In the Vineyard : November 21, 2024 : Volume 24, Issue 11
News From National
Last month, the Tutela Minorum: the Vatican’s Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors issued their first Pilot Annual Report. The Report follows the 2022 mandate from Pope Francis for a reliable annual account of the current status and remaining deficiencies in the Church’s initiatives for the protection of minors and vulnerable adults.
Although not an audit of incidences of abuse, this first-ever-issued global report on Catholic clergy sexual abuse shows how far from the ideals of child protection the Church still falls. Decades after the first contemporary national reports of child abuse by clergy, centuries after the problem first arose among the clericalized hierarchical structure, the Vatican Commission is still forced to print acknowledgment that the Vatican office designated to handle sex abuse claims will not even share basic data about numbers, names, and resolutions.
There are things to applaud, if faintly, in the report: its existence at all, after 10 years of work with no public report is one example. Its willingness to expose the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith for its lack of transparency is another. Its call for worldwide transparency and accountability is a third. Helpful also is the exploration of how difficult it can be to engender a global change when national churches are so very diverse and cultural differences are barriers to safeguarding measures.
Hopefully, the Commission will complete its plans to function as a long-term auditing entity on the reduction and prevention of abuse.
But Voice of the Faithful, in support of courageous survivors and victims everywhere, has joined its voice with theirs in calling for the essential changes needed to protect children worldwide. Isn’t it time the Church finally, in its new determination to live synodally, recognize that the voices of these survivors must be paramount on this issue? Isn’t it time that the pleadings and prophecies of brave lay people like Marie Collins of Ireland be heard and acted upon?
Marie was on the first Commission the Vatican organized to handle this problem, and she faithfully served for years until the duplicity, stonewalling, and deafness of the hierarchy proved impervious to that original Commission’s evidence and advice. VOTF will consider that the Vatican has changed if someone with the experience and wisdom of Marie Collins is named to the Commission again to serve as chairperson and with authority to enforce the proposals for transparency and accountability too long lacking on the crime of clergy sexual abuse.
Voice of the Faithful Focus News Roundup
O’SHEA: The Place of Women in the Catholic Church
“The glaring issue that has highlighted the need for major institutional change in the church centers on the abysmal leadership of successive prelates and popes in dealing with the curse of clerical sex abuse, which has poisoned the whole organization.
To put it bluntly, all these top church leaders lost credibility in failing to protect children from harm. Many commentators point out that if parents had the authority, they would have insisted that corrupt clerics be shown the door and barred from any contact with vulnerable children.” By Gerry O’Shea, The Irish Echo. Read more here.
Called But Not Heard, The movement for women deacons at the synod
“What version of Catholic womanhood would prevail at the close of the Synod on Synodality? This was the question that brought me to Rome this October for its final session, which may have long-term ripple effects on Church politics, Mass attendance, and practical pastoral matters, like whether or not people in underserved communities have access to the sacraments.
I traveled as a reporter with Discerning Deacons (DD), a group that advocates for the renewal of the diaconate and for allowing women to become deacons, as they were in many places during the Church’s first nine hundred years. DD organized the pilgrimage along with CEAMA (the Ecclesial Conference of the Amazon), which advocates for protection of the Amazon rainforest and Amazonian peoples, as well as for women deacons. In 2019, the Amazon Synod voted with a 70-percent majority in favor of ordaining women to the diaconate.” By Anne Keating, Commonweal Magazine. Read more here.
U.S. bishops pledge to ‘stand in firm solidarity’ with immigrants
With immigration an ongoing issue after the 2024 U.S. general election, three U.S. Catholic bishops issued a Nov. 14 statement of pastoral concern pledging support for immigrants.
“Compelled by the Gospel of Jesus Christ and recognizing the inherent dignity of each person as a child of God, we stand in firm solidarity with our immigrant brothers and sisters who live and labor in these United States,” wrote Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio of the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops; Bishop Mark J. Seitz of El Paso, Texas, chairman of the USCCB’s Committee on Migration; and Bishop Jaime Soto of Sacramento, chairman of the board for Catholic Legal Immigration Network Inc. By Gina Christian, Catholic Standard. Read more here.
Looking for some entertainment?
Go see Conclave! The new movie has an all-star cast, including Ralph Fiennes, Isabella Rosselini, Stanley Tucci and John Lithgow among others. Centered around the selection of a new Pope, the movie is based on Conclave a 2016 novel by British writer Robert Harris.
According to the US Catholic, Conclave is “relentlessly entertaining as it cascades into absurdity, Conclave presents its titular election as a masterclass in politicking and backstabbing while competing factions battle to dismantle or preserve the late pope’s legacy. Based on the 2016 thriller by British novelist Robert Harris, the film explores unchecked ambition and rampant mendacity among scheming churchmen, whose treachery and double-crossing calls to mind a contentious political campaign. (What a timely topic.) The cardinals’ penchant for gossip would be especially odious to Pope Francis, who has repeatedly condemned the practice throughout his pontificate. “The great gossiper is the devil,” said Francis in 2020, “because he is a liar who seeks to divide the church.”
Read an interview in National Catholic Reporter with Fiennes, Rosellini and director, Edward Berger, here.
Comments?
Please send them to Siobhan Carroll, Vineyard Editor, at Vineyard@votf.org. Unless otherwise indicated, I will assume comments can be published as Letters to the Editor.
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