Vive le republique. Leanza en de heilige stoelen dans

“The archbishop of Dublin told me … that ecclesiastical penal law functioned until the late 1950s; admittedly, it was not perfect – there is much to criticize about it – but nevertheless it was applied After the mid-'60s, however, it was simply not applied any more. The prevailing mentality was that the Church must not be a Church of laws but, rather, a Church of love; she must not punish. Thus the awareness that punishment can be an act of love ceased to exist. This led to an odd darkening of the mind, even in very good people."
Benedictus

“Paradoxically, appealing somehow to their own interpretation of Canon Law, they had put themselves even above and beyond the norms which the current Pope himself has promulgated for the entire Church,” Diarmuid Martin, 18 juli

25 juli




Archbishop Giuseppe Leanza, the 10th representative of the Pope and career diplomat of the Holy See, must pine for days of power and glory when his predecessors enjoyed awesome political clout and enormous social influence.
With the Vatican being damned by Taoiseach Enda Kenny, scolded by Tanaiste and Foreign Affairs Minister Eamon Gilmore, and mauled verbally by all sides in Dail Eireann, the 67-year-old Italian was told he was living in the Republic of Ireland of 2011, not in the Vatican, the refugee-centre of paedophile clerics.
Leanza's treatment contrasts with January 1930 when Archbishop Paschal Robinson (pictured below) became the first Apostolic Nuncio to Ireland since Archbishop Rinnuccini in the 17th century.
Welcomed by fawning government ministers and bishops on arrival at Dun Laoghaire, the Dublin-born, but American-reared, Robinson was driven in triumph along streets lined by fervent Dubliners waving papal flags.

Robinson, a bearded Franciscan friar vowed to poverty, was installed regally in the former Imperial Chief Secretary's Lodge in the Phoenix Park, now the residence of the American ambassador.
The splendid but dilapidated building had been refurbished by the Office of Public Works and was made available to 'Robbo' by the Government, courtesy of hard-pressed but uncomplaining taxpayers.
As a special mark of deference, the Government conferred social distinction on the Pope's man by making him automatically the Dean, or head, of the Dublin diplomatic corps.

Politicians, civil servants, pious priests and zealous laity vied for the Nuncio's ear, and duly received papal knighthoods and Bene Merenti (good conduct) medals.
After Robinson's death, his successor, the elderly Archbishop Ettore Felici, was welcomed in 1952 with a Te Deum in Dublin's Pro-Cathedral -- but within weeks his corpse was laid out in the same sacred building, amid a suspension of the Dail, full pomp of Church and State, and universal public grief.
When Archbishop Giuseppe Leanza arrived in Ireland in April 2009, he must have felt he had landed a cushy pre-retirement posting.
Armed with a canon law doctorate, he joined the Vatican's diplomatic service in 1972, serving in Paraguay, Uganda, the US, Haiti, Zambia, Malawi, Bosnia Herzegovina, Slovenia, Macedonia and Bulgaria.
Last year, faceless Leanza faced down knee-bending Brian Cowen and Micheal Martin in the seismic public shift to anti-Vaticanism after the Murphy Report into the Dublin Archdiocese.
This time, Leanza may be sent back to his residence on the Navan Road with his tail between his legs.

In een alleszins godsdienstige omgeving konden blijkbaar lange tijd ernstige misstanden plaatshebben. Hoe verklaart u dat?

„Dat is een sociaalpsychologisch verhaal. Het ging om een gesloten systeem waarin kwetsbare kinderen werden opgevoed door mensen tegen wie ze opkeken. In die luchtdichte gemeenschap konden allerlei zaken stiekem gebeuren.”
...

De conclusie wordt voorgelegd aan de kerk, die vervolgens een uitspraak doet. Die kan bijvoorbeeld inhouden dat een geestelijke wordt overgeplaatst of berispt, dat hij niet meer met kinderen in aanraking mag komen, in therapie moet gaan of zelfs uit het ambt wordt gezet.”

Welke plaats neemt het begrip verzoening in het geheel in?

„We spreken niet snel over verzoening tussen personen, maar hopen dat het slachtoffer zichzelf enigermate weet te verzoenen met wat er is gebeurd, al zal dat altijd blijven knagen. Daarvoor is in ieder geval nodig dat de kerk goed naar hem heeft geluisterd.”

...

Daarna volgt de zitting. In beginsel worden beide partijen opgeroepen. Dat hoeft niet per se tegelijk, ze kunnen na elkaar gehoord worden. Vervolgens komt de uitspraak: de klacht is gegrond als het misbruik bewezen of aannemelijk gemaakt is. De uitspraak gaat naar de bisschop of overste. Die mag er alleen van afwijken na contact te hebben gehad met de voorzitter van de klachtencommissie, met mij dus. Wordt er een paar keer van afgeweken, dan ben ik weg. De commissie wordt dan onvoldoende serieus genomen.’

Maar bij het zoeken van leden voor de kamers vind ik deskundigheid belangrijker dan een eventueel kerklidmaatschap. Al kan dat laatste heel handig zijn: dat je weet hoe een mis in zijn werk gaat en hoe de kerk is georganiseerd.’

18-6
“Sexual abuse by a priest is a crime and an abuse of spiritual power”, affirmed

Msgr. Charles Sicluna, Promoter of Justice at the Congregation for the Doctrine
of the Faith, Saturday morning to press at the launch of a Symposium titled
“Towards healing and renewal”.

The gathering, which will take place February 6th to 9th 2012, is being organised by the Pontifical Gregorian University, with the goal of formulating a global response to the scandal of sex abuse within the Church.

Research and study into sex abuse will also take place through the creation of a new “multi-lingual e-learning centre” also launched Saturday. The centre has been set up to improve information and prevention. Moreover from now to February, the centre’s work will be made public with regular press releases.
Questioned as to whether we could now speak of a decisive strategy on the part of the Vatican in the fight against paedophilia within the Church, Msgr Scicluna responded that the Circular Letter sends “a very strong signal of determination, born of the Pope’s own determination to look the sin and crime of paedophilia in the face, while at the same time affirming that we must be able to give a clear, credible, firm and effective response to this problem within the Church. To be witnesses not only to respect for the innocence of children and young people, but also to the demands of truth in justice”.

“There are so many different aspects to what the Church needs to do and I think that the Symposium, is going to help by sharing experiences across the world, by sharing resources which will be usable across the world”, Baroness Shelia Hollins told Lydia O’Kane.The professor of psychiatry at St George's University in London is one of the many experts who will make an intervention at the February Symposium, alongside a victim of abuse. On Saturday the Professor also shared her recent experience of listening to victims in Ireland. “One of the main problems in the process of healing and renewal is that the victims feel they are not really being heard”, she revealed. “It’s not enough to register shock at their stories, we need to go beyond and listen to them with out whole bodies. I think people do need to hear 'sorry'.

We have a focus on the importance of confession, there has to be an admission of guilt first. And you know it's quite difficult if the admission of guilt isn’t there for even ‘sorry’ to have meaning”.

“I think one of the things that I was most impressed by and surprised by in Ireland, was the fact that so many people have retained a deep faith and have real hope that things are going to get better, despite the pain and suffering that they have experienced for themselves. Although there are others who have lost both their faith and their hope, so it’s a double loss”.