Taking responsibility

adminonNovember 29, 2021January 5, 2022Leave a Comment

With a letter, Osnabruck Bishop Bode informed about abuse cases. It is about a now retired priest. The acts are statute-barred, he says, and there will be no further investigations.

Bishop Franz-Josef Bode had imposed several sanctions on the now 85-year-old clergyman: Any form of pastoral care was forbidden to him, as well as the public celebration of church services. He was not allowed to act as a representative of the church, was not allowed to approach the congregation and was not buried there in church. Bode made the incidents public in a letter that was read out in Merzen over the weekend. At the same time, he called on other possible victims to come forward.

After there had been rumors again and again in the past, witnesses had contacted him for the first time at the end of 2017 with concrete accusations against the former pastor, the bishop wrote. After intensive discussions – also with the independent contact persons for victims – further persons had accused the clergyman of sexual abuse. All accusations had been forwarded to the public prosecutor's office. The latter considers the acts to be punishable, but they are time-barred, which is why there is no investigation.

After Bode took office in 1995, the first rumors arose

Bode reported that he first heard rumors about the Merzen pastor some time after he took office as bishop of Osnabruck in 1995. However, there were no reliable statements that could have led to charges being filed. The accused has always denied the allegations. Nevertheless he had transferred it 1997 into the premature retirement, so Bode.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome has also been informed of the allegations against the priest, the diocese reported further. This considers the clergyman guilty, especially since he had admitted the accusations in the meantime. However, she refrains from an ecclesiastical trial due to his age and his failing health. Instead, she had asked the local bishop to take disciplinary action.

Penitential service by proxy

Already after the abuse scandal in the German Catholic Church became known in 2010, Bode had asked for an apology on behalf of the abuse cases in his diocese in a penitential service in the cathedral. In the weekend letter, he again acknowledged "serious mistakes" by the church. As a bishop he would have to "take responsibility for this guilt. I already did that publicly in 2010, and I'm doing it again now," Bode said.

As part of the study on sexual abuse presented by the German bishops in September, church files from 1946 to 2014 contained evidence of nationwide 3.677 victims of sexual assault and on around 1.670 accused priests, deacons and religious found. The diocese of Osnabruck recorded at least 68 affected persons and 35 accused persons.

Why is the Pope putting the brakes on the US bishops' package of measures against sexual abuse?? Francis does not want the Americans to pre-empt a worldwide solution, analyzes Vatican expert Ludwig Ring-Eifel.

Interviewer: What did the package of measures that the U.S. bishops actually wanted to adopt consist of??

Ludwig Ring-Eifel (head of the Catholic News Agency and Vatican expert): The package consisted broadly of four steps or four components. One was a kind of set of rules on how bishops should behave in the future in matters of abuse. Then the establishment of a special commission to investigate complaints when bishops have not complied with these rules – that is, when they have covered up, simply transferred priests or not acted tough enough against abuse. Further, a set of rules that included penalties for bishops – either for being guilty of sexual misconduct themselves or for not prosecuting offenders hard enough. And finally a special committee should be created, where one could deposit such complaints against bishops.

And all this – and this was the crux of the matter – should be organized by lay people, i.e. not by bishops, with the argument: bishops themselves are too involved and perhaps treat each other too graciously. After the slogan: A crow pecks no eye out of the other one. That's why lay people and maybe even outsiders – people outside the Church – should oversee these things. All in all, I think that was a bit too far-reaching – something that caused headaches in the Vatican, especially for canon lawyers, with the question of whether all this is even possible within the framework of canon law.

Interviewer: How could it go on now??

Ring-Eifel: The Pope has asked the American bishops to put this package of measures on hold for the time being. He did not say: This is wrong. But he said: Please wait and see. Next February we will meet worldwide – all presidents of all bishops' conferences – and discuss this problem of sexual abuse. And then we also discuss how to deal with bishops who have been guilty in one way or another. The pope doesn't want the Americans to rush ahead now with their own regulation, which is also problematic in terms of canon law, and thus call into question what is to be introduced at the world level. That's my interpretation.

Interviewer: But how realistic do you think it is to have a unified global solution?? After all, the situations in different countries are quite different.

Ring-Eifel: Yes, but there is a worldwide canon law. It has always been the case that despite the different situations in different countries, one has a worldwide uniform church law. This has been a huge step forward and it should stay that way.

I think it will go in the direction of actually setting up a kind of special court in the Vatican, which will then judge bishops who have been guilty of misconduct in one way or another. The pope had already held out the prospect of such a special jurisdiction, but then postponed it again. I don't think he'll be able to get past establishing something like that in Rome.

Interviewer: Now U.S. bishops told to wait until February. This is a long time. They are under quite a bit of prere. What does that mean for the Catholic Church in the U.S., if it cannot present its own concepts for the time being??

Ring-Eifel: The prere is no longer so much on the American bishops, but now the ball is really in Rome's court. Because the pope has said: Dear people in Baltimore, now keep the ball low. We regulate this in Rome and it is valid for everyone worldwide.

Now all eyes are on Rome. Now Francis must deliver and must find a regulation that also restores the credibility of the Catholic Church in America. The American bishops themselves cannot do that now. In a sense, the power to act has been taken out of their hands.

Interviewer: Now this is speculation, but do you think the pope will take a look at what the laity have come up with?

Ring-Eifel: He will do that for sure. Because what the American bishops have presented or wanted to present has a few interesting elements. I also believe that he will take over some of it. But it will probably not be adopted one-to-one as the Americans had in mind.

The interview was conducted by Heike Sicconi.

Experience and ideas of laymen in demand

Perplexed faces: Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo, archbishop of Galveston-Houston and president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops © Bob Roller (KNA)

Above all, listening to victims has caused a "deep wound in the body of Christ". Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, sums up the Vatican's anti-abuse summit and calls for greater involvement of lay people.

U.S. bishops' conference president Cardinal Daniel DiNardo has called the Vatican's anti-abuse summit "challenging and fruitful". The victims' testimonies once again revealed "the deep wound in the body of Christ," a statement released Sunday (local time) said. "Listening to those affected changes the heart." .He saw this in the faces of the other bishops, the cardinal said. The victims are now owed "relentless vigilance" so that such a failure never happens again.

Specifications must be intensified

With regard to the concrete measures called for by Pope Francis during last week's four-day conference, DiNardo referred to the "Charter for the Protection of Young People" adopted in 2002. The document known as the "Dallas Charter" governs how U.S. dioceses deal with priests accused of sexual abuse. These specifications must now be "intensified," demanded the bishops' conference president. At the anti-abuse summit, special procedures for dealing with relevant accusations against bishops were also discussed.

DiNardo also advocated for greater involvement of lay people to combat sexual abuse. Their prayers, experience and ideas are needed, said the clergyman. All of the solutions discussed at the Vatican conference relied on the help of God's people, he said.

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