Category: Abuse of Power

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Belleville priest may be out for good, with Burke unlikely to help

A priest in the Belleville diocese at odds with his bishop over the wording of the Catholic Mass said the former Archbishop of St. Louis – now head of the Vatican’s highest court – said he should have been removed from his parish long ago.

The Rev. William Rowe said Belleville Bishop Edward Braxton told him in a meeting Tuesday that if he refused to resign as pastor of St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Mount Carmel, Ill., the bishop would use canon – or church – law to remove him. Rowe said he asked Braxton if he could appeal a removal, if it came to that.

Rowe said Braxton told him that he could appeal an eventual removal to the Vatican’s version of the supreme court, called the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura. But, Braxton said, he had already spoken to the head of that court – former St. Louis archbishop, Cardinal Raymond Burke – in February, and that Burke told Braxton that Rowe should have been removed “a long time ago,” according to the priest.
“The understanding there is that I’m done,” Rowe said.

Messages left with the offices of Braxton in Belleville and Burke in Rome were not returned Wednesday morning.

Rowe said Braxton told him that on two recent trips to Rome several bishops asked him about Rowe’s case, and encouraged him to remove the priest. The bishop told him the bishops had heard about two civil weddings outside the church Rowe had performed for couples whose previous marriages had not yet been annulled. Braxton “said Rome was aware of those weddings and upset about that before the liturgy thing,” Rowe said.

For decades, Rowe has deviated from the language of the Roman Catholic Mass, a highly prescribed liturgical rite, parts of which are as old as Christianity itself. In December, the Vatican introduced a new English-language translation of the Roman Missal – the book of prayers, chants and responses used during Mass. The new translation rendered some of the language in the Missal closer in spirit to the original Latin. Critics of the new translation have said the English is clunky and awkward for priests and laity.

Most of the prayers read by priests from the Missal during Mass cannot be changed. But there has never been an established penalty for improvising non-alterable prayers, and bishops have traditionally looked past an individual priest’s extemporizing. Last June, Braxton had sent a letter to all the priests in the Belleville Diocese warning that “it will not be acceptable for any priest or any parish to refrain from using the new prayers due to their personal preference.”

Rowe offered Braxton his resignation October 12, 2011, after a meeting during which the bishop barred the priest from improvising prayers during Mass. Braxton didn’t accept Rowe’s resignation until Jan. 30, 2012. Canon law says a bishop must accept a priest’s resignation within three months of the original offer. Rowe has since retracted his resignation offer.

Complete Article HERE!

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Virginia priest who headed child protection office is accused of abuse

The Catholic priest who headed the diocese’s Northern Virginia office responsible for protecting children from sexual abuse was placed on administrative leave Wednesday while he is investigated for alleged sexual misconduct with a teenage boy.

The Rev. Terry W. Specht, 59, who has been pastor of Holy Spirit Church in Annandale since 2007, denies the allegation of misconduct in the late 1990s. Specht was a parochial vicar at St. Mary of Sorrows Church in Fairfax at the time.

Staff at Holy Spirit declined to comment Wednesday, and e-mails to parishioners weren’t immediately returned.

From 2004 until last year, Specht was director of the Office of Child Protection and Safety, which trains church employees and volunteers to spot abuse and monitors youth activities “to ensure that all contact with young people is appropriate,” its Web site says.

The diocese has a separate victims’ assistance office that is typically the main contact for people coming forward with complaints.

“Any allegation of abuse deepens the pain felt by all Catholics, and particularly survivors of abuse,” said Arlington’s bishop, Paul Loverde, adding that he has appointed an “independent investigator” to review Specht’s work while he headed the child-protection office.

After 20 years in the Navy, Specht, a native of Pennsylvania, became a priest in Arlington in 1996. He worked with multiple ministries focused on youths. From 2000 to 2004, he was chaplain and assistant principal at the 1,000-student Paul VI Catholic High School, one of four Catholic secondary schools in the diocese.

Specht has been more visible than many priests, and until late Wednesday he maintained a Twitter account on which he posted and commented on various conservative issues, poking fun at President Obama and more liberal Catholics who support gay rights. The photo on the account was of a bulldog.

“The investigation is in its initial phase, and no final determination has yet been made regarding the allegation,” said a statement from the diocese, adding that officials were working with Fairfax County police.

A man came to the diocese in late January with the complaint and within a week officials contacted the police, diocesan spokesman Michael Donohue said.

Neither he nor the police would specify if the allegation involved one incident or more, or what sort of evidence was presented. Donohue said that an accusation itself would not automatically trigger the administrative-leave process.

“The bishop has looked at the information provided from the very beginnings of this and made a determination that it was best to put Reverend Specht on administrative leave,” he said.

There have been no other allegations of misconduct against Specht, Donohue said.

Police spokeswoman Lucy Caldwell said the investigation, which began in February, continues.

Becky Ianni, an advocate for clergy sex-abuse survivors in Northern Virginia, said the allegation is disturbing.

“It’s just frightening to think that this is the person educating people and perhaps he is a predator,” she said.

Complete Article HERE!

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The Vatican freezes out nuns and warms to traditionalists

COMMENTARY

Catholic liberals in the United States are making much of an interesting juxtaposition in Vatican initiatives. This week the Holy See lashed out at American nuns for insufficient fidelity to church teachings while making encouraging sounds about welcoming back a right-wing breakaway movement called the Society of St. Pius X.

As one commenter on the National Catholic Reporter website put it: “The timing of it all is nothing less than stunning! Just as the CDF/Vatican is rewarding of group of right-wing anti-Semites for ‘bad’ behavior, it’s punishing U.S. women religious for their faithful devotion. Oh well, would you expect anything less from a group of paternalistic elderly men who thrive on secrecy & cunning?”

The CDF is the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican agency once headed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. This week the congregation criticized the Leadership Conference of Women Religious for “protesting the Holy See’s actions regarding the question of women’s ordination and of a correct pastoral approach to ministry to homosexual persons.” It also faulted the umbrella group for not speaking out enough in opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage. The Vatican may also have noted that the Leadership Conference supported “Obamacare.”

The archbishop of Seattle has been assigned to oversee changes in the group, “in order to implement a process of review and conformity to the teachings and discipline of the church.”

Also this week, a Vatican spokesman called “encouraging” a communication from the SSPX, a schismatic ultra-traditionalist group formed by the late “rebel archbishop” Marcel Lefebvre. In 2009 Pope Benedict XVI lifted the excommunications of four bishops ordained by Lefebvre, including Richard Williamson, who has said the historical evidence is “hugely against” the deliberate gassing of 6 million Jews by the Nazis. (The Vatican said the pope wasn’t aware of Williamson’s views about the Holocaust when he lifted the bishop’s excommunication.)

You can ring any number of changes on these two developments and the reaction to them. One could argue that liberal Catholics, who are usually in favor of diversity and tolerance, aren’t very tolerant of traditionalist Catholics like SSPX. On the other hand, it’s somewhat disingenuous for traditionalist, Latin-Mass-loving Catholics to champion diversity in the church. If they had their druthers, every Mass would be in Latin.

What is most revealing about the two developments is the emphasis the Vatican places on issues related to sex, sexuality and reproduction. Opposition to abortion is now the defining issue for Catholicism internationally and in the United States. On that issue the SSPX is seen by Rome as more orthodox than liberal nuns who emphasize the social gospel and flirt with feminism. The SSPX also believes in an all-male priesthood. Those positions, it seems, cover a multitude of sins.

Complete Article HERE!

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Leader of ‘radical’ US nuns rejects Vatican criticism

The leader of a group of US nuns the Vatican accuses of flouting Church teaching has rejected the claims.

“I’ve no idea what they’re talking about,” Sister Simone Campbell, head of Network, a Catholic social justice lobby, told the BBC.

“Our role is to live the gospel with those who live on the margins of society. That’s all we do.”

On Wednesday the Vatican announced a crackdown on US nuns long considered too liberal by the church hierarchy.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a highly critical report that accused US nuns of engaging in “corporate dissent” and of ignoring, or worse, challenging the church’s teachings on abortion, homosexuality and an all-male priesthood.
‘Radical feminist themes’

The Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), which represents 80% of America’s 57,000 nuns, was the subject of a lengthy of investigation led by Bishop Leonard Blair of Toledo, Ohio.

The resulting report noted the good work they did with the poor and in running schools and hospitals, but also documented what it called a “grave” doctrinal crisis.

It said the sisters were promoting radical feminist themes and criticised US nuns for challenging the bishops, who it said were “the church’s authentic teachers of faith and morals”.

The Archbishop of Seattle, Peter Sartain, is to lead a reform of the LCWR.

This will include a review of ties between it and its close partner, Network, a social justice organisation involved in healthcare and poverty programmes.

Network was singled out for criticism in the report for “being silent on the right to life” and other “crucial issues” to the church.

Sister Campbell suggested that her organisation’s vocal support for President Barack Obama’s healthcare bill was behind the slapdown.

“There’s a strong connection,” she said. “We didn’t split on faith, we split on politics.”

American Bishops saw the Obama administration’s Affordable Care Act as backing state-funded abortion. The nuns disagreed.

The Vatican said that the mandate to carry out reforms of the nuns’ leadership “will be for a period of up to five years, as deemed necessary”.

Archbishop Sartain said, “I hope to be of service to them and to the Holy See as we face areas of concern to all.”

But Sister Campbell suggested a difficult time ahead: “It’s totally a top-down process and I don’t think the bishops have any idea of what they’re in for.”

Complete Article HERE!

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Vatican Reprimands U.S. Nuns Group

The Vatican has appointed an American bishop to rein in the largest and most influential group of Catholic nuns in the United States, saying that an investigation found that the group has “serious doctrinal problems.”

The Vatican’s assessment, issued on Wednesday, said that members of the group, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, have challenged church teaching on homosexuality and the male-only priesthood, and promoted “radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith.”

The sisters were also reprimanded for making public statements that “disagree with or challenge the Bishops, who are the Church’s authentic teachers of faith and morals.” During the debate over the health care overhaul in 2010, the American bishops came out in opposition to the health plan, but dozens of sisters, many who belong to the Conference, signed a statement supporting it — support that provided crucial cover for the Obama administration in the battle over health care.

The Conference is an umbrella organization of women’s religious communities, and claims 1,500 members who represent 80 percent of the Catholic sisters in the United States. It was formed in 1956 at the Vatican’s request, and answers to the Vatican, said Sister Annmarie Sanders, the group’s communications director.

Word of the Vatican’s action took the group completely by surprise, Sister Sanders said. She said that the group’s leaders were in Rome on Wednesday for what they thought was a routine annual visit to the Vatican when they were informed of the outcome of the investigation, which began in 2008.

“I’m stunned,” said Sister Simone Campbell, executive director of Network, a Catholic social justice lobby founded by sisters. Her group was also cited in the Vatican document, along with the Leadership Conference, for focusing its work too much on poverty and economic injustice, while keeping “silent” on abortion and same-sex marriage.

“I would imagine that it was our health care letter that made them mad,” Sister Campbell said. “We haven’t violated any teaching, we have just been raising questions and interpreting politics.”

The verdict on the nuns group was issued by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which is now led by an American, Cardinal William Levada, formerly the archbishop of San Francisco. He appointed Archbishop J. Peter Sartain of Seattle to lead the process of reforming the sisters’ Conference, with assistance from Bishop Thomas J. Paprocki and Bishop Leonard Blair, who was in charge of the investigation of the Leadership Conference.

They have been given up to five years to revise the group’s statutes, approve of every speaker at the group’s public programs and replace a handbook the group used to facilitate dialogue on matters that the Vatican said should be settled doctrine. They are also supposed to review the Leadership Conference’s links with Network and another organization, the Resource Center for Religious Life.

Doctrinal issues have been in the forefront during the papacy of Benedict XVI, who was in charge of the Vatican’s doctrinal office before he became pope. American nuns have come under particular scrutiny. Last year, American bishops announced that a book by a popular theologian at Fordham University, Sister Elizabeth A. Johnson, should be removed from all Catholic schools and universities.

And while the Vatican was investigating the Leadership Conference, the Vatican was also conducting a separate, widespread investigation of all women’s religious orders and communities in the United States. That inquiry, known as a “visitation,” was concluded in December 2011, but the results of that process have not been made public.

Complete Article HERE!