after the visit, Francis tapped Archbishop Charles Scicluna of Malta, the Vatican’s top man in clerical abuse appeals cases, to go to Santiago hear victims’ testimonies. The trip also includes a stop in New York to speak with one of Karadima’s most high-profile victims, Juan Carlos Cruz, who has been among the most vocal opponents of Barros.

After Scicluna’s appointment, reports came out indicating that before Barros’ appointment in 2015 Cruz had sent an 8-page letter detailing Karadima’s abuse to the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, alleging that Barros had not only witnessed his abuse and the abuse of others, but had at times participated and covered it up.

According to reports, members of the commission had given the letter to the commission’s president, Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston, who is said to have presented it to the Pope, raising questions as to whether Francis had read it and was aware of Cruz’s testimony before naming Barros to Osorno.

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Cardinal Kurt Koch and Cardinal Mario Grech. / Daniel Ibáñez/CNA and Diocese of Gozo via Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Vatican City, Jan 18, 2022 / 04:05 am (CNA).
The Vatican has issued a letter asking Catholic bishops to invite local Orthodox and… […]

Washington D.C., Jul 20, 2018 / 12:00 pm (CNA).- The Church has consistently taught that the state has the authority to use the death penalty. But, in recent years, popes and bishops have become more vocal in calling for an end to its use. Many Catholics instinctively favor life over death, even after the worst crimes, and some are left wondering if the Church’s mind is changing.

Two recent cases highlighted an apparent tension between traditional teaching and modern circumstances.

On July 13, the bishops of Tennessee wrote to Governor Bill Haslam asking him to halt a slate of planned executions. In their letter, Bishops Mark Spalding of Nashville, Richard Stika of Knoxville, and Martin Holley of Memphis emphasized the value and dignity of every human life, even those who have committed the worst possible crimes.

One day earlier, on July 12, Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, Archbishop of Colombo, expressed his “support” for the Sri Lankan government’s decision to introduce the death penalty for drug traffickers and organized crimes bosses.

“We will support [Sri Lankan] President Maithripala Sirisena’s decision to subject those who organize crime while being in the prison to [the] death sentence,” he told local media. The cardinal went on to add that more needed to be done to prevent drug traffickers and crime bosses from operating with impunity while in jail.

The state’s authority to execute criminals is explicitly sanctioned in the Bible, including by St. Paul. Historically, the Church has recognized the use of the death penalty in a practical way: executions were carried out in the Papal States well into the nineteenth century, with the last official executioner retiring in 1865.

For much the twentieth century, attempted assassination of the pope was a capital crime in Vatican City; Pope Paul VI only removed the death penalty from the law in 1969.

Today, the Church still officially teaches that the death penalty is a legitimate option for states to employ.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches this: “Assuming that the guilty party’s identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.”

This formulation contains a heavy qualification. When exactly is the death penalty the only effective means of defending human life? That’s a thorny question.

St. John Paul II was outspoken in his opposition to the use of capital punishment. In an address in the United States, in 1999, he called for Christians to be “unconditionally pro-life” and said that “the dignity of human life must never be taken away, even in the case of someone who has done great evil.” He also spoke of his desire for a consensus to end the death penalty, which he called “cruel and unnecessary.”

That address, given in St. Louis, was credited with helping persuade to Missouri Governor Mel Carnahan to commute the death sentence of inmate Darrell Mease to life in prison.

More recently, Pope Francis has denounced capital punishment in even stronger terms. Speaking in October 2017, he called it “contrary to the Gospel” because “it is freely decided to suppress a human life that is always sacred in the eyes of the Creator, and of which, in the final analysis, God alone is the true judge and guarantor.” He has, however, stopped short of revising the official teaching contained in the Catechism.

There is a broad sentiment among American Catholics against the death penalty. It is a point of unusually strong consensus, even among those who normally disagree. In 2015, four Catholic publications with often-divergent viewpoints issued a joint editorial calling for an end to capital punishment.

But Catholic thinkers do not unanimously agree that a total renunciation of the death penalty is appropriate, or even possible.

Cardinal Joseph Bernadin, in his famous “Consistent Ethic of Life” speech delivered at Fordham University in 1983, explicitly recognized the legitimate authority of the state to resort to capital punishment. Cardinal Avery Dulles, writing in 2001, observed that “the Catholic magisterium does not, and never has, advocated unqualified abolition of the death penalty.”

While there is real scope for debate about when and how sparingly capital punishment should be used, Dulles concluded that “the death penalty is not in itself a violation of the right to life.”

His conclusion was informed by the constant teaching of the Church that judicial executions are licit, even if regrettable and to be avoided whenever possible.

In the City of God, St. Augustine wrote that the state administers justice under divine concession. “Since the agent of authority is but a sword in the hand, and is not responsible for the killing, it is in no way contrary to the commandment, “Thou shalt not kill”… for the representatives of the State’s authority to put criminals to death, according to law or the rule of rational justice.”

While the trend of recent papal statements has been towards a relegation of the death penalty to, at most, a theoretical possibility, scholars have urged caution about going too far.

Dr. Chad Pecknold, associate professor of systematic theology at the Catholic University of America, told CNA that it was important distinguish between changing circumstances and a change in what the Church has always taught.

“The Church has always held that the death penalty is a just option available to the state, even if we do not welcome its use. St. Augustine says that the death penalty is just, but the Church should plead for mercy.”

Pecknold stressed that relationship between mercy and justice is a live concern. In seeking mercy, he said, we must implicitly recognize the validity of justice.

“Mercy isn’t calling something that is just ‘unjust.’ Mercy relieves the punishment properly due to the guilty. As the Catechism recognizes, there can be circumstances in which the death penalty is a legitimate service to justice. This is qualified by a preferential option for other means, whenever they can serve the same ends.”

These alternative means have not been always and everywhere available. “The common and constant teaching of the Church can be applied to different circumstances. Alternatives available to us in modern western countries simply have not been present at other times, or may not be now in other places.”

There is a crucial difference between applying a consistent teaching to changed circumstances and appearing to suggest humanity has evolved beyond a previously valid doctrine, Pecknold said.

“The death penalty is not, and has never been a positive end in itself. It is a means towards serving justice. If we find we can now serve the same ends and express a preferential option for life, this is doubly good.”

“But we should not fall into a false understanding that what was once ‘good’ is now ‘bad.’ The Church doesn’t evolve out of a true teaching, nor does humanity progress beyond natural law.”

“We should prize our increasing opportunities to serve mercy and justice together, but be wary of giving ourselves too much credit, we have not progressed to a new, higher level of justice.”

Cardinal Dulles agreed. He considered the argument that Church sanctioning of capital punishment was an “outmoded” concession to past ages of “violence” and “barbarity,” one which could yield to “the signs of the times” and “a new recognition of the dignity and inalienable rights of the human person.” He dismissed this as “a tempting simplicity” which found “no echo” among Catholic theologians of the past.

The consensus against capital punishment in modern western nations, it must be observed, has grown in line with increased prosperity, political stability, and states’ ability to deploy credibly effective alternatives to execution.

In the recent Sri Lankan case, the government acted in response to the ineffectiveness of prison sentences, with drug traffickers and crime bosses seeming to continue operating with impunity, even behind bars. Following local complaints at his expression of support, Cardinal Ranjith issued a clarification, making clear his support for the government announcement was not a “carte blanche” advocacy for the death penalty, but noting that he could not “close my eyes and do nothing before this terrible phenomenon our country is faced with.”

“[The drug trade] causes death and violence in the streets and the destruction of the cream of our youth, who become drug addicts at an age as early as their adolescence, being exposed to drugs even in their schools. This is being done by drug cartels operated at times from the prisons,” he said.

For Ranjith, such a context seems to find a place within the Catechism’s criteria that capital punishment be reserved for the final defense of innocent life when other options fail.

In the West, conditions seem to be narrowing the scope for the death penalty’s use, and bishops are responding, which has led to a sense, especially after Pope Francis’ comments last year, that the Church might declare the death penalty absolutely unjust. Yet, as was recently seen in Sri Lanka and Tennessee, things are not yet the same everywhere.

That serves as a good reminder about the importance of understanding the Church’s global perspective, and the importance of distinguishing between teachings which supply criteria through which Catholics must make moral judgments, and teachings which declare that certain actions are, in fact, immoral everywhere and always.

The Church’s teaching on the death penalty expresses, essentially, a criteria by which state authorities should make judgments about the just use of the death penalty. While in the developed West, use of the death penalty may, in fact, be almost completely unnecessary, not all parts of the world are as developed.

The divergence of views from bishops around the world on this issue reflects the role that the circumstances of time and place can play in moral reasoning. That is instructive, and a reminder about the complex richness, and importance, of Catholic moral teaching.

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