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Pennsylvania AG asks Pope Francis for help releasing grand jury report

July 26, 2018 CNA Daily News 0

Harrisburg, Pa., Jul 26, 2018 / 02:06 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The Pennsylvania Attorney General has appealed to Pope Francis for help in publishing a report on clerical sexual abuse in that state.

Attorney General Josh Shapiro requested the pope’s help in a July 25 letter published Thursday by the Philadelphia Enquirer.
 
The 800-page report is the result of a two-year grand jury investigation, led by Shapiro, into the handling of sexual abuse cases by the five Pennsylvania diocese – Altoona-Johnstown, Erie, Greensburg, Harrisburg, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh. It was originally scheduled for public release at the end of June this year, but legal challenges by individuals named in the report, including some priests, have delayed publication.
 
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ordered that the report’s release be delayed while it considered arguments that some named in the report had not been granted due process by the investigation and would have their reputations unfairly damaged.
 
In a letter to Pope Francis, dated 25 July, Shapiro recalled meeting the pope at an event during the 2015 World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia.
 
“I am a great admirer of you and your work – especially your commitment to fighting for the defenseless,” Shapiro writes, saying that they met at a reception at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary, after which Francis went on to meet with victims of sexual abuse, to whom he expressed his sadness and apologies.
 
“You went on to express remorse that the Church failed to hear and believe [victims] for so long but that now you, the Holy Father, ‘hears and believes [them].’ You pledged to follow the path of truth wherever it my lead.”
 
Shapiro wrote that he has reason to believe “at least two leaders of the Catholic Church in Pennsylvania” are behind the legal challenges delaying the grand jury report’s release.

While conceding that these unnamed “leaders” are not acting directly to block the report, Shapiro suggested that they are encouraging those who are.

The letter concluded with a “respectful request” that Pope Francis instruct Church leaders in the state – presumably the bishops – to abandon their “destructive efforts to silence the survivors [of abuse].”
 
Earlier this week, Bishop Lawrence Persico, of the Diocese of Erie, told local media that he had seen the report and that its contents were “graphic,” “detailed,” and “sobering.” He also said that accounts of how abuse allegations were handled in previous decades would be unacceptable today.
 
Bishop Persico also addressed the legal challenges delaying the release of the report, saying he did not know who was behind them but that he was in favor of publication.
 
“I know I did not [block publication],” he said. “I’ve been calling from the very beginning that the grand jury report be released so it can be a voice for the victims. I’m not sure who all is behind this.”

Pope Francis has underscored the need for victims to be heard. In a letter to the Chilean bishops, following the national sexual abuse crisis in that country, he wrote “one of our main faults and omissions [is] not knowing how to listen to victims.”
 
In that instance, the pope included himself among those who had not listened, and promised to do better.

 

 

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Stains on Shroud of Turin painted on? Experts question new study

July 23, 2018 CNA Daily News 0

Vatican City, Jul 23, 2018 / 02:46 pm (CNA).- Several experts have questioned the scientific validity of a study on the Shroud of Turin that concluded that almost half the blood stains were “painted on,” based on simulations and photographs without the authors of the study having had access to the original linen cloth.

Forensic anthropologist Matteo Borrini and the chemist Luigi Garlarschelli published last week in the Journal of Forensic Sciences a paper on the Shroud based on the bloodstain patterns used to investigate crime scenes.

The Italian authors did not have access to the original linen cloth in the Turin cathedral, but based their experiments on photographs and models –including mannequins–which, for their critics are not scientifically equivalent to the cadaver that the shroud would have covered.

Borrini, a medical doctor maintains that the stains “aren’t realistic” and believes that “the stains were artificially made” because according to his simulations, blood should have flowed in other directions.

Emmanuella Marinelli, a scientist who has studied the Shroud of Turn since 1977 and has written more than 300 articles and several books on the subject questioned the methodology of Borrini’s study in a statement to ACI Prensa, the Spanish language sister agency of CNA.

“It clearly is not the same thing” to rely on a photograph and not have recourse to the shroud, Marinelli pointed out.

“These two investigators were among the group of scientists that have directly studied the shroud, and they have never seen it up close. Perhaps they have never even seen it from a ways off,” Marinelli also stated in  La Nuova Bussola Quotodiana, an online news site published in Italian.

The authors state that they made their tests with real and synthetic blood applied both on volunteers and on mannequins. The stains that they consider to be disproven are found on the forearms and on the lumbar area.

In comments to reporters, the study’s authors deny the authenticity of the relic and refer to it as an “artistic or didactic representation of the passion of Christ done around the 14th century.”

“Neither of the investigators have the scientific qualifications to speak on it,” since as an anthropologist and a physician, the pair does not “have experience in human bloodstains,” explained Alfonso Sánchez Hermosilla, a doctor and forensic anthropologist of the research team of the Spanish Sindonology Center.

“In their study they say that the bloodstains they observed don’t match up to those they obtained in their experiment, but they don’t have the necessary knowledge and so they did not adequately design the experiment, and that is why their conclusions lack any scientific value,” he told ACI Prensa.

For Sánchez Hermosilla, since it doesn’t have “any value scientifically, (the study) should not have been published in a serious journal.”

Professor Paolo Di Lazzaro, vice-rector of the International Center of Sindonology of Turin, noted in a letter published by his diocese that the conditions under which  bloodstains emanating from a tortured man and subjected to extreme conditions are produced are very different from those of a volunteer in good health or a mannequin, such as those studied by Borrini and Garlarschelli.

“It’s not possible to think that realistic conditions of the path taken by the blood on the body of a crucified man can be reproduced without considering all the factors that may have influenced that path in an important way,” he said.

The Shroud of Turin, also called a “sindon,” is a linen cloth 14 feet 5 inches long by 3 feet 7 inches wide, which shows the image of a man tortured and crucified. It is held by many Catholics to be the burial cloth that wrapped the body of Jesus after his death on the cross, though the Church’s position on the shroud is one of neutrality.

It has been in Turin, Italy since 1578, has been the subject of thousands of scientific investigations from diverse specialties, and more than 32,000 photographs have been taken of it.

The last time it was exposed to the public was in 2015. It will be exhibited next August for a few days before a large group of Italian youths on pilgrimage.

 

This article was originally published by our sister agency, ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

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Is Church teaching changing on the death penalty?

July 20, 2018 CNA Daily News 0

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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