This saga has been an opportunity to educate the public. The Philadelphia clergy child sex abuse trial, spanning nearly three months, meant that one media story after another was served up to the public in a more comprehensible and digestible form than the 450+ and 120+ page grand jury reports had provided. These stories, drawn largely from the grand jury reports, educated the public about the true facts regarding the Philadelphia Archdiocese—where many men in the hierarchy knew that some of their priests were serial pedophiles and yet did nothing to protect children—and thus has done the public a service.

If nothing else comes of the trial, the lessons it teaches on how child abuse happens, and how it is perpetuated in institutions, can alone help protect children in the future.

http://verdict.justia.com/2012/06/08/a-tale-of-two-child-sex-abuse-trials-involving-two...

For years, conservatives have held the upper hand in the USCCB while moderates and more progressive-minded prelates, fearing a rebuke from Rome, held their tongues. But some believe that an overreach on the contraception campaign may be shifting that dynamic.

“It was only a matter of time before some of the less arch among the bishops went public with their concerns the way conservative bishops did in previous times when they thought the conference was too moderate,” church analyst Michael Sean Winters wrote in the National Catholic Reporter on Wednesday.

“This is the dam that was waiting to be broken, and Blaire's comments broke it.”

Read more: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_news/article/Bishops-divided-in-battle-over-birt...

It is truly shocking that even now Mgr Lynn will not be honest, and reveal the truth that he was acting in accordance with Canon (church) Law, when he, and the Archbishop, failed to refer the accused priests to the police.

Had they done so, they would have been subject to immediate excommunication by the church.

It is shameful that they risked the lives of innocent children to obey these infamous laws, at the time supervised by then Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope.

Annie

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7409662n&tag=cbsnewsMainColumnArea

Msgr. William J. Lynn began testifying in his own defense Wednesday, trying to counter prosecutors’ contention that he was the Archdiocese of Philadelphia official most responsible for letting priests stay in parishes despite evidence they might sexually abuse children.

Within minutes of settling in the witness chair, Lynn and his lawyer zeroed in on a critical pillar of their defense. Lynn said that during his 12 years as secretary for clergy under Cardinal Anthony J. Bevilacqua, he never had the power to assign, transfer or restrict priests in the archdiocese.

“Who had the authority to do those things?” defense lawyer Thomas Bergstrom asked.

“Only the archbishop, the cardinal,” Lynn replied.

The potentially risky decision to take the stand sets the stage for dramatic testimony from the lead defendant in the unprecedented Common Pleas Court case.

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20120523_Lead_defendant_takes_witness_stand_at_Philad...

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Day 2.

He said he had no choice but to defer to the cardinal.

"He was the one who had a canon and civil law degree, not me," Lynn said. "I presumed he knew what was best."

Blessington tagged those responses the "following-orders defense," one that's not acceptable under state law. Again and again, he accused Lynn of hewing to the letter of the law and church policies instead of genuinely trying to root out abusers and help victims of a crime that is among the worst: the rape and abuse of children.

Lynn acknowledged that he never once called police in 12 years reviewing claims against priests, but said that all but one of the complaints came from adults

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/breaking/153835015.html?viewAll=y

Precisely, it is the same pattern - the then Fr. Brady in Ireland, and the bishop to whom he reported, Bishop McKiernan, Bishop Bede Heather in Australia, Monsignor Lynne, and myriad other examples in the United States, and even the Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Murphy Cormac O'Connor where allegations of cover up gave rise to the Nolan Report in 2001. And everytime a new case comes up, we see the same pattern.

So, quite apart from the express words of Crimen Sollicitationis, "strictest confidentiality..with all persons", with no exceptions, there is consistent behaviour that it meant what it said.

But not only that, we have the words of the head of the Congregation of Clergy, Cardinal Castrillon in 1997, telling the Irish bishops that they could not have mandatory reporting because it conflicted with Canon Law, and the words of Cardinal Bertone in February 2002, some 9 months after he and Cardinal Ratzinger signed the letter accompanying the Motu Proprio of 2001 imposing "pontifical secrecy" for the new procedures, telling the Italian journal 30 Giorni,

“In my opinion, the demand that a bishop be obligated to contact the police in order to denounce a priest who has admitted the offense of pedophilia is unfounded,”

(John Allen, May 30, 2002, National Catholic Reporter)

Then in September 2001, Cardinal Castrillon wrote to a French bishop who was convicted of covering up for a pedophile priest,

“Most Reverend Excellency I write to you as Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy entrusted with aiding the Holy Father is his responsibility for the priests of the world. I congratulate you on not denouncing a priest to the civil authorities. You have acted wisely, and I am delighted to have a fellow member of the episcopate who, in the eyes of history and of other bishops, would prefer to go to prison rather than denounce his priest-son For the relationship between priests and their bishop is not professional but a sacramental relationship which forges very special bonds of spiritual paternity. The matter was amply taken up again by the last Council, by the 1971 Synod of Bishops and that of 1991. The bishop has other means of acting, as the Conference of French Bishops recently restated; but a bishop cannot be required to make the denunciation himself. In all civilised legal systems it is acknowledged that close relations have the possibility of not testifying against a direct relative. …This Congregation, in order to encourage brothers in the episcopate in this delicate matter, will forward a copy of this letter to all the conferences of bishops. Assuring you of my fraternal closeness in the Lord, I send my greetings to you, your auxiliary and your whole diocese “(Castrillón's signature)

And then, even after Pope Benedict XVI in May 2010 finally accepts what the Australian bishops had told him 14 years earlier in 1996, that reporting to civil authorities had to be part of the protoco, Cardinal Castrillon goes on CNN on 2 June 2011 and says,

There is no such thing as the sickness of pedophilia. And for that reason when a person makes a mistake and often it was a very little mistake. And this person, this accused person confesses his crime, the Bishop will punish him in the way the Canon law allows, with a suspension, taking him away from his parish, and if he shows “correction”, he is sent to another parish. This is not a crime. It is to help him be cured. It is following the law.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnIwp_d3Ue8

What Castrillon stated is on all fours with the way Crimen Sollicitationis required bishops to deal with pedophiles - if he expresses his contrition, move him on.

So, what is the evidence against Crimen Sollicitationis meaning what it said: two statements from Vatican "spokesmen".

On 20 March 2010 (just two months before Benedict XVI adopted the 1996 advice from the Australian bishops) in an interview with the Tablet said,

CS: In some countries with an Anglo-Saxon legal culture, but also in France, the bishops – if they become aware of crimes committed by their priests outside the sacramental seal of Confession – are obliged to report them to the judicial authorities. We’re dealing with an onerous duty because these bishops are forced to make a gesture comparable to that of a parent who denounces his or her own son. Nonetheless, our instruction in these cases is to respect the law.

Well, of course, two months later, that certainly was the instruction, but we know that by that time the CDA had handled 3,000 cases since 2001, and not one instance was produced of the CDA telling the bishop to report the matter to the police.

The second spokesman was Fr. Frederico Lombardi, who repeated in 2010 what he had said several times before, that

"These norms are part of canon law; that is, they exclusively concern the church. For this reason they do not deal with the subject of reporting offenders to the civil authorities."

That is, because the norms don't say, "don't go to the police", then it was not forbidden. He explained the letter from the Papal Nuncio to the Irish bishops effectively canning their proposal for mandatory reporting in the same way. Which means that because Crimen Sollicitatonis said "with all persons", but did not specifically exclude the butcher, you could tell the butcher what went on at the canonical investigation.

Regrettably, just as the Jesuits, through such excellent spokesmen as Frank Brennan SJ, were shedding the pejorative meaning of "Jesuitical" attached to their Order's name, Fr. Lombardi SJ has taken a great leap backwards in having it restored.

However, what all this provides is just further evidence that the real culprit for these cover up disasters was Canon Law, which required people in the position of Monsignor Lynne who either carried out the investigation of the allegations themselves or who came to know of them "by reason of their office" to observe the "secret of the Holy Office" which was required the "strictest confidentiality... in all things and with all persons", with no exceptions, not even for the police where the local civil law required reporting.

And couldn't the same paragraph be written thus?

However, what all this provides is just further evidence that the real culprit for these cover up disasters was Canon Law, which required people in the position of Fr (now Cardinal) Brady who either carried out the investigation of the allegations themselves or who came to know of them "by reason of their office" to observe the "secret of the Holy Office" which was required the "strictest confidentiality... in all things and with all persons", with no exceptions, not even for the police where the local civil law required reporting.

Or one could substitute the names of Cardinal Law, Bishop Magee etc, etc......the list would go on and on!

While not pretending to be an expert on American criminal law, I'm not surprised that the conspiracy charges against Lynne have been dismissed. A conspiracy involves and agreement between people to so some illegal act. What Lynne was doing was doing what he was told, following Canon Law as expressed in Crimen Sollicitationis. All of the incidents referred to in the charges took place before the 2001 Motu Proprio signed by Cardinals Ratzinger and Bertone.

The fact that the Lynne's lawyers are going to rely on "following orders" is a bit surprising in view of that being ditched at Nuremburg, however, there may be good legal reasons for doing this under American law - it is not unusual for the United States to have one law for foreigners and another for their own citizens.

However, what all this provides is just further evidence that the real culprit for these cover up disasters was Canon Law, which required people in the position of Monsignor Lynne who either carried out the investigation of the allegations themselves or who came to know of them "by reason of their office" to observe the "secret of the Holy Office" which was required the "strictest confidentiality... in all things and with all persons", with no exceptions, not even for the police where the local civil law required reporting.

And Canon 22 provided:

Can. 22 Civil laws to which the law of the Church yields are to be observed in canon law with the same effects, insofar as they are not contrary to divine law and unless canon law provides otherwise.

So, whatever may be the legal merits of Lynne's lawyers using the defence of "following orders", the fact that they have been instructed to do so, is just further evidence that the cover up has its roots in Canon Law.

But there is a further aspect to the charges against Lynne. If the Church's own internal procedures were adequate to deal with the problem of a pedophile priest, the problem may never have arisen. However, the bar was set so high for getting rid of a pedophile priest, that it was not surprising that they kept being shifted around. Clauses 61-65 of Crimen provided that the penalty of defrocking (degratio) was only available

“only when, all things considered, it appears evident that the Defendant, in the depth of his malice, has, in his abuse of the sacred ministry, with grave scandal to the faithful and harm to souls, attained such a degree of temerity and habitude, that there seems to be no hope, humanly speaking, or almost no hope, of his amendment.”[/[/b]

So, if a priest said he was sorry and promised not to abuse children again, and the abuse was not public knowledge - and how could it be with all the secrecy surrounding it - so as not to cause "scandal to the faithful", there was no hope of defrocking the priest and getting rid of him. There really was no other choice but to shift him somewhere else.

In a democracy where parliament creates a bad law, the responsibility is spread amongst the people who voted in the law. But in a theocracy, like the Catholic Church, there is only one person responsible and that is the Pope who created the law and the ones who administered it without changing it. But, of course, Popes have advisers in the Roman Curia, so they must too share some responsibility for it. And in the case of the ailing John Paul II, those advisers were Cardinals Ratzinger and Bertone, Castrillon and Re.

In an interview, published on the Vatican website, Cardinal Levada says this:

It was only in 2001, with the publication of Pope John Paul II’s Motu proprio Sacramentorum Sanctitatis Tutela (SST), that responsibility for guiding the Catholic Church’s response to the problem of sexual abuse of minors by clerics was assigned to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. This papal document was prepared for Pope John Paul II under the guidance of Cardinal Ratzinger as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

http://www.vatican.va/resources/resources_card-levada2010_en.html

As we know, this document imposed "pontifical secrecy" on any investigations after 2001, with no exceptions for going to the police.

Why doesn't Pope Benedict and his now second in charge, Cardinal Bertone, just own up, recognize their own central role in the cover up problem, and apologize to the victims for this policy of "forgive and shift" pedophile priests?

.....Cardinal Rigali's former top personnel aide, Msgr. Lynn, is trying to get off by blaming dead Cardinals Bevilacqua and Krol.

This is a very surprising and likely losing defense made by lawyers being paid by Archbishop Chaput's Archdiocese, since considerable testimony appears to implicate as well Cardinal Rigali and bishops Cullen, Cistone and Fitzgerald in possible child endangerment matters. This unpredictable defense even raises issues for Chaput, who now is apparently stonewalling on publicly announcing the investigation findings on many of the two dozen priests suspected of sexual misconduct with minors who were suspended 15 months ago by Rigali, but yet appear to be still around with little effective supervision.

Presumably, Philly DA Seth Williams, is currently assessing the substantial trial testimony to determine whom to pursue next after Lynn's trial is over soon.

Sadly, but not too surprisingly, the trial has shown clearly that three Cardinals and three bishops oversaw a predator priests' paradise in which many defenseless children suffered. It is uncertain whether Archbishop Chaput has yet gotten, or ever will be able to get, the situation under control and whether he will be able to stave of possible Philly Archdiocesean bankruptcy from the numerous survivors' damage claims likely to follow.

For more information on how Lynn's lawyers are (somewhat obliviously it seems to me as a lawyer) trying to point the finger at "dead Cardinals" but may, in effect, also be pointing it at Rigali and three living bishops, please read the NCR comment, "Lynn Points To His Bosses", accessible by clicking on at:

http://ncronline.org/news/faith-parish/conspiracy-counts-dismissed-case-against-philade...

Yesterday, the dam broke. In comments made to Kevin Clarke at America magazine, Bishop Stephen Blaire of Stockton, with carefully selected words and a persuasive and important argument, explained his differences of opinion with some of his brother bishops regarding the best way to address the religious liberty concerns the bishops all share.

http://ncronline.org/blogs/distinctly-catholic/bp-blaire-breaks-dam

Another interesting comment from Jerry Slevin:

The pope is not going to let a minor US bishop like Stockton's Blaire burst the papal dam that the pope has been building with right wing Republicans since 2009 to virtually drown Obama with well funded phony "religious liberty" scare tactics, see http://www.manhattandeclaration.org/

Blaire just authorized a $3.75 million dollar payment by his diocese to settle a single survivors' sex abuse claims and remove the imminent need of retired Cardinal Mahony to testify under oath. If Blaire folds so easily for a retired Cardinal, do we really think he will buck our current papal emperor? Or that the papal US puppets like Dolan, Wuerl, Rigali, Chaput, et al. are going to do anything but click their heels and salute the Bavarian Shepherd? Let's get real, please.

As I type this Msgr. Lynn is pathetically trying to in a Philly criminal courtroom to use his "need to be obedient to the chain of command" as a defense, confirming the power of the fundamental clerical obligation to obey orders. Please read the NCR comment, "Saying No To Cardinals", accessible by clicking on at:

http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/morning-briefing-742