SEX, PRIESTS, AND SECRET CODES: THE CATHOLIC CHURCH’S 2,000-YEAR PAPER TRAIL OF SEXUAL ABUSE
By Thomas P. Doyle, A.W.R. Sipe and Patrick J. Wall
By Thomas P. Doyle, A.W.R. Sipe and Patrick J. Wall
"Misschien van grotere waarde ïs de uitleg die het boek geeft hoe het
canoniek recht het geheim te bewaren -dit zelfs vereist, om een schandaal te
voorkomen.
Wanneer een bischop vermoedt dat een lid van de clerus bv. seksueel misbruik heeft gepleegd, vereist het canoniek recht dat de bisschop een onderzoek instelt (of een onderzoek laat instellen) en de resultaten hiervan in een geheim archief plaats. Degenen betrokken bij zulk onderzoek zweren geheimhouding en riskeren excommunicatie wanneer die geheimhouding wordt doorbroken, merken de auteurs op.
"mental reservation,” wordt gebruikt, vertellen de auteurs door een persoon die vast zit tussen een verplichting een gehiem te bewaren en de plicht de waarheid te vertellen.
Katholieke moraal theologie staat een persoon in zo'n dilemma toe misleidende woorden te gebruiken om een ander te te misleiden zolang er niet bewust een leugen wordt verteld.
Dit wordt gewoonlijk gebruikt om een grotere schade te voorkomen.
De legitimatie voor mental reservation is ingebouwd in de eed die
kardinalen af leggen "nooit aan iemand, wat dan ook aan mij is toevertrouwnd om geheim te houden en waarvan de openbaring schade zou kunnen veroorzaken aan de Heilige Kerk of haar onteren.
Hierin ligt een belangrijke verklaring waarom de kerkelijke hierarchie liegt , wanneer naar de overtuiging van de schrijvers, eerlijkheid de beste policy is.
Sex, lies, secrecy and abuse
Reviewed by BILL FROGAMENI
Since exposure of clerical sex abuse reached critical mass in 2002, Catholic leaders have sometimes defended their mishandling of the problem by claiming insufficient knowledge. Publicly, some bishops said they didn’t understand that pedophilia is incurable; thus the attempts to “rehabilitate” abusive clerics, then shift them from assignment to assignment.
Fr. Thomas Doyle, A.W. Richard Sipe and Patrick Wall have coauthored a book, Sex, Priests, and Secret Codes: The Catholic Church’s 2,000-Year Paper Trail of Sexual Abuse, that asks, “What did [the Catholic hierarchy] know, and when did they know it?” The answer, the authors emphatically proclaim, is “in a nutshell ... all about it and all along.”
The three authors approach the book as historians but also as advocates of church reform. Fr. Doyle, a canon lawyer, served at the Vatican’s U.S. embassy in the early ’80s. Along with psychiatrist and priest Michael Peterson and church attorney Ray Mouton, he authored a report that predicted the scope of the abuse scandal and recommended methods to meet the challenge. Mr. Wall, a former Benedictine monk and canon lawyer, works for a California law firm that advocates on behalf of alleged victims. Richard Sipe, also a former Benedictine monk, is a practicing therapist who has studied the sexuality of Catholic clergy for many years.
Drawing on their skills as canonists and researchers, the authors construct a compelling forensic account to support their thesis. “From the earliest days, when priests were allowed to marry, we find laws telling them to avoid sex,” they write. “We also find condemnations of homosexuality in the ranks of the clergy, the sexual abuse of minors by members of the clergy, and the solicitations of sex by priests in the confessional. The sexual abuse of children by priests is found condemned over and over again in the unorganized decrees of local churches that were promulgated before the first comprehensive collection of laws and commentaries ... appeared in the middle of the 12th century.”
In fact, from that 12th-century period when church doctrine began to be codified into canon law, the authors find specific references regarding the abuse of young boys, a practice known by the telling Latin term stuprum. (Put stuprum into its verb form and you get the more familiar infinitive “to stup.”)
Perhaps of greater value is the book’s explication of how canon law encourages -- and even requires -- church leaders to engage in secrecy so as to prevent scandal. If a bishop suspects a cleric has committed sexual abuse, for instance, canon law requires the bishop to conduct an investigation (or delegate the investigation) and then place the results into a secret archive. Those privy to such investigations swear secrecy and risk excommunication for violating that secrecy, note the authors.
Then there’s the technique of “mental reservation,” which, say the authors, is “used by a person who is caught between an obligation to keep a secret and a duty to tell the truth.” Furthermore, “Catholic moral theology allows a person caught in such a dilemma to use misleading words to deceive another so long as a deliberate lie is not told. This is commonly employed in order to avoid a greater harm.” Justification for mental reservation is built into the oath cardinals take to “never reveal to anyone whatsoever has been confided in me to keep secret and the revelation of which could cause damage or dishonor to the Holy Church.” This might go a long way toward explaining why church officials lie about scandal when, as the authors contend, honesty is the best policy.
If there’s a downside to Sex, Priests, and Secret Codes, it’s toward the end when the book’s journalistic tone becomes a bit polemical. The authors are angry with the institutional church, but chances are good that anyone curious enough to pick up this book doesn’t need to be reminded there’s cause for anger.
The authors conclude with hope: “The long, sad history of sexual abuse by clergy has been written. Now the church -- priests and people -- have a chance to write a different record -- one of mutual concern and effective protection of the vulnerable, and support for the trustworthiness and integrity of the clergy.”
Bill Frogameni is a freelance writer living in Ann Arbor, Mich.
National Catholic Reporter, May 5, 2006
Reviewed by BILL FROGAMENI
Since exposure of clerical sex abuse reached critical mass in 2002, Catholic leaders have sometimes defended their mishandling of the problem by claiming insufficient knowledge. Publicly, some bishops said they didn’t understand that pedophilia is incurable; thus the attempts to “rehabilitate” abusive clerics, then shift them from assignment to assignment.
Fr. Thomas Doyle, A.W. Richard Sipe and Patrick Wall have coauthored a book, Sex, Priests, and Secret Codes: The Catholic Church’s 2,000-Year Paper Trail of Sexual Abuse, that asks, “What did [the Catholic hierarchy] know, and when did they know it?” The answer, the authors emphatically proclaim, is “in a nutshell ... all about it and all along.”
The three authors approach the book as historians but also as advocates of church reform. Fr. Doyle, a canon lawyer, served at the Vatican’s U.S. embassy in the early ’80s. Along with psychiatrist and priest Michael Peterson and church attorney Ray Mouton, he authored a report that predicted the scope of the abuse scandal and recommended methods to meet the challenge. Mr. Wall, a former Benedictine monk and canon lawyer, works for a California law firm that advocates on behalf of alleged victims. Richard Sipe, also a former Benedictine monk, is a practicing therapist who has studied the sexuality of Catholic clergy for many years.
Drawing on their skills as canonists and researchers, the authors construct a compelling forensic account to support their thesis. “From the earliest days, when priests were allowed to marry, we find laws telling them to avoid sex,” they write. “We also find condemnations of homosexuality in the ranks of the clergy, the sexual abuse of minors by members of the clergy, and the solicitations of sex by priests in the confessional. The sexual abuse of children by priests is found condemned over and over again in the unorganized decrees of local churches that were promulgated before the first comprehensive collection of laws and commentaries ... appeared in the middle of the 12th century.”
In fact, from that 12th-century period when church doctrine began to be codified into canon law, the authors find specific references regarding the abuse of young boys, a practice known by the telling Latin term stuprum. (Put stuprum into its verb form and you get the more familiar infinitive “to stup.”)
Perhaps of greater value is the book’s explication of how canon law encourages -- and even requires -- church leaders to engage in secrecy so as to prevent scandal. If a bishop suspects a cleric has committed sexual abuse, for instance, canon law requires the bishop to conduct an investigation (or delegate the investigation) and then place the results into a secret archive. Those privy to such investigations swear secrecy and risk excommunication for violating that secrecy, note the authors.
Then there’s the technique of “mental reservation,” which, say the authors, is “used by a person who is caught between an obligation to keep a secret and a duty to tell the truth.” Furthermore, “Catholic moral theology allows a person caught in such a dilemma to use misleading words to deceive another so long as a deliberate lie is not told. This is commonly employed in order to avoid a greater harm.” Justification for mental reservation is built into the oath cardinals take to “never reveal to anyone whatsoever has been confided in me to keep secret and the revelation of which could cause damage or dishonor to the Holy Church.” This might go a long way toward explaining why church officials lie about scandal when, as the authors contend, honesty is the best policy.
If there’s a downside to Sex, Priests, and Secret Codes, it’s toward the end when the book’s journalistic tone becomes a bit polemical. The authors are angry with the institutional church, but chances are good that anyone curious enough to pick up this book doesn’t need to be reminded there’s cause for anger.
The authors conclude with hope: “The long, sad history of sexual abuse by clergy has been written. Now the church -- priests and people -- have a chance to write a different record -- one of mutual concern and effective protection of the vulnerable, and support for the trustworthiness and integrity of the clergy.”
Bill Frogameni is a freelance writer living in Ann Arbor, Mich.
National Catholic Reporter, May 5, 2006
Het bekendste voorbeeld van de rooms katholieke moraaltheologie Mental reservation
Cardinal Bernard Law, voormalig aartsbisschop Boston. Met wie de kerkelijke schandalen in 02 in de publiciteit begonnen (Boston Globe). Mede verantwoordelijk voor -naast vele anderen - serie verkrachters als John Geoghan (130+ misbruikten) en James Porter (veroordeelt voor 125 misbruikten ) Waarover hij keihard loog.
Ter voorkoming van de rechtzaken wegen medeplichtigheid -aangespannen door 86 slachtoffers - kreeg Law zijn erebaantje in Rome.
De katholieke moraaltheologie......
Het Vaticaan dacht nog dat het wisselen van de mijter voor Calimero's dophoedje en de beschuldigende vinger naar de media zou helpen.
En liet -oh summum van cynisch katholieke moraaltheologie - deze Law namens de paus de de instructieve inleiding houden over ........
jawel De Biecht en het recht op het de Communie
"Katholieken hebben niet automatisch ‘recht’ om de Eucharistie te ontvangen, zei kardinaal Law op het Internationaal Eucharistisch Congres in het Mexicaanse Guadelajara."
Cardinal Bernard Law, voormalig aartsbisschop Boston. Met wie de kerkelijke schandalen in 02 in de publiciteit begonnen (Boston Globe). Mede verantwoordelijk voor -naast vele anderen - serie verkrachters als John Geoghan (130+ misbruikten) en James Porter (veroordeelt voor 125 misbruikten ) Waarover hij keihard loog.
Ter voorkoming van de rechtzaken wegen medeplichtigheid -aangespannen door 86 slachtoffers - kreeg Law zijn erebaantje in Rome.
De katholieke moraaltheologie......
Het Vaticaan dacht nog dat het wisselen van de mijter voor Calimero's dophoedje en de beschuldigende vinger naar de media zou helpen.
En liet -oh summum van cynisch katholieke moraaltheologie - deze Law namens de paus de de instructieve inleiding houden over ........
jawel De Biecht en het recht op het de Communie
"Katholieken hebben niet automatisch ‘recht’ om de Eucharistie te ontvangen, zei kardinaal Law op het Internationaal Eucharistisch Congres in het Mexicaanse Guadelajara."
De voormalige aartsbisschop van Boston zei dat bij veel katholieken het verkeerde beeld bestaat dat zij bij deelname aan de Heilige Mis, zelfs als zij niet in ‘staat van genade’ zijn, automatisch het “recht” hebben om de Communie te ontvangen. De kardinaal herinnerde zijn toehoorders dat het onwaardig ontvangen van de communie een zware zonde is."
Na hem kwamen de nodige andere kardinalen en de vele bisschoppen , bij wie de boter onder de mijter uitsmelt....., waaronder William Levada, door Benedictus benoemd als zijn opvolger in diens vroegere functie: het hoofd van de de Congregatie voor de Geloofsleer, de nieuwe naam voor de Inquisitie....
“It is fair to say...that society has been on a learning curve with regard
to the sexual abuse of minors. The Church, too, has been on a learning curve. We
have learned, and we will continue to learn. Never was there an effort on my
part to shift a problem from one place to the next. It has always been my
contention that it is better to know a problem and deal with it than to be kept
in ignorance of it... In the final analysis, after we have done all that we
humanly can do to ensure that persons who are a threat to children are isolated
from them, and after we have done all that we can do to bring some measure of
healing psychologically and emotionally to all who have been traumatized by the
sexual abuse of minors, it is only the peace which is the gift of the Risen Lord
that can quiet our minds and hearts.
..........
July 27, 2001:
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