Leon J. Podles :: DIALOGUE

The tragedy of sexual abuse is unrolling in Germany like a Greek drama, and Nemesis is in the wings awaiting her cue.
The Austrian dramatist Felix Mitterer wrote a two-man drama “Die Beichte” (“The Confession’) which recently opened in Regensburg, although it was scheduled over twelve months ago. The timing is eerie. NBC reports:

The [...]

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Benedict’s letter on sexual abuse, addressed to the Church in Ireland, has disappointed almost everyone.
Confession that is a requirement of repentance involves confessing the whole truth and a desire to make reparation.
Benedict makes some dubious assertions, half-truths at best. He claims that a misunderstanding of Vatican II led to a neglect of the penal [...]

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Ratzinger’s action or inaction led to a child being molested.
 
Sometimes before 1980 the Rev. Peter Hullermann plied a boy with alcohol and then molested him. The parents went to the diocese, who told them not to go to the police, that the case would be handled inside the Church, and that Hullermann would never work [...]

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 For some reason I do not understand, German newspapers will not print the names of convicted  criminals. However, the Italian press is more like the American. 
The abuser identified only as Father “H” in the German press has been identified as Peter Hullermann by La Stampa. He is still a priest in Bad Tölz in Germany. 
He [...]

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In his interview, Msgr. Scicluna, who was the Vatican investigator in the Maciel case, refers directly but not by name to Maciel. Spanish-language newspapers have picked this up, but the English-language press may have missed it: 

Only with the 2001 “Motu Proprio” did the crime of paedophilia again become our exclusive remit. From that moment Cardinal [...]

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Although the abuse that has been revealed in Germany is neither as widespread or as deeply corrupt as the abuse that was revealed in the U.S. and Ireland (let me simply say that some priests found novel uses for the Eucharist and the crucifix), the revelations in Germany have shaken the Vatican more than the [...]

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Joseph Ratzinger was Archbishop of Munich -  Freising from 1977 to 1982. In 1980 there were about 1200 diocesan priests in that archdiocese.
 
In 1980 there were also about 1200 diocesan priest in the Boston archdiocese.
 
In Boston there have been about 200 priests (diocesan and religious) accused of sexual abuse.
 
Therefore it would be surprising if there [...]

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On July, 8, 1988, Archbishop Levada of Portland , Oregon, wrote to Cardinal Ratzinger, then head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, about the case of the Rev. Thomas Laughlin.
 
Laughlin, Levada explains, was ordained in 1948 at the age of 23. Levada continues, “he began homosexual contacts with boys shortly after his [...]

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The Irish Times examined the failure of the Vatican to handle the news about the meeting with the Irish bishops. 
It also gives an explanation, all too probable, for the failure of the Vatican to cooperate with the Irish government or to admit any responsibility for clerical abuse: 
Which brings us to one of the bottom lines [...]

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What could the Pope do, as one person asked? 
Many, many things: 
He should immediately remove from the clergy all bishops who are known to be corrupt and abusers. There are about twenty, starting with Mr. Sanchez of Santa Fe (he of girlfriends A, B, C, D, E…). 
He should immediately remove from the cardinalate, and probably from [...]

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Pope Benedict will write a letter to the faithful of Ireland.

Ecclesiastical bureaucrats and professors (and Pope Benedict was both) live in a world of words, and think that saying the correct thing is equivalent to, even better than, doing the correct thing. Having said the correct words, they cannot understand why people want them to [...]

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Pope Benedict and the Irish bishops have issued a communiqué. 

For his part, the Holy Father observed that the sexual abuse of children and young people is not only a heinous crime, but also a grave sin which offends God and wounds the dignity of the human person created in his image. 
 The Holy Father also pointed [...]

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Commonweal has a discussion of the Vatican’s decision to place Pius XII and John Paul II on the path to canonization.
 
I share the concerns. Canonization is supposed to provide a role model for Catholics to follow, but how can you imitate even a good pope? For centuries almost all saints have been priests and religious, [...]

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Archbishop and Mrs. Milingo
Archbishop Milingo, after years of increasingly outrageous conduct, has been defrocked, according to Catholic Word News. 
Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo—the renegade African prelate who has launched a worldwide crusade for married priests, under the influence of the Korean sect figure Sun Myung Moon—has been defrocked, the Vatican announced on December 17.
Because of Milingo’s [...]

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The question of lying is a vexed one in moral theology. 
Lying is wrong. But in every situation? 
The classic modern example: the Nazis come to you and ask if you know where the hidden Jews are. You do, but you lie and save a life. 
But it is never right to do evil that good may come [...]

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