Zoom Video: “Stolen Lives: Abuse and Corruption in the Catholic Church”, Fr Tom Doyle on Root & Branch and SLN presentation

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1. Zoom Video: “Stolen Lives: Abuse and Corruption in the Catholic Church”, Fr Tom Doyle on Root & Branch and SLN presentation…

   In this latest talk Tom Doyle dismisses the notion that the church has resolved the issue of clerical abuse, points to ‘pushback’ – (currently evident in e.g. Spain) – and calls the problem ‘systemic’ – to do with the hierarchical nature of the church system, the notion that at ordination the cleric is ‘ontologically changed’ into a sacred being, and mistaken teachings on sexuality.

   He is also sceptical of the talk of ‘synod’ – for him apparently so far at least just another ‘buzzword’.

   I would be more hopeful myself if there had ever been in Ireland, from any bishop, a succinct critique of Irish clericalism or the deference that clericalism tends to expect from the merely baptised. Has any Irish bishop ever addressed that issue of ‘ontological change’? Did any bishop ever address the Ryan report’s attack on the deference shown by officials in the Irish Department of Education to the religious Congregations who ran the 20th C residential institutions (2009)?

   In the absence of such a discussion, at parish level,, what confidence can we have that the child safeguarding system now in place under the NBSCCC is entirely safe from that clericalism / deference dynamic?

   As ever the systemic unaccountability of bishops still makes it impossible to ask such questions in a regular church forum. Moreover, synodality discussions now beginning take place in a vacuum of information about such vital questions as the effectiveness of Catholic schools in forming faith, information that is deliberately never compiled.

   We know nothing either of the current wellbeing of victims of abuse within the church. The marginalised are spoken about with reverence, but the collection of data in relation to those whom the church system has itself pushed to and beyond the margins is still apparently impossible.

   How can synodality succeed if it is deliberately denied the real data it needs if it is to become ‘missionary’?

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2. Tom Doyle’s Zoom…

   Tom Doyle’s presentation is a great summary of the predicament into which the institutional church has involved itself over the centuries. It seems almost impossible for it to divest itself of all these trappings of power without dismantling itself entirely.
   I greatly admire Tom Doyle for his persistence in trying for reform of the “system”, when that “system” in itself is impervious to any true reform..

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3. Zoom Video: “Stolen Lives: Abuse and Corruption in the Catholic Church”, Fr Tom Doyle on Root & Branch and SLN presentation

   I am sharing this new piece, below, on Cardinal Ladaria mainly for Tony Flannery’s benefit.

   And, when you have all read it you cannot but ask the question once again, “Why is Tony the one suspended from ministry?”

   
   Voices of Faith

   Ladaria ordered to “avoid public scandal” and not to denounce in several child sexual abuse cases.
   Several letters from the Spanish cardinal have come to light, calling for silence and the removal of the priest involved. One concerns the predator Bernard Preynat, who abused four to five children a week and whose case ended Cardinal Barbarin’s ecclesiastical career. The other was an Italian priest who, after being sent to his new assignment, went on to rape a dozen minors.

   Ladaria also ordered in 2015 to “restore the good name and reputation” of the Opus Dei numerary convicted of abuse in the Gaztelueta case. Seven years later, Rome has still not restored the good name of the victim, the son of Juan Cuatrecasas.

   The Spanish Cardinal Luis Francisco Ladaria, current prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, systematically ordered to “avoid public scandal” in several cases of sexual abuse of minors, without demanding the denunciation to Justice and only requesting that the paedophile be removed from dealing with minors.

   The denunciation, published today by the journalist Emliano Fittipaldi in ‘Domani’, highlights the existence, for decades, of a ‘system of silence’, the echoes of which still persist today in certain spheres of the Catholic Church.

   In two letters published by the weekly, one dated 2012, the other in 2015, it can be seen how Ladaria’s instructions (responsible for dealing with these cases in the Doctrine of the Faith) were the same: “avoid public scandal” and grant the cleric “another ministry that does not involve contact with minors”.

   The “Preynat” case
   It is protocol 49-630, in which Ladaria indicates in writing how to proceed with the French priest Bernard Preynat, a real sexual predator, who abused four to five children a week for years, and who has been sentenced by the French justice system to five years in prison, in a case that ended up costing the Cardinal of Lyon, Philippe Barbarin, his job. The Jesuit Ladaria does not order or suggest any complaint to the civil courts.

   “Barbarin and Ladaria knew about it,” the journalist explains in his chronicle. In fact, the then Bishop of Lyon asked the Vatican what to do. The reply, in writing, leaves no room for doubt:
   “Your Eminence, this congregation, after having carefully studied the case of the priest of your diocese who has presented to you, Bernard Preynat, has decided to entrust him with the task of taking appropriate disciplinary measures, avoiding public scandal, on the understanding that, in these conditions, he cannot be entrusted with another pastoral ministry that includes possible contact with minors. Take appropriate measures for the Pastoral Care of Victims. I beg you to accept, Your Eminence, the expression of my devout sentiments in Christ.”

   The undercover ‘ogre’ who raped ten more children
   It was not the only occasion. In 2012 the same instructions were given in the case of the Italian Don Trotta. “Avoid scandal, prevent him from contacting minors,” the letter reads. And Don Trotta was moved, without informing anyone, to Lucera a village in the province of Foggia, where he became the coach of a football team. Between 2014 and 2015 he raped ten children, and was sentenced to 20 years in prison. “Probably, if the religious and Vatican authorities had denounced what they knew, they would have avoided this violence,” Fitipaldi exclaims.

   This is Ladaria’s letter to Barbarin
   The defence of Opus Dei in the ‘Gaztelueta case’.
   Ladaria also ordered, in 2015, “to restore the good name and reputation of the accused”, a numerary of Opus Dei accused of abuse at the Gaztelueta school, “without adopting, subsequently, any other measure in relation to the aforementioned person”. This teacher was first sentenced to eleven years in prison by the Provincial Court of Bizkaia, and subsequently to two years by the Supreme Court. He is, therefore, a pederast firmly condemned by the Spanish justice system, which has demonstrated that he abused Juan Cuatrecasas jr. at the Gaztelueta school. Seven years later, the cardinal has still not rectified or restored “the good name and reputation” of the victim.
   His father, Juan Cuatrecasas, does not bite his tongue. “At last justice is being done with the passivity, cover-up and complicity of this character, who has not only lied to all Christians with these serious crimes but who to this day continues to maintain that the ‘good name’ of a paedophile sentenced to two years for the abuse of a minor in a school must be restored, shamelessly flouting a court order, a judgement of the Provincial Court of Biscay and another of the Supreme Court”.
   “Justice has been done and now everyone knows what he did and has continued to do: to steal a plot to continue destroying the name of a victim of sexual abuse, my son. Now everyone knows who he is, the one with the good name, my son Juan Cuatrecasas Cuevas,” says his father. “Whatever the denialist hierarchy may think. The whole town now knows. The joke is over, his joke. A macabre joke unworthy of a prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith”.

   A prefect who, by the way, seems to have his days numbered: Vatican sources assure us that he could soon be replaced. His possible successor – as reported by RD – is none other than the Maltese Cardinal Charles J. Scicluna, one of Pope Francis’ main supporters in the fight against pederasty. And against that ‘system of silence’ which, despite everything, still persists within the Vatican walls.

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4. 4th Feb.Zoom Video: “Stolen Lives: Abuse and Corruption in the Catholic Church.”

   Thank you Paddy for this article.
   Ladaria wouldn’t have been made a cardinal by Pope Francis if he hadn’t faithfully obeyed and enforced the Vatican great commandment of Omerta and secrecy (“No public scandal”)as had done all his predecessors in the CDF, including Joseph Ratzinger.
   And of course the Vatican can, and does, claim diplomatic immunity and wash their hands of all responsibility.
   https://www.thetablet.co.uk/news/10900/vatican-cites-immunity-to-refuse-ladaria-appearance-in-french-court

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5. Zoom Video: “Stolen Lives: Abuse and Corruption in the Catholic Church”, Fr Tom Doyle on Root & Branch and SLN presentation.

   Thanks for the link, Soline.

   The utter hypocrisy of our institutional church is totally mind blowing.

   At Mass we and our children and grandchildren are asked to confess our sins “through my fault, through and through my most grievous fault” yet the most heinous sins committed by members of our institutional church have for decades — centuries according to Fr. Tom Doyle — been repeatedly swept under the carpet.

   Is it any wonder we see our church dying before our eyes?

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