In May 2001, then Cardinal Ratzinger, Prefect for the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) wrote a secret letter to all the world’s bishops re-asserting the legitimacy of the 1961 document Crimen Solicitationes which advocated keeping secret, among other things, sexual abuse by the clergy. In 2001, Ratzinger stated that the 1961 document is still in effect and should be the protocol for handling sexual abuse cases involving minors. The 2001 letter was necessary because in 1983 Pope John Paul II promulgated a new Code of Canon Law which superceded the 1961 letter as well as the old 1917 Code. The 2001 asserts once again that the proper purview for sex abuse cases is the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and not civil authorities. In addition, Ratzinger states that such cases are bound by the “Pontifical secret” an arcane oath of secrecy which if broken is punished by excommunication latae sententiae.

In a letter dated May 18, 2001, then Cardinal Ratzinger sent a letter to all the bishops of the world reaffirming the Church’s operational secrecy concerning accusations of priestly sexual abuse. In the secret document, Ratzinger states that the proper forum for such cases is the Vatican. In demanding adherence to secrecy regarding sex abuse by priests, Ratzinger reminds the bishops that the penalty for disobedience to his directive is excommunication.

As the bishops of the Catholic Church try to put the scandals behind them new horrors appear. On November 21st, the former Vicar General of the Diocese of Phoenix and founder of Life Teen, Monsignor Dale Fushek was arrested on charges of abusing young boys in the 1980’s. The Monsignor was charged with three counts of assault, five of contributing to the delinquency of a minor and two of indecent exposure. All are misdemeanors, punishable by no more than three years and nine months in all. We’ve heard it all before. There are more shocking stories coming out of Brazil as reported by the courageous National Catholic Reporter. Their reporter writes about priest who actually keep journals of their predatory habits and tips for luring young, unsuspecting children into their lair of pain and suffering.
If this is to be stopped, the laity have to rise up and demand and end to this scandal. It’s clear that the church officials are incapable of policing themselves. Jason Berry’s article in today’s LA Times gives further evidence that the “fish rots from the head”. If true reform is to found it must come from lay or secular sources.

The moral hypocrite in the Vatican
By Jason Berry, Jason Berry’s books include “Lead Us Not Into Temptation” and, with Gerald Renner, “Vows of Silence: The Abuse of Power in the Papacy of John Paul II.”
CONSERVATIVE Catholics rejoiced at the election of Pope Benedict XVI because, as a cardinal, he had famously decried “moral relativism.”
Now, however, the pope appears to be backtracking and, worse yet, he is tolerating a scandalous moral relativism by the Vatican secretary of state.
In 1986, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger sent a global letter to bishops denouncing homosexuality as a “moral disorder.” The language was harsh, much to the delight of conservatives.
But now that Ratzinger is pope, the church says that homosexual seminarians are to be treated with “respect and delicacy” if they are chaste, according to the newspaper Il Giornale, quoting from a leaked copy of a recently completed Vatican document on homosexuals in the seminary. That’s a reasonable position, albeit a retreat from Ratzinger’s denouncement of gays in 1986.
Perhaps more troubling for conservatives should be the pope’s tolerance of the behavior of the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Angelo Sodano. Six years ago, Sodano persuaded Ratzinger to halt a canon law case seeking the excommunication of a friend of his, an alleged pedophile, Father Marcial Maciel, founder of the Legion of Christ order in Mexico.
After Ratzinger became pope last spring, Sodano injected himself into a Vatican investigation of Maciel. Sodano also invited his old friend to a prestigious religious conference in Lucca, Italy. No president or elected prime minster would tolerate his chief diplomat championing a priest with 20 accusations of pedophilia.
Sodano and Maciel became friends in the 1970s, while Sodano served as papal nuncio in Chile and Maciel was cultivating supporters of corrupt Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. The allegations against Maciel date from 1976, when two former Legion priests sent the Vatican formal accusations, with names of other young victims from seminaries in Rome and Spain.
The Vatican ignored the charges, even as the number of alleged victims grew. The Legion’s response has always been to attack the accusers, portraying Maciel as the victim of a conspiracy by men jealous of his success.
In late 2004, with Pope John Paul II dying, Ratzinger realized that he might become pope and launched an investigation of Maciel. At the time, Ratzinger’s office had a backlog of 700 cases of priests whose bishops wanted them defrocked. He knew that the media would seize on the Maciel case as a coverup. As the investigation began, Maciel stepped down from the helm of the Legion, citing his age, 85.
Ratzinger sent Msgr. Charles Scicluna, a canon lawyer on his staff, to question witnesses in the United States and Mexico. In April, Scicluna heard testimony from 30 people, 20 of whom directly accused Maciel of abusing them. Scicluna has taken a papal vow not to comment on investigations. But witnesses spoke to journalists, praising Scicluna’s moral probity.
In mid-May, as the investigation continued, Sodano’s office inexplicably notified the Legion that there would be no canonical process against Maciel. Reporters responded to the statement by contacting the Vatican press office, which denied that the church was investigating Maciel. The Legion then crowed that Maciel was exonerated, a claim the press office never made.
After the announcement, however, two more witnesses gave testimony to Scicluna in Rome.
So who is in charge of the case, Sodano or the pope? Did Benedict abort the investigation with Scicluna still gathering information? Did Sodano force deception on the papal spokesman, who under church rules is not allowed to confirm a “secret” probe?
The Maciel case makes a mockery of canon law, and it is symptomatic of something deeper. As a 2004 Dallas Morning News investigation found, Catholic religious orders for years have sent allegedly abusive priests to other countries to avoid prosecution.
The Holy See is a signatory to a U.N. covenant on the rights of children. The Vatican cannot presume to remain above the law if it persists in shielding child molesters.
On Nov. 12, Pope Benedict spoke about “universal moral law,” saying that “the rich patrimony of values and principles embodied in that law is essential to the building of a world which acknowledges and promotes the dignity, life and freedom of each human person.” Sodano’s highhanded tactics betray Benedict’s remarks. The Maciel investigation is now a year old. Did Benedict cave in to Sodano’s pressure, as he did in 1999, and abort the cause of justice?
With Cardinal Roger Mahony trying to seal away clergy files in California cases, the pattern from Rome to Dublin to Los Angeles is glaring.
Benedict XVI cannot credibly lecture us on moral law when his secretary of state reeks of hypocrisy. The pope should stand for justice by firing Sodano and putting Maciel where he belongs — out of the priesthood.

A high ranking official in the Diocese of Phoenix Monsignor Dale Fushek, the founder of Life Teen, was arrested today on sex abuse charges. The following are excerpts of the Associated Press report:
The former vicar general of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix was arrested Monday on charges he fondled boys and young men and asked them prying questions about their sex lives that he pretended were part of confession.
Monsignor Dale Fushek, 53, becomes one of the highest-ranking priests to be charged in the sex scandal that has engulfed the church. The vicar general is the highest-ranking administrator of a diocese next to the bishop.
Fushek was charged with three counts of assault, five of contributing to the delinquency of a minor and two of indecent exposure. All are misdemeanors, punishable by no more than three years and nine months in all.
Fushek “used a relationship of trust to perform criminal acts, including but not limited to sexual activities, improper sexual discussions and physical contact, upon vulnerable minor and adult victims,” prosecutors said in court papers.
Prosecutors said Fushek committed the acts between 1984 and 1994 at St. Timothy’s Catholic Church in Mesa or on property belonging to the church. The alleged victims were seven young men and boys.
Fushek resigned as pastor of St. Timothy’s in April after someone claimed to have recovered a repressed memory involving sexual improprieties by Fushek in 1985. He has denied the allegations and remains on administrative leave.

Bishop William Skylstad, President of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and head of the bankrupt Catholic diocese of Spokane Washington, continues to downplay the severity of the clergy abuse crisis. During a session of the bishops’ annual fall meeting in Washington DC this week, Skylstad remarked that a “handful” of abusive priests had caused the rest of the Catholic clergy “to endure an avalanche of negative public attention.” Who does he think he’s kidding? Estimates place the financial cost of this crisis to top $1billion in acknowledging more than 11,500 victims. Yet, in spite of the evidence Skylstad and the bishops continue to downplay and ignore the pain and trauma caused by the heinous acts of a “few” clergy members. The bishops’ failure to acknowledge the pain and alienation is not about one priest or one bishop. It’s about an institution that has been corrupted by years of secrecy, coverup and denial.

For those of us old enough to remember Watergate, we learned that very often the “coverup is worse than the crime.” The same can be said about the crisis in the Catholic Church. Since 2002, when the Boston Globe broke the story about institutional cover up of the clergy sex scandal, we’ve been inundated with stories of heinous acts committed against our children. Yet, worse than the acts themselves is the lack of action on the part of bishops and cardinals who have sought first to protect the reputation of the church rather than protect innocent children. In the past two months, two “Princes of the Church” Cardinals Bevilacqua of Philadelphia and Mahony of Los Angeles have been implicated in decades of coverups of abusive and predatory priests. The Church must change or perish. The faithful will forgive “seventy times seven” but they can’t tolerate those who would prey on innocent children.

As a former priest and Auxiliary Bishop of Miami, Bishop John Nevins of Venice knows where most of the clerical skeletons are buried in South Florida. Nevins, a NY native, has gained an ignominious reputation for accepting priests accused of child rape and child sexual abuse. After returning from the Dallas bishops’ meeting in 2002, Nevins vowed to lead the way in bringing healing to the church. Yet, in the midst of all the talk of sweetness and light he neglected to mention that some 15 years earlier he had accepted for service in his diocese a priest credibly accused of abusing a 15 year old boy in Louisville Kentucky. Of course, the infamous case of Fr. Ed McLoughlin who was finally removed from ministry after Nevins ignored victims’ cries for help, can’t be left unmentioned. Nevins was part of the same Archdiocese of Miami that allowed the Rev. Rocco D’Angelo to move from Miami to St. Petersburg without a word of warning to the authorities in St. Petersburg. D’Angelo had had a long career of molestation and Miami so when Miami church officials had had enough they sent him packing with high recommendations for priestly service. When he arrived in St. Petersburg, he continued his reign of terror and molested more young boys. As an Auxiliary Bishop in Miami, Nevins was taught the subtle nuances necessary in covering up for abusive priests and transferring them to new dioceses. No wonder the Diocese of Venice is known as a “priestly dumping ground”.

In a strongly worded editorial published October 28, 2005, The National Catholic Reporter, an influential weekly Catholic newspaper, has called on the bishops of the United States to come clean and reveal the true depths of the crippling clergy scandal. The National Catholic Reporter, known for its somewhat liberal but scholarly journalism, has tracked the scandal since 2002. In the editiorial, the paper notes that 3 living American cardinals “have been complicit in what any reasonable observer would term criminal activity.” Of course, the paper is referring to Cardinals Law, Bevilacqua, and Mahony. The three princes of the church still wield great influence in the church in spite of the fact that Bevilacqua is retired and Law is hiding out in a Roman basilica. Mahony remains at the helm of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and has spent untold millions defending criminal activity by his priests. All three have steadfastly refused to cooperate with civil officials and Mahony continues to fight any change in the civil statute of limitations. While all three men have avoided any criminal prosecution, they have brought shame and embarassment upon the Catholic Church. In its editorial, the National Catholic Reporter has called upon the other bishops to appoint someone like Rev. Theodore Hesburgh, the former President of Notre Dame University, to head a commission to investigate the scandal. Of course, former Governor Thomas Keating thought that he would have access to such documents. He ended up quitting an investigative commission in frustration calling the bishops’ actions something out of La Cosa Nostra.

It’s been more than three years now since America’s Roman Catholic bishops met in Dallas and issued their charter concerning the protection of young people from clergy sexual abuse. No one I know, least of all the victims, think that that meeting stopped the horrors and coverups of the crisis in the Catholic Church. However, at least it made everyone aware of the nature and scope of the crisis. That’s why I find it hard to fathom what the Catholic Church leaders in Ireland have been doing the last three years since Dallas. Most recently the Ferns inquiry report severely criticized the Irish Catholic Church for sex abuse scandal and its ensuing and ongoing coverup. The Irish government has finally stepped in and pledged to do what the Church is unwilling or incapable of doing in this mess. Just yesterday, Bishop Eamonn Walsh, Apostolic Administrator of the Ferns diocese confirmed that five priests with pending abuse allegations are still in active ministry! If the Catholic Church in Ireland does not move quickly and attempt to rectify the situation it will lose all of its already diminishing credibility and moral authority.