Vatican admonishes Austrian cardinal for comments

[Ahimsa]

VATICAN CITY – The Vatican on Monday issued an unprecedented rebuke of a top cardinal who had accused the retired Vatican No. 2 of blocking clerical sex abuse investigations, publicly dressing down a man who had been praised for his criticism of church abuse cover-ups.

The silencing of Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, the archbishop of Vienna and long considered a papal contender, drew heated criticism from clerical abuse victims. They said the Vatican should be honoring Schoenborn, not publicly humiliating him, for his calls for greater transparency and demands for a crackdown on priests who rape and sodomize children.

Schoenborn has also called for an open discussion of priestly celibacy; views that the Vatican said he “clarified” on Monday during an audience with the pope.

As it admonished Schoenborn, the Vatican appeared caught on the defensive on two other fronts in the ongoing sex abuse scandal: it remained locked in a diplomatic tiff with Belgium over the brazen raid on church offices last week, during which police detained bishops and even opened a crypt in search of church abuse documents. And it bristled at the U.S.

Supreme Court decision to let a sex abuse lawsuit in Oregon naming the Holy See go ahead.

Schoenborn had accused the former Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, in April of blocking a church investigation into the late Austrian Cardinal Hans Hermann Groer, who was accused by victims in 1995 of abusing boys at a seminary — a scandal that rocked the Austrian church and cost Groer his job.

Schoenborn also accused Sodano of causing “massive harm” to victims when he dismissed claims of clerical abuse as “petty gossip” on Easter Sunday.

 

[Dale_M]

I will step aside from the criticism of Cardinal Schoenborn, other than to note that the Pope is in a difficult position. A good manager protects his employees, and backs them up when criticized. On the other hand, the Pope has to look after the well-being of his flock. Unlike a store manager, the Pope has a direct responsibility for the Church’s clients. A store manager can hide his decisions in the image of the store, but this isn’t the case with the Pope, who is seen as the leader of its clients.

As for the Oregon lawsuit and the US Supreme Court decision, I was unfamiliar with it. Here is a bit of information:

A lawsuit against the Vatican that had been dismissed as a publicity stunt moved forward Monday when the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal from the Holy See. The case represents a significant hurdle for what many believed to be a long-shot claim that the Vatican bears legal responsibility for molester priests.

The high court’s decision not to stop the lawsuit means the clergy sex abuse case will go to trial in an Oregon district court.

Anderson argues in the case that priests are Vatican employees for the purpose of American law. If an Oregon judge agrees, that would constitute an exception to the Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act, under which the Vatican has been immune from the jurisdiction of U.S. courts.

Lena had asked the federal courts to throw out the lawsuit.

“The Holy See does not pay the salary of the priest, or benefits of the priest, or exercise day-to-day control over the priest, and any of the other factors indicating the presence of an employment relationship,” Lena said.

google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jI74rOCSoa7G_cWbYqFAcNiNGP-QD9GKHGI80

 

[feargalmac]

If one reads the communiqué from the Vatican concerning the meeting held, one may come to the conclusion that AP and Yahoo are themselves playing with words. The communiqué actually says that misunderstandings were clarified and resolved. Hardly an admonishment or a silencing!!

 

[Neil_Anthony]

The Vatican is so diplomatic that I can’t even tell whether the headline is true or not. Is this the diplomatic version of a slap in the face? I have no idea

 

[templar44]

Catholics have a hard enough time in the present age without having to defend ourselves against claims of “cover-ups”…incidents like this just do not help…the politics of the Vatican are like politics everywhere else, you have to avoid even “the appearance of impropriety”…and it doesn’t matter what the true intentions were or are, if the public perceives that there is a stonewalling or cover up going on then the media will run with it and it will become fact in the public mind…transparency is the ONLY thing that can diffuse a situation like this…we have enemies in the world who will lock onto something like this and use it against us, I think we have enough problems within our church that we don’t need to help arm the enemies from without…