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February 26, 2013March 3, 2013

First clause of equal marriage bill passes Committee stage in UK Parliament

Now that Cardinal O’Brian won’t be screeching from the sidelines, maybe they can get on with the business at hand.

by Joseph Patrick McCormick
The first clause of the equal marriage bill has passed in the committee considering it in the UK Parliament today.

Clause 1 of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill passed committee stage 13 votes to 4, and is being considered by the Public Bills Committee in the House of Commons.

This is the first clause of eighteen to pass, as the committee must pass each clause individually, possibly making recommendations for amendments.

The first clause “makes it lawful for same-sex couples to marry. It ensures that the legal duty of clergy of the Church of England and the Church in Wales to marry parishioners does not extend to same-sex couples.

“It allows same-sex civil marriage ceremonies to be carried out in register offices and on approved premises (such as hotels), and marriages of same sex couples in religious buildings (other than those used by the Church of England and Church in Wales), and in accordance with the Jewish and Quaker faiths and for overseas consular and armed forces marriages.”

Earlier in February, MPs in the British Parliament voted in favour of the Marriage (Same-Sex Couples) Bill by 400 to 175, a majority of 225.

The bill is currently receiving greater parliamentary scrutiny – after the Commons committee has completed its work – the bill will then be subjected to another vote (third reading) by MPs and it will then undergo a similar process of approval in the House of Lords.

Complete Article HERE!

February 26, 2013

Pope to be called ’emeritus pope,’ will wear white

Gee, I wonder who came up with these new rules? Benedict will be the puppet master, running everything, but just doing so out of the spotlight. NICE! This is what he wanted all along. The man was never interested in relinquishing power, he just wanted to blow off the ceremonial duties and deflect attention away from his criminality. Astonishing!

By NICOLE WINFIELD
Pope Benedict XVI will be known as ‘‘emeritus pope’’ in his retirement and will continue to wear a white cassock, the Vatican announced Tuesday, again fueling concerns about potential conflicts arising from having both a reigning and a retired pope.

The pope’s title and what he would wear have been a major source of speculation ever since Benedict stunned the world and announced he would resign on Thursday, the first pontiff to do so in 600 years.

The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said Benedict himself had made the decision in consultation with others, settling on ‘‘Your Holiness Benedict XVI’’ and either emeritus pope or emeritus Roman pontiff.

Lombardi said he didn’t know why Benedict had decided to drop his other main title: bishop of Rome.

In the two weeks since Benedict’s resignation announcement, Vatican officials had suggested that Benedict would likely resume wearing the traditional black garb of a cleric and would use the title ‘‘emeritus bishop of Rome’’ so as to not create confusion with the future pope.

Benedict’s decision to call himself emeritus pope and to keep wearing white is sure to fan concern voiced privately by some cardinals about the awkward reality of having two popes, both living within the Vatican walls.

Adding to the concern is that Benedict’s trusted secretary, Monsignor Georg Gaenswein, will be serving both pontiffs — living with Benedict at the monastery inside the Vatican and keeping his day job as prefect of the new pope’s household.

Asked about the potential conflicts, Lombardi was defensive, saying the decisions had been clearly reasoned and were likely chosen for the sake of simplicity.

‘‘I believe it was well thought out,’’ he said.

Benedict himself has made clear he is retiring to a lifetime of prayer and meditation ‘‘hidden from the world.’’ However, he still will be very present in the tiny Vatican city-state, where his new home is right next door to the Vatican Radio and has a lovely view of the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica.

While he will no longer wear his trademark red shoes, Benedict has taken a liking to a pair of hand-crafted brown loafers made for him by artisans in Leon, Mexico, and given to him during his 2012 visit. He will wear those in retirement, Lombardi said.

Lombardi also elaborated on the College of Cardinals meetings that will take place after the papacy becomes vacant — crucial gatherings in which cardinals will discuss the problems facing the church and set a date for the start of the conclave to elect Benedict’s successor.

The first meeting isn’t now expected until Monday, Lombardi said, since the official convocation to cardinals to come to Rome will only go out on Friday — the first day of what’s known as the ‘‘sede vacante,’’ or the vacancy between papacies.

In all, 115 cardinals under the age of 80 are expected in Rome for the conclave to vote on who should become the next pope; two other eligible cardinals have already said they are not coming, one from Britain and another from Indonesia. Cardinals who are 80 and older can join the College meetings but won’t participate in the conclave or vote.

Benedict on Monday gave the cardinals the go-ahead to move up the start date of the conclave — tossing out the traditional 15-day waiting period. But the cardinals won’t actually set a date for the conclave until they begin meeting officially Monday.

Lombardi also further described Benedict’s final 48 hours as pope: On Tuesday, he was packing, arranging for documents to be sent to the various archives at the Vatican and separating out the personal papers he will take with him into retirement.

On Wednesday, Benedict will hold his final public general audience in St. Peter’s Square — an event that has already seen 50,000 ticket requests. He won’t greet visiting prelates or VIPs as he normally does at the end but will greet some visiting leaders — from Slovakia, San Marino, Andorra and his native Bavaria — privately afterwards.

On Thursday, the pope meets with his cardinals in the morning and then flies by helicopter at 5 p.m. to Castel Gandolfo, the papal residence south of Rome. He will greet parishioners there from the palazzo’s loggia (balcony) — his final public act as pope.

And at 8 p.m., the exact time at which his retirement becomes official, the Swiss Guards standing outside the doors of the palazzo at Castel Gandolfo will go off duty, their service protecting the head of the Catholic Church now finished.

Benedict’s personal security will be assured by Vatican police, Lombardi said.

Complete Article HERE!

February 25, 2013

Cardinal’s departure darkens mood as pope allows early conclave

By Philip Pullella

A senior cleric resigned under duress on Monday and Pope Benedict took the rare step of changing Vatican law to allow his successor to be elected early, adding to a sense of crisis within the Roman Catholic Church.

With just three days left before Benedict becomes the first pope in some six centuries to step down, he accepted the resignation of Britain’s only cardinal elector, Archbishop Keith O’Brien, who was to have voted for the next pope.

O’Brien, who retains the title of cardinal, has denied allegations that he behaved inappropriately with priests over a period of 30 years, but said he was quitting the job of archbishop of Edinburgh.

He could have attended the conclave despite his resignation, but said he would stay away because he did not want media attention to be focused on himself instead of the process of choosing the next leader of the 1.2 billion-member Church.

O’Brien’s dramatic self-exclusion came as the Vatican continued to resist calls by some Catholics to stop other cardinals tainted by sex scandals, such as U.S. Cardinal Roger Mahony, from taking part.

Catholic activists have petitioned Mahony to exclude himself from the conclave so as not to insult survivors of sexual abuse by priests committed while he was archbishop of Los Angeles.

In that post from 1985 until 2011, Mahony worked to send priests known to be abusers out of state to shield them from law enforcement scrutiny in the 1980s, according to church files unsealed under a U.S. court order last month.

“O’Brien’s recusal is also important as a precedent,” said Terence McKiernan, of BishopAccountability.org, a U.S.-based documentation center on child abuse by priests.

“Many cardinals scheduled to join the conclave have been involved as bishops in handling cases of clergy sexual abuse, and some of them have done such a bad job that they too should recuse themselves from the conclave,” he said.

CRISIS MANAGEMENT

Benedict changed parts of a 1996 constitution issued by his predecessor John Paul so that cardinals could begin a secret conclave to choose a successor earlier than the 15 days after the papacy becomes vacant, as prescribed by the previous law.

The change means that in pre-conclave meetings starting on March 1, a day after Benedict leaves on Thursday, they can themselves decide when to start.

Some cardinals believe a conclave, held in secret in the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel, should start sooner than March 15 in order to reduce the time in which the Church will be without a leader at a time of crisis.

But some in the Church believe that an early conclave would give an advantage to cardinals already in Rome and working in the Curia, the Vatican’s central administration and the focus of accusations of ineptitude and alleged sexual scandals that some Italian newspapers speculate in unsourced reports led Benedict to step down. The Vatican says the reports are false.

The Vatican appears to be aiming to have a new pope elected by mid-March and installed before Palm Sunday on March 24 so he can preside at Holy Week services leading to Easter.

Cardinals have begun informal consultations by phone and email in the past two weeks since Benedict said he was quitting.

Benedict’s papacy was rocked by scandals over the sexual abuse of children by priests, most of which preceded his time in office but came to light during it and which, as head of the Church, he was responsible for handling.

His reign also saw Muslim anger after he linked Islam to violence. Jews were upset over his rehabilitation of a Holocaust denier. And, during a scandal over the Church’s business affairs, his butler was convicted of leaking his private papers.

With the Italian media speculating about conspiracies and alleged sexual scandals inside the Vatican that they say may have influenced his decision to resign, the pope’s spokesman said an internal report into leaked papal documents would remain confidential and only be shown to the next pontiff.

The Vatican has accused the Italian media, some of which have called for the “Vatileaks” report to be made public, of spreading “false and damaging” rumors in an attempt to influence the cardinals as they head to Rome for the conclave.

The three cardinals who prepared the report for the Vatican met the pope on Monday.

Compiled after the arrest of Benedict’s butler, who leaked sensitive documents to the media, the report has been seen only by the pope and the three cardinals and would be seen only by the next pope, the Vatican said.

The butler’s leaked documents told of corruption in the Vatican, infighting over the running of its scandal-mired bank, and painted a picture of an administration where some clerics were more interested in their careers than serving the pope.

On Sunday, the pope, in his last appearance from his window overlooking St Peter’s Square, said his abdication was God’s will and insisted he was not “abandoning” the Church but stepping down for health reasons.

His last public appearances include a general audience in St. Peter’s Square on Wednesday and a meeting with cardinals on Thursday before he flies to the papal summer retreat near Rome.

The papacy will become vacant at 8 p.m. (1900 GMT) on Thursday, February 28.

Complete Article HERE!

February 25, 2013February 25, 2013

The Skeletons in Benedict’s Closet: A guide to the sex abuse scandals under Pope Benedict XVI’s watch

BY ELIAS GROLL

If a report on Thursday, Feb. 21, in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica is to be believed, Pope Benedict XVI’s recent decision to resign just got a whole lot more interesting. The paper claims that around the time that Pope Benedict decided to step down, the pontiff learned of a faction of gay prelates in the Vatican who may have been exposed to blackmail by a group of male prostitutes in Rome. The revelations allegedly appeared in a 300-page report by three cardinals that the pope commissioned to investigate the release of internal documents by his butler, the so-called “Vatileaks” scandal. (A Vatican spokesman has refused to confirm or deny La Repubblica’s claims, and the internal Vatican report is reportedly stowed away in a papal safe for Pope Benedict’s successor to peruse.)

Seen in the context of Pope Benedict’s career in the Catholic Church, it is difficult to understand why revelations of yet another sex scandal would push him to resign. For over a decade, he has served as the church’s point person for responding to allegations of abuse. From 1985 until his election to the papacy in 2005, Benedict served as the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, a powerful Vatican body charged with policing church doctrine. In 2001, Pope John Paul II transferred responsibility for dealing with the sex scandals enveloping the institution to then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’s office. In that role, Ratzinger received tens of thousands of complaints alleging sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests. Those documents often went into lurid detail, and Ratzinger is said to have been deeply affected by the experience.

As a theologian and head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Benedict gained the not-so-flattering nickname “God’s Rottweiler” for his rigid interpretations of doctrine and his stringent enforcement of church rules. In practice, he has frequently displayed a preference — both as a pope and as a cardinal — for confronting predatory priests behind closed doors and protecting the church’s reputation at the expense of public accountability.

Here’s how Benedict tackled some of the most prominent scandals to have struck the church during his career.

Peter Hullermann, Germany, 1980
While serving as the archbishop of Munich, Ratzinger may have played a role in shielding a pedophile priest, Peter Hullermann, from prosecution, transferring him to different parishes when parents complained that he had abused their children. In 1980, Ratzinger approved a plan to send Hullermann, who was facing allegations (that he did not deny) of abusing children in the German city of Essen, to Munich for therapy. Over the objections of a psychiatrist who was treating the priest, the German archdiocese permitted Hullermann to resume his pastoral work shortly after beginning therapy and did not inform the priest’s new parish of his history. In 1986, Hullermann was convicted of sexual abuse in Bavaria.

Lawrence Murphy, United States, 1996
As head of a Wisconsin school for deaf boys from 1950 to 1974, Father Lawrence Murphy is alleged to have molested upwards of 200 children. Yet when the case was presented to Ratzinger in the mid-1990s, he declined to defrock the priest. In 1996, Ratzinger ignored letters from Rembert Weakland, the archbishop of Milwaukee, seeking guidance from the cardinal on how to proceed against Murphy and another priest. Eventually, the church initiated a canonical trial against Murphy, but when the priest personally appealed to Ratzinger for clemency, saying that he was in poor health, the cardinal intervened to stop the proceedings against him.

2001 Letter to Bishops
After being tasked in 2001 by Pope John Paul II to assume responsibility for sex abuse allegations, and after gaining access to a trove of documents that laid out allegations against abusive priests, Ratzinger took action. He did so in a 2001 letter sent to every one of the church’s bishops. In it, Ratzinger laid out the church’s guidelines for investigating claims of sexual abuse, which asserted that the church — and not civil authorities — still held primary authority over investigations and that the church had a right to keep evidence in such cases confidential until 10 years after a minor turned 18. That assertion led to charges by victims’ rights advocates that Ratzinger had committed worldwide gross obstruction of justice, a charge that critics saw as compounded by Ratzinger’s assertion in the letter that such cases required absolute secrecy. Breaking the code of silence carried a range of penalties, among them excommunication. Ratzinger’s order effectively removed the possibility that sex abusers would be brought to justice in lay courts and guaranteed that the church would retain its investigatory prerogative.

Eamonn Walsh and Raymond Field, Ireland, 2010
In an attempt to help bring closure to victims affected by sexual abuse in the Irish Catholic Church, two auxiliary bishops, Eamonn Walsh and Raymond Field, accused of helping to cover up rampant abuse offered Pope Benedict their resignation in 2010. In a move that stunned critics of the church and victims’ rights groups, the pope rejected their resignation and informed the bishops that they would be allowed to stay on in the church, despite the fact that other priests accused of covering up the scandal were allowed to resign. “By rejecting the resignations of two complicit Irish bishops, the Pope is rubbing more salt into the already deep and still fresh wounds of thousands of child sex abuse victims and millions of betrayed Catholics,” said Barbara Blaine, president and founder of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, in a statement. “He’s sending an alarming message to church employees across the globe: even widespread documentation of the concealing of child sex crimes and the coddling of criminals won’t cost you your job in the church.”

2010 Apology to Ireland
By 2010, the hard-line strategy advocated by Pope Benedict became unsustainable. Explosive and wide-ranging reports of abuse — including allegations against Ratzinger himself during his time in Munich — put the church firmly in the cross-hairs of public opinion. Detailed investigations by the Irish government unearthed widespread abuse, and Ireland became something of a ground zero for the scandal. In response, Pope Benedict issued a public apology to his parishioners in Ireland. “You have suffered grievously and I am truly sorry. I know that nothing can undo the wrong you have endured,” the pope wrote. “Your trust has been betrayed and your dignity has been violated. Many of you found that, when you were courageous enough to speak of what happened to you, no one would listen.” Priests read the letter aloud in church.

But if the apology to Ireland signaled a willingness within the church to more openly confront its past, subsequent guidelines to bishops quashed that notion. In 2011, Pope Benedict issued new guidelines that reaffirmed bishops’ authority in adjudicating cases. Although that letter underscored the importance of stopping the abuse of minors, victims remained dismayed at the lack of an enforcement mechanism.

Complete Article HERE!

February 25, 2013

Scandal threatens to overshadow pope’s final days

It’s curious to me that Benedict couldn’t bring himself to highlight the clergy abuse nightmare while he was pope, but through his resignation the closet doors have been thrown open to reveal more perpetrators and more of this stinking mess.

By Ben Wedeman and Michael Pearson

Scandal is threatening to eclipse the poignancy and pageantry of Benedict XVI’s historic final days as pope.
Vatican officials were already trying Monday to swat down unsavory claims by Italian publications of a brewing episode involving gay priests, male prostitutes and blackmail when news broke that Benedict had moved up the resignation of a Scottish archbishop linked over the weekend by a British newspaper to inappropriate relationships with priests.

Benedict announced two weeks ago that he will step down as pope Thursday, becoming the first pontiff to leave the job alive in 598 years.

At 85, he said he was too old, frail and tired to continue on as spiritual leader of the Roman Catholic Church and its 1.2 billion followers worldwide.

It was a stunningly unexpected announcement that left church scholars poring over Catholic law to answer such basic questions as when the pope’s successor would be chosen and even what he would be called in retirement.

But the scandals — along with lingering questions about how the church has handled claims of abuse by Catholic priests around the world — have dimmed the spotlight on Benedict’s final days as pope.

“Clearly, prior to these scandals erupting, the cardinals had a long checklist of things they were looking for in terms of the new pope,” CNN senior Vatican analyst John Allen said Monday, including finding someone to help spread the message of the church and inspire faith amid flagging practice of the Catholic faith in many parts of the world.

“But in the wake of everything that’s happened in the last 72 hours or so, quite clearly a new item is on that list, which is they also want to make sure they pick somebody who’s got clean hands,” Allen said.

Archbishop’s resignation
The Vatican confirmed Monday that Benedict had accelerated the resignation of Cardinal Keith O’Brien, the archbishop of Scotland.

O’Brien told the pope in November that he would resign effective with his 75th birthday, on March 17. But Benedict decided to make the resignation effective immediately in light of the pope’s imminent resignation, the Scottish Catholic Media Office said.

The announcement comes a day after a Sunday report by the British newspaper The Observer that three priests and one former priest leveled allegations against O’Brien that date back 30 years.

The Observer did not recount details of the claims or identify any of O’Brien’s accusers, but said one of the priests alleged “that the cardinal developed an inappropriate relationship with him.”

O’Brien did not attend Mass at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Edinburgh on Sunday, but the Scottish Catholic Media Office told CNN that the cardinal “contests these claims and is taking legal advice.”

His accusers took their complaints to the Vatican representative in Britain and demanded O’Brien’s resignation, The Observer reported. At the Vatican, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, a spokesman for the church, told reporters that Benedict has been informed of the allegations.

As late as last week, O’Brien appeared to be making plans to take part in the conclave, when the College of Cardinals gathers in Rome to pick a successor to Benedict.

But in a statement in which he thanked God for the good he was able to do and apologized to “all whom I have offended,” O’Brien said Monday that he would not be part of that gathering.

“I do not wish media attention in Rome to be focused on me — but rather on Pope Benedict XVI and on his successor,” O’Brien said.

Cardinal controversy
While O’Brien will no longer be involved in electing the new pope, another controversial cardinal’s plan to attend is further taking focus from Benedict’s final days in office.
Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles is facing fresh attention for his role in the cover-up of sexual abuse by priests.

Documents recently released as part of the 2007 settlement in a previous abuse case detail what Terry McKiernan, founder of the watchdog group BishopAccountability.org says is “stark” evidence of efforts by Mahoney and others to sidestep authorities investigating sexual abuse.

He recently gave a deposition in a 2010 civil lawsuit filed in the United States by a Mexican citizen suing the Los Angeles archdiocese. The man alleges Mahony and a Mexican cardinal conspired to allow a priest accused of abuse to flee to Mexico, putting an untold number of children at risk. Mahony has denied the allegations.

Two groups seeking to stop Mahony’s participation in the election said Saturday they have collected nearly 10,000 signatures on a petition against his involvement.

“His participation in the conclave would only bring clouds of shame at a time that should bring springs of hope,” said Chris Pumpelly, the communications director for one of the groups, Catholics United. Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests also worked on the campaign.

Church law requires that Mahony attend, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles said.

Father Albert Cutie, an Espiscopal priest who studies the Vatican, said it would be impossible to exclude every cardinal with a hand in the church’s vast sex-abuse problem.

“Unfortunately, if you were going to tell me no one can go to the conclave who has part in any type of cover up, you would probably exclude every cardinal in the church, because unfortunately that’s the way the church is operated,” he said.

Blackmail allegations
As if the controversies over O’Brien and Mahony were not enough, two Italian publications reported over the weekend that Benedict had decided to resign not because of age, but because of a brewing scandal over the blackmail of gay priests by male prostitutes in Rome.

Benedict received a 300-page report in December detailing the possible blackmail, la Repubblica newspaper and the Panorama news weekly reported, citing an unidentified senior Vatican official and dozens of unnamed sources.

The Vatican emphatically denied the allegations this weekend, with Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone criticizing a rash of “often unverified, unverifiable or completely false news stories” as the cardinals prepare for their conclave.

Cardinal Velasio de Paulis, one of the men who will help elect Benedict’s successor, called the claims “guesswork and imagination.”

“There is no proof and these allegations only serve to create a climate of division that helps no one,” he said.
While no one outside the Vatican has seen the document that purportedly details the claims and Vatican officials have not confirmed it exists, Allen said such a claim is not improbable.
“To me that passes the smell test,” he said.

Retirement preparations
Amid the scandal, the Vatican still has a transfer of power to manage.

On Monday, Lombardi said it remains unclear when the gathering of church leaders who will elect the next pope will begin.

While Benedict issued an order Monday to allow the election to begin sooner than the 15 days after the seat becomes vacant mandated by church rules, the date for the election will be set by the cardinals when they first gather, Monsignor Pier Luigi Celata said Monday at a Vatican press briefing.

It still must happen within 20 days of his resignation, the pope said.

After his retirement, Benedict is expected to head to the pope’s summer residence in Rome before eventually settling in a monastery in Vatican City. Church officials have said he will seek no influence over the election of his successor, or over management of the church.

Among other issues, Vatican officials are still trying to work out what Benedict will be called in retirement. One suggestion is “pontifex maximus,” Celata said. The term can be translated as “supreme bishop.”
Vatican officials hope to have an answer next week, Lombardi said.

Complete Article HERE!