Vatican City, Feb 24, 2019 / 01:44 pm (CNA).- A Vatican spokesman said Sunday that concrete follow-up to this week’s abuse summit will include a new law on child protection for Vatican City State and a document from Pope Francis.
At the conclusion of the Vatican’s sex abuse and child protection summit Feb. 24, conference moderator Fr. Federico Lombardi, SJ, announced that Pope Francis will soon issue a motu proprio “on the protection of minors and vulnerable persons.”
Vatican City State will also receive its own new child protection law and the Vicariate of Vatican City will receive new child protection guidelines in the coming weeks. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith will publish a “vademecum,” or handbook, with the tasks and obligations of bishops, Lombardi said.
Archbishop Charles Scicluna, adjunct secretary of the CDF and a leading figure in the abuse conference, said Feb. 24 that while changes in law are good, the most important thing is “a change of heart” and conversion, “to be more like the Good Shepherd, taking care of the little ones and the most vulnerable.”
Another measure slated to take place over the next months is the creation of task forces specifically to help local Churches in need of help to solve problems and develop initiatives in their bishops’ conferences and dioceses.
Fr. Hans Zollner, SJ, summit organizer, said the reason behind the task force idea is that some countries the Church, and society overall, lack trained personnel and need outside assistance.
The task forces would help bishops’ conferences and dioceses that have requested help on things like writing guidelines and education about abuse. “This is something that in the mid- and long-term will [bear] fruit,” Zollner commented.
At the final press conference of the abuse summit, organizers re-emphasized the plan for a follow-up meeting to take place between summit leaders and top people in the Roman Curia first thing Monday morning.
The Feb. 25 meeting will be the first of a serious of follow-ups to discuss what should come next, Lombardi said.
Zollner said they have tried to bring out some concrete outcomes from the week’s encounter, but that they will “need to be fleshed out.” He also said there are a number of other points and suggestions which came out of the bishops’ working groups, and which organizers will be discussing.
Implementation of any concrete measures will have to take place at the local level, Cardinal Oswald Gracias of Bombay said.
Gracias and Scicluna both agreed that one point worth looking into in the follow-up is the amendment of the “pontifical secret,” a policy of confidentiality in the Church, regarding cases of sexual abuse of minors.
Scicluna praised the four-day meeting with heads of bishops’ conferences, Eastern Catholic Churches, and religious communities, saying that while the Church has acknowledged for decades the seriousness of the crime of abuse of minors by clergy, this was the first time he had seen an equally clear acknowledgment of the gravity of cover-up.
If you value the news and views Catholic World Report provides, please consider donating to support our efforts. Your contribution will help us continue to make CWR available to all readers worldwide for free, without a subscription. Thank you for your generosity!
Click here for more information on donating to CWR. Click here to sign up for our newsletter.
Pope Francis greets a crowd of an estimated 25,000 people gathered in St. Peter’s Square in Rome for his Regina Caeli address on May 22, 2022. / Vatican Media
Vatican City, May 22, 2022 / 07:33 am (CNA).
In his Sunday Regina Caeli address, Pope Francis reflected on Jesus’ words to the disciples at the Last Supper in the Gospel reading from John: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.”
Speaking to an estimated 25,000 pilgrims gathered on a bright day in St. Peter’s Square in Rome, the pope noted that Jesus also makes a point to add, “Not as the world gives do I give it to you” (John 14:27).
“What is this peace that the world does not know and the Lord gives us?” Pope Francis asked.
“This peace is the Holy Spirit, the same Spirit of Jesus. It is the presence of God in us, it is God’s ‘power of peace,'” he explained. “It is He, the Holy Spirit, who disarms the heart and fills it with serenity. It is He, the Holy Spirit, who loosens rigidity and extinguishes the temptations to attack others. It is He, the Holy Spirit, who reminds us that there are brothers and sisters beside us, not obstacles or adversaries.
“It is He, the Holy Spirit, who gives us the strength to forgive, to begin again, to set out anew because we cannot do this with our own strength. And it is with Him, with the Holy Spirit, that we become men and women of peace,” Pope Francis said.
“This is the source of the peace Jesus gives us,” he added. “For no one can leave others peace if they do not have it within themselves. No one can give peace unless that person is at peace.”
Pilgrims at St. Peter’s Square in Rome on May 22, 2022. In his Regina Caeli address, Pope Francis spoke about the peace of Christ. Vatican Media
Pope Francis said, “Let us learn to say every day: ‘Lord, give me your peace, give me your Holy Spirit.’ This is a beautiful prayer. Shall we say it together? ‘Lord, give me your peace, give me your Holy Spirit.’”
Again encouraging the crowd to pray with him, he said, “I didn’t hear it well. One more time: ‘Lord, give me your peace, give me your Holy Spirit.’”
Focusing on the context of Gospel reading, Pope Francis observed that Jesus’ words to his apostles are “a sort of testament.”
The pope said, “Jesus bids farewell with words expressing affection and serenity. But he does so in a moment that is anything but serene,” referring to Judas’ unfolding betrayal and Peter’s imminent denial that he even knows Jesus.
“The Lord knows this, and yet, he does not rebuke, he does not use severe words, he does not give harsh speeches,” Pope Francis said. “Rather than demonstrate agitation, he remains kind till the end.”
He continued, “There is a proverb that says you die the way you have lived. In effect, the last hours of Jesus’ life are like the essence of his entire life. He feels fear and pain, but does not give way to resentment or protesting. He does not allow himself to become bitter, he does not vent, he is not impatient. He is at peace, a peace that comes from his meek heart accustomed to trust.”
In so doing, “Jesus demonstrates that meekness is possible,” the pope observed.
“He incarnated it specifically in the most difficult moment, and he wants us to behave that way too, since we too are heirs of his peace,” he said. “He wants us to be meek, open, available to listen, capable of defusing tensions and weaving harmony. This is witnessing to Jesus and is worth more than a thousand words and many sermons. The witness of peace.”
Pope Francis invited all disciples of Jesus to reflect on whether they behave in this way.
“Do we ease tensions, and defuse conflicts? Are we too at odds with someone, always ready to react, explode, or do we know how to respond nonviolently, do we know how to respond with peaceful actions? How do I react?” he asked.
“Certainly, this meekness is not easy,” while adding ,“How difficult it is, at every level, to defuse conflicts!”
Jesus understands this. He knows “that we need help, that we need a gift,” the pope explained.
“Peace, which is our obligation, is first of all a gift of God.”
Pope Francis said that “no sin, no failure, no grudge should discourage us from insistently asking for this gift from the Holy Spirit who gives us peace.”
“The more we feel our hearts are agitated, the more we sense we are nervous, impatient, angry inside, the more we need to ask the Lord for the Spirit of peace,” he said.
Pilgrims gather at St. Peter’s Square in Rome on May 22, 2022, for Pope Francis’ Regina Caeli address. Vatican Media
Pope Francis invited the crowd to pray with him, “Lord, give me your peace, give me your Holy Spirit.” He added, “And let us also ask this for those who live next to us, for those we meet each day, and for the leaders of nations.”
After praying the Regina Caeli at noon, Pope Francis commented on the beatification in Lyon, France, later on Sunday of Pauline Marie Jericot, who founded the Society of the Propagation of the Faith for the support of the missions in the early 19th century. The pope called her “a courageous woman, attentive to the changes taking place at the time, and had a universal vision regarding the Church’s mission.”
Pope Francis continued: “May her example enkindle in everyone the desire to participate through prayer and charity in the spread of the Gospel throughout the world.”
Pope Francis also noted that Sunday marked the beginning of “Laudato Si’ Week,” a weeklong reflection inspired by his 2015 encyclical on the environment. He called the observance an opportunity “to listen ever more attentively to the cry of the Earth which urges us to act together in taking care of our common home.”
Pope Francis also mentioned that May 24 marks the Feast day of Mary Help of Christians, who is “particularly dear to Catholics in China.”
He added that Mary Help of Christians is the patroness for Chinese Catholics and is located in the Shrine of Sheshan in Shanghai in addition to many churches and homes throughout the country.
“This happy occasion offers me the opportunity to assure them once again of my spiritual closeness” to believers in China, he said.
“I am attentively and actively following the often complex life and situations of the faithful and pastors, and I pray every day for them,” he said.
“I invite all of you to unite yourselves in this prayer so that the Church in China, in freedom and tranquility, might live in effective communion with the universal Church, and might exercise its mission of proclaiming the Gospel to everyone, and thus offer a positive contribution to the spiritual and material progress of society as well.”
Pope Francis also greeted participants in Italy’s annual pro-life demonstration, titled Scegliamo la vita, or in English, “Let’s Choose Life.”
“I thank you for your dedication in promoting life and defending conscientious objection, which there are often attempts to limit,” Pope Francis said.
“Sadly, in these last years, there has been a change in the common mentality, and today we are more and more led to think that life is a good at our complete disposal, that we can choose to manipulate, to give birth or take life as we please, as if it were the exclusive consequence of individual choice,” the pope said.
“Let us remember that life is a gift from God! It is always sacred and inviolable, and we cannot silence the voice of conscience,” he concluded.
Vatican City, Jul 5, 2019 / 08:00 am (CNA).- This week, Cardinal Mauro Piacenza, prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Penitentiary, issued a document defending the sacramental seal, as civil governments in California, Australia, and other places attempt to pass laws that would force priests to reveal what they hear in the confessional.
Piacenza also defended professional confidentiality, including the pontifical secret, and appeared to take aim at the use of leaked Vatican information in the media – suggesting leaks from the Vatican are detrimental to the public good.
“In a time of mass communication, in which all information is ‘burned’ [leaked] and with it often unfortunately also part of people’s lives, it is necessary to re-learn the strength of word, its constructive power, but also its destructive potential,” the cardinal warned.
Following a year in which scandals of episcopal misconduct and accountability have combined to create a crisis of confidence in Church leadership in some places, reaction to the application and violation of confidentiality in the Church illustrates the emerging fault lines in a debate between parts of the hierarchy and faithful, in which both sides accept the need for transparency, though often with very different understandings of the word.
In his defense of the need to respect administrative (rather than sacramental) secrecy, Piacenza cited the Catechism, which teaches that “the right to the communication of the truth is not unconditional.”
It is easy to think of ecclesial examples in which confidentiality, even secrecy, are for the good of souls, as Piacenza argued. For example, discretion about the Vatican’s support for evangelization efforts in persecuted areas, most notably in China and the Arabian Peninsula, is manifestly in the interest of the good of souls.
But consensus breaks down quickly when discussions about confidentiality turn to how much the faithful will be told about misconduct in the Church.
Bishops in Rome and the U.S. concede that the faithful have a right to know that a scandalous situation is being handled. But, as the ongoing fallout from the disgrace of Theodore McCarrick shows, many Catholics have lost trust that the root causes of sexual scandal are addressed with, the laicization of a cardinal notwithstanding.
The faithful in the United States are still waiting for the results of a promised Vatican investigation into McCarrick’s rise to prominence despite decades of allegations. Following the dramatic statements of Archbishop Vigano, many remain concerned that whatever public report is released will be sanitized and omit reference to those ignored allegations or benefited from McCarrick’s patronage over the years.
Those concerns have been amplified by the case of former Wheeling-Charleston Bishop Michael Bransfield, who has been the subject of scandal and investigation since his resignation last year.
When the Vatican-appointed investigator Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore submitted his report on accusations of sexual and financial misconduct by Bransfield, it emerged that he omitted the names of other bishops and cardinals who had received large gifts of money from him over the years. Despite the possibility that these gifts might have played a part in Bransfield’s ability to act with impunity for so long, they were deemed a “distraction” by Lori.
This information only came to light when an unredacted version of the investigation’s findings was leaked to the Washington Post, and its publication led to an apology from Lori and a series of bishops returning the gifts to the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston.
But examples like these notwithstanding, many would concede Piacenza’s point about the legitimate goods served by some measure of secrecy. Confidentiality is an essential part of any credible investigative process. Similarly, many would accept Piacenza’s point about the potentially permanent damage to a person’s reputation that can be done by circulating unproven allegations. Victims, too, have a clear right to confidentiality and protection from the public gaze while they seek justice.
But demands for greater transparency by the Church rarely focus on the details of individual acts of wrongdoing; more often they pertain to wider patterns of abuse of privilege and office, typified by McCarrick and Bransfield. Many Catholics are not, and will not be satisfied by knowing that the individual at the center of the scandal has been removed – they want to see proof that enablers and protectors have been dealt with.
Piacenza proposes that tensions between those seeking answers and those guarding information should be calmed and steered by the “Golden Rule” and a spirit of “fraternal charity.” The cardinal, like many in the hierarchy, is asking the faithful to trust. Following a dramatic loss of episcopal credibility in the face of scandal, most Catholics now want to verify.
While Piacenza’s call for prudence and respect for confidentiality is not without merit, in the current climate many of the faithful will continue to insist that the salvation of souls demands a far greater “need to know” than perhaps he and the hierarchy in Rome are willing to concede.
Leave a Reply