Leon J. Podles :: DIALOGUE

Nicholas Cafardi has reviewed in Commonweal the muddled history of the canonical handling of abuse cases. He answers a few questions, but he says many more can be answered only by the Vatican, which has not learned to be transparent: 

What we do know is that eventually a few curial officials came to understand the insufficiency [...]

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Pope John Paul failed to investigate the charges against Maciel. He let Cardinal Sodano block Cardinal Ratzimger’s attempt to investigate.
 
In November 2002 a letter was sent to John Paul by the Rev. Antonio Roqueñí, the lawyer of Maciel’s victims, via (now  Cardinal ) Stanislaw Dziwisz.
 
El Milenio reports.
 
In the letter the victims state that they know [...]

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Ian Kershaw wrote of the common German’s reaction to Nazi excesses and atrocities: 

the myth of ‘if only the Fuhrer knew’ was already at work. Many genuinely believed that matters, especially if unpalatable, were deliberately kept from Hitler, and that if he learned of them he would act swiftly to set things right. 

A similar attitude characterizes [...]

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 Pope John Paul and Maciel

Pope Benedict has waived the 5 year period that is normally required for beatification so that John Paul II can be beatified in May.
 
But John Paul’s role on enabling sexual abuse has not been fully explored.
 
Bishop Edward Burns of Juneau has said some very good and very true things:

It has hurt [...]

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