I think it is fairly well-established in our reporting that the allegations against Cipriani have not been disclosed.
The back-and-forth is the the news. The very idea is to present what's known, so that readers are free to draw their own conclusions.
If readers want to conclude it's a personal vendetta, that's their prerogative. We will report what's known, what we can find out, and what develops in an emerging situation.
That news coverage need not put suspicion on anyone.
I am just surprised that you have not brought up the obvious Bergoglio vs Cipriani rivalry in CELAM before the last conclave. For example, Pope Francis replaced Cipriani in Lima with Cardinal Castillo who had previously been suspended by Cardinal Cipriani when he was a priest for his heterodoxy. Edward Pentin has written about it in his new website on the current College of Cardinals.
Matt Taibbi in a interview with Tucker Carlson lamented that journalists used to inform readers about the full story with background information, so I would expect that from the Pillar with your much more detailed information given in other cases like the Syro-Malabar Church conflicts.
Not writing about the backstory on Cipriani's conflict with Bergoglio is like writing about Cardinal Pell going to jail and avoiding any mention of the hatred of Vatican officials like then Sostito Archbishop Becchiu for Pell's plan for reforming Vatican finances. I enjoy reading the Pillar because you often include details important to a case. But in this situation you are avoiding the elephant in the room: Pope Francis' rivalry with Cipriani in South America.
The implication of reporting on a Bergoglio/Cipriani rivalry is that Pope Francis would be acting out of a grudge -- a fact very much not in evidence.
You lament reporting without a specific allegation, despite Cipriani's acknowledgement of having signed the papers. Yet you'd be happy to malign the Holy Father without evidence?
Cipriani signed the papers acknowledging that he had been notified of punishment by the Vatican, not of having committed any abuse. Anyone who follows Pope Francis' papacy clearly sees that Pope Francis removes and punishes any bishop that dares to criticize him, from Cardinal Muller at CDF to Bishop Strickland in Tyler, something none of the previous Popes at least for the last 100 years have done. In almost all those cases, including that of Bishop Strickland, no reason was given to the bishop why they were asked to resign, which is the definition of injustice as a bishop is not some cash register clerk who you can fire for no reason. It is like St. Peter firing St. James as bishop of Jerusalem without telling him why.
It is very well known that Cipriani and Bergoglio feuded for over 10 years in CELAM with Cipriani promoting more conservative Catholic views and Bergoglio promoting more liberal views like the ones published in the Aparecida Document which Pope Francis consistently quotes as one of his greatest achievements as bishop (and which Cardinal Cipriani opposed). Now there are allegations of abuse against Cardinal Cipriani that even the Pillar admits is not mentioned anywhere in specifics, which Cipriani denies but the Vatican does not specify. That seems very suspicious, especially since the Cardinal has not had his day in court to defend himself against these charges. If Pope Francis will not allow him to defend himself, it is either injustice on the Pope's part or even the possibility of defamation and calumny if the Pope knows the allegations are too flimsy for the Vatican to justify imposing sanctions on Cardinal Cipriani.
How would you like it if you were accused of a crime and had no way of defending yourself, or worse, you were already punished for the crime and you still don't know what you were punished for? Kafka wrote a novel about that called "The Trial." It is scary that the Pope can do this to anyone what Kafka attributed to the most sinister of regimes.
Which was denied by Cardinal Mueller and again he never had a chance to defend himself against those allegations. If he took money from the Vatican, he should be tried in court and convicted of embezzlement. Otherwise its hearsay that should not be repeated by any news outlet more reputable than the National Enquirer. The truth is that Pope Francis told Cardinal Mueller to leave as his 5 year term was up and did not give him any reasons for the dismissal besides that. If there were reasons, then the Pope was unjust in not telling him what the reasons were, instead preferring others to leak information out which then the Pillar picked up.
We know how some people in the Vatican have ways to destroy certain people's reputation, like they tried to do that with Cardinal Pell, Cardinal Burke, and Libero Milone who tried to fix the Vatican finances as Auditor General but was fired and defamed instead.
If what the Pillar wrote was incorrect Müller could have sued them. They did not say he embezzled but that some of his department's money was moved inappropriately to avoid the work of Libero Milone in trying to straighten up Vatican finances.
Cardinal Mueller was dismissed on July 1, 2017 and Libero Milone was fired in June of that same year, which happens to be around the same time when Cardinal Pell was convicted in Australia. At that time Cardinal Becchiu was running the show and allegedly lying to the Pope Francis. So Pope Francis would fire Mueller at the same time when the watchdogs for the Vatican Milone and Pell were being conveniently removed, when Becchiu was calling the shots, the Cardinal who was eventually convicted for financial crimes, but not until 2024. The possibilities are that (1) Mueller was hated by Becchiu and falsely accused like Milone and Pell were or (2) Mueller was in league with Becchiu in committing financial crimes but then Pope Francis would have kept Mueller in place like he did Becchiu for many more years, even advancing him to Cardinal or (3) simply Mueller was removed because he was too conservative to allow for Pope Francis' liberal reforms to occur under his watch (and this is the most likely cause).
To sue someone in the U.S. requires a lot of money to pay for a lawyer. Cardinal Pell did not sue anyone either for the defamation he received from the press. That is really not a good argument for declaring someone innocent or guilty of an act.
You are right. In all situations it would be an injustice, but it is a greater injustice for a bishop because the media will not be writing speculations about what the clerk did, so the loss of reputation among thousands of people will only affect the fired bishop.
Thanks Thomas for your generous explanation. I think I might say that the injustice was the same but the consequences were greater for the bishop, but that would be splitting hairs!
Again, I think this is a stretch of epic proportions. If you were a cardinal of the church who thought you were in good standing, and the Vatican informed you of restricted ministry, I struggle to understand how anyone would just sign the papers without any understanding of why that ministry was being restricted.
It’s like getting written up for an infraction at the office. Your boss presents you a piece of paper, and then you blindly sign it, knowing what’s on it, but later say that you have no idea why you were being punished. It strains credulity that this is actually how it played out.
> like writing about Cardinal Pell going to jail and avoiding any mention of the hatred of Vatican officials
In the case of Cardinal Pell, I think it was entirely a homegrown Australian conspiracy that accused him rather than a Vatican conspiracy, but certainly omitting the Vatican-finances backstory would mean that we would not realize how much we lost.
I am slightly tired, though, of nearly all sides seeming to sometimes believe that "rules are for *other* people". The Pope sometimes does it, the credibly accused do it, the guilty are *of course* found to have ignored probably every rule in the book, the "we don't even know what they were accused of and maybe they don't even know either" sometimes do it, and sometimes the non-credibly accused or the innocent are found to have done it. So I can't even assume "wow, this guy did not do what he was told, therefore he is a supervillain" because not-following-the-rules is not *consistently* a distinguishing characteristic, but it's supposed to be.
My biggest point is that if someone is accused of something, let all of it come out in court. Cardinal Pell was actually lucky, because even though he spent time in jail, at least his reputation was exonerated by the appeals court. If he was accused of those crimes by a Vatican court, we would still be debating in the Pillar commentary section whether he did it or not. Saint Francis de Sales wrote that destroying someone's reputation is like killing them. If Cardinal CIpriani is guilty, let us see the proof against him like with Father Maciel or Cardinal McCarrick. If not, then to me he is innocent until proven guilty.
Thomas, my friend, you are like a dog with a bone on this. But I ask you, sir: Can you cite the provision of canon law that obligates the Vatican to publicly release the “why” of disciplinary measures to the Church Universal?
The Vatican is not the American Department of Justice. The procedural norms that govern American criminal law do not govern here. I am baffled as to why you seem to think you are entitled to know the details of allegations, when radical transparency has never been the practice of the church to begin with.
You seem to have a beef with Pope Francis. And that’s fine; he’s not exactly at the top of my Most Favorite Pontiff list either. But this is such an odd argument to hang your hat upon with this much vigor.
Are we entitled to know? No I don't think so. At least not in cases that don't involve public scandal. Is Cipriani entitled to know the charges and evidence against him? Yes that's a matter of justice. It appears Cipriani hasn't been been given his day in court and that's a problem.
Also, I'll note that actions have consequences. If the Vatican chooses not to make the information public when at least some degree making the punishment public, people are left to draw their own conclusions. We're supposed to just believe the punishment is just and at the same time just believe that the Cardinal's feud had nothing to do with all of this?
Last week, my bishop released a note to the diocese, announcing that a traditionalist order of nuns in a neighboring city is being suppressed by order of the DDF. We know nothing beyond the order of suppression. Should we assume that these nuns had a personal vendetta leveled against them by Cardinal Fernandez or Pope Francis?
Part of being a humble Catholic in union with the Holy See is that we trust that our senior ecclesial leaders will perform God‘s will on earth without giving us every dotted I and crossed T. Humans are fallible, and the present moment in some ways underscores that fallibility. But I am uncomfortable with the idea that a lack of court transcripts MUST THEREFORE imply wrongdoing by the Holy Father.
Especially given that Cipriani has already publicly lied about the situation. Again, the odds that he willingly signed a document restricting his ministry with no questions whatsoever as to why that ministry was being restricted, beggars belief. Given that he has already proved deceitful, I am less inclined to believe in conspiracy theories about Argentinian clerical politics than I am in the more common case coming out of the DDF, which is an attempt to preserve the dignity of the accused by being quiet about cases, while offering a discreet ministerial penalty. If anything, the Cipriani situation feels an awful lot like the McCarrick situation, in terms of how these senior churchmen have comported themselves.
Again, lying is not the same as abuse and when I sign a subpoena handed to me does not mean I admit to committing anything wrong, I just acknowledge receiving the subpoena. As Mr. Karazamov noted, it is an injustice for Cardinal Cipriani to not know what he is accused of. Even the Sanhedrin and Pilate let Jesus Christ know what he was convicted of, even if it was false.
All I would like is for the Pillar to put more detail into their reporting about Cardinal Cipriani. In their reporting on the Syro-Malabar Church controversy regarding the change in liturgy, the Pillar included a backstory about controversial real estate investments done by the former Major Archbishop that may play a part in why the conflict is so heated. Real estate and who the priest faces during Mass seems unrelated, but the Pillar rightfully took it into account.
Reporting about the Cipriani-Bergoglio feud in CELAM could be an important component of the story that good journalists should report on. It is like reporting about Trump being accused of financial crimes in a New York court and failing to report about any links between the prosecutors, the Biden administration, and the DNC.
Except that it isn’t. Other media sources now say that Cipriani has been accused, credibly, of sexual abuse. Had The Pillar focused on Argentinian clerical politics, it would have missed the real story while impinging upon the dignity of the Holy Father. I don’t know why you’re carrying water for Cipriani at this point.
What does "credibly accused" mean? You are innocent until proven guilty. Cardinal Pell was also "credibly accused" and found innocent. There was another Cardinal, Henryk Gulbinowicz of Wroclaw, Poland, who was "credibly accused" and sanctioned to not perform any public ministry. He just happened to be the most vehemently anti-Communist bishop in Poland.it turned out after his death that all the accusations came from men who were found in Polish Communist secret police archives to be agents who purposely made up stories which the Church investigators initially fell for. Like with Pell, it is the civil investigations that often reveal the truth. I hope Cardinal Cipriani has his day in court where rules of evidence will determine whether he is guilty or not. Nonetheless, while Cardinal Cipriani, a rival to the Pope, is penalized, Father Rupnik, who the Pope likes, is working without any restrictions in Slovenia after raping several religious sisters. Just seems suspicious.
It seems to me that your motivating theory here is corruption by the current pope. I see no evidence of this, relative to Cipriani. Ongoing discussion, therefore, strikes me as futile. Peace and blessings to you, though.
This is sort of funny actually. You act like this is happening in a vacuum where there isn't a history of well connected senior prelates getting preferential treatment. In the absence of information, the logical thing to wonder is that it's likely this one is like the last several
I think it is fairly well-established in our reporting that the allegations against Cipriani have not been disclosed.
The back-and-forth is the the news. The very idea is to present what's known, so that readers are free to draw their own conclusions.
If readers want to conclude it's a personal vendetta, that's their prerogative. We will report what's known, what we can find out, and what develops in an emerging situation.
That news coverage need not put suspicion on anyone.
I am just surprised that you have not brought up the obvious Bergoglio vs Cipriani rivalry in CELAM before the last conclave. For example, Pope Francis replaced Cipriani in Lima with Cardinal Castillo who had previously been suspended by Cardinal Cipriani when he was a priest for his heterodoxy. Edward Pentin has written about it in his new website on the current College of Cardinals.
Matt Taibbi in a interview with Tucker Carlson lamented that journalists used to inform readers about the full story with background information, so I would expect that from the Pillar with your much more detailed information given in other cases like the Syro-Malabar Church conflicts.
Not writing about the backstory on Cipriani's conflict with Bergoglio is like writing about Cardinal Pell going to jail and avoiding any mention of the hatred of Vatican officials like then Sostito Archbishop Becchiu for Pell's plan for reforming Vatican finances. I enjoy reading the Pillar because you often include details important to a case. But in this situation you are avoiding the elephant in the room: Pope Francis' rivalry with Cipriani in South America.
that's valid feedback, and helpful. thank you.
The implication of reporting on a Bergoglio/Cipriani rivalry is that Pope Francis would be acting out of a grudge -- a fact very much not in evidence.
You lament reporting without a specific allegation, despite Cipriani's acknowledgement of having signed the papers. Yet you'd be happy to malign the Holy Father without evidence?
I'm struggling to square that circle.
Cipriani signed the papers acknowledging that he had been notified of punishment by the Vatican, not of having committed any abuse. Anyone who follows Pope Francis' papacy clearly sees that Pope Francis removes and punishes any bishop that dares to criticize him, from Cardinal Muller at CDF to Bishop Strickland in Tyler, something none of the previous Popes at least for the last 100 years have done. In almost all those cases, including that of Bishop Strickland, no reason was given to the bishop why they were asked to resign, which is the definition of injustice as a bishop is not some cash register clerk who you can fire for no reason. It is like St. Peter firing St. James as bishop of Jerusalem without telling him why.
It is very well known that Cipriani and Bergoglio feuded for over 10 years in CELAM with Cipriani promoting more conservative Catholic views and Bergoglio promoting more liberal views like the ones published in the Aparecida Document which Pope Francis consistently quotes as one of his greatest achievements as bishop (and which Cardinal Cipriani opposed). Now there are allegations of abuse against Cardinal Cipriani that even the Pillar admits is not mentioned anywhere in specifics, which Cipriani denies but the Vatican does not specify. That seems very suspicious, especially since the Cardinal has not had his day in court to defend himself against these charges. If Pope Francis will not allow him to defend himself, it is either injustice on the Pope's part or even the possibility of defamation and calumny if the Pope knows the allegations are too flimsy for the Vatican to justify imposing sanctions on Cardinal Cipriani.
How would you like it if you were accused of a crime and had no way of defending yourself, or worse, you were already punished for the crime and you still don't know what you were punished for? Kafka wrote a novel about that called "The Trial." It is scary that the Pope can do this to anyone what Kafka attributed to the most sinister of regimes.
As reported by the Pillar, it is likely that Müller was let go due to financial improprieties rather than due to any disagreements with the pope.
Which was denied by Cardinal Mueller and again he never had a chance to defend himself against those allegations. If he took money from the Vatican, he should be tried in court and convicted of embezzlement. Otherwise its hearsay that should not be repeated by any news outlet more reputable than the National Enquirer. The truth is that Pope Francis told Cardinal Mueller to leave as his 5 year term was up and did not give him any reasons for the dismissal besides that. If there were reasons, then the Pope was unjust in not telling him what the reasons were, instead preferring others to leak information out which then the Pillar picked up.
We know how some people in the Vatican have ways to destroy certain people's reputation, like they tried to do that with Cardinal Pell, Cardinal Burke, and Libero Milone who tried to fix the Vatican finances as Auditor General but was fired and defamed instead.
If what the Pillar wrote was incorrect Müller could have sued them. They did not say he embezzled but that some of his department's money was moved inappropriately to avoid the work of Libero Milone in trying to straighten up Vatican finances.
Cardinal Mueller was dismissed on July 1, 2017 and Libero Milone was fired in June of that same year, which happens to be around the same time when Cardinal Pell was convicted in Australia. At that time Cardinal Becchiu was running the show and allegedly lying to the Pope Francis. So Pope Francis would fire Mueller at the same time when the watchdogs for the Vatican Milone and Pell were being conveniently removed, when Becchiu was calling the shots, the Cardinal who was eventually convicted for financial crimes, but not until 2024. The possibilities are that (1) Mueller was hated by Becchiu and falsely accused like Milone and Pell were or (2) Mueller was in league with Becchiu in committing financial crimes but then Pope Francis would have kept Mueller in place like he did Becchiu for many more years, even advancing him to Cardinal or (3) simply Mueller was removed because he was too conservative to allow for Pope Francis' liberal reforms to occur under his watch (and this is the most likely cause).
To sue someone in the U.S. requires a lot of money to pay for a lawyer. Cardinal Pell did not sue anyone either for the defamation he received from the press. That is really not a good argument for declaring someone innocent or guilty of an act.
I'm surprised that you regard firing a cash register clerk without reason as acceptable but firing a bishop as unjust! They seem equally unjust to me.
You are right. In all situations it would be an injustice, but it is a greater injustice for a bishop because the media will not be writing speculations about what the clerk did, so the loss of reputation among thousands of people will only affect the fired bishop.
Thanks Thomas for your generous explanation. I think I might say that the injustice was the same but the consequences were greater for the bishop, but that would be splitting hairs!
Again, I think this is a stretch of epic proportions. If you were a cardinal of the church who thought you were in good standing, and the Vatican informed you of restricted ministry, I struggle to understand how anyone would just sign the papers without any understanding of why that ministry was being restricted.
It’s like getting written up for an infraction at the office. Your boss presents you a piece of paper, and then you blindly sign it, knowing what’s on it, but later say that you have no idea why you were being punished. It strains credulity that this is actually how it played out.
> like writing about Cardinal Pell going to jail and avoiding any mention of the hatred of Vatican officials
In the case of Cardinal Pell, I think it was entirely a homegrown Australian conspiracy that accused him rather than a Vatican conspiracy, but certainly omitting the Vatican-finances backstory would mean that we would not realize how much we lost.
I am slightly tired, though, of nearly all sides seeming to sometimes believe that "rules are for *other* people". The Pope sometimes does it, the credibly accused do it, the guilty are *of course* found to have ignored probably every rule in the book, the "we don't even know what they were accused of and maybe they don't even know either" sometimes do it, and sometimes the non-credibly accused or the innocent are found to have done it. So I can't even assume "wow, this guy did not do what he was told, therefore he is a supervillain" because not-following-the-rules is not *consistently* a distinguishing characteristic, but it's supposed to be.
My biggest point is that if someone is accused of something, let all of it come out in court. Cardinal Pell was actually lucky, because even though he spent time in jail, at least his reputation was exonerated by the appeals court. If he was accused of those crimes by a Vatican court, we would still be debating in the Pillar commentary section whether he did it or not. Saint Francis de Sales wrote that destroying someone's reputation is like killing them. If Cardinal CIpriani is guilty, let us see the proof against him like with Father Maciel or Cardinal McCarrick. If not, then to me he is innocent until proven guilty.
Thomas, my friend, you are like a dog with a bone on this. But I ask you, sir: Can you cite the provision of canon law that obligates the Vatican to publicly release the “why” of disciplinary measures to the Church Universal?
The Vatican is not the American Department of Justice. The procedural norms that govern American criminal law do not govern here. I am baffled as to why you seem to think you are entitled to know the details of allegations, when radical transparency has never been the practice of the church to begin with.
You seem to have a beef with Pope Francis. And that’s fine; he’s not exactly at the top of my Most Favorite Pontiff list either. But this is such an odd argument to hang your hat upon with this much vigor.
Are we entitled to know? No I don't think so. At least not in cases that don't involve public scandal. Is Cipriani entitled to know the charges and evidence against him? Yes that's a matter of justice. It appears Cipriani hasn't been been given his day in court and that's a problem.
Also, I'll note that actions have consequences. If the Vatican chooses not to make the information public when at least some degree making the punishment public, people are left to draw their own conclusions. We're supposed to just believe the punishment is just and at the same time just believe that the Cardinal's feud had nothing to do with all of this?
Last week, my bishop released a note to the diocese, announcing that a traditionalist order of nuns in a neighboring city is being suppressed by order of the DDF. We know nothing beyond the order of suppression. Should we assume that these nuns had a personal vendetta leveled against them by Cardinal Fernandez or Pope Francis?
Part of being a humble Catholic in union with the Holy See is that we trust that our senior ecclesial leaders will perform God‘s will on earth without giving us every dotted I and crossed T. Humans are fallible, and the present moment in some ways underscores that fallibility. But I am uncomfortable with the idea that a lack of court transcripts MUST THEREFORE imply wrongdoing by the Holy Father.
Especially given that Cipriani has already publicly lied about the situation. Again, the odds that he willingly signed a document restricting his ministry with no questions whatsoever as to why that ministry was being restricted, beggars belief. Given that he has already proved deceitful, I am less inclined to believe in conspiracy theories about Argentinian clerical politics than I am in the more common case coming out of the DDF, which is an attempt to preserve the dignity of the accused by being quiet about cases, while offering a discreet ministerial penalty. If anything, the Cipriani situation feels an awful lot like the McCarrick situation, in terms of how these senior churchmen have comported themselves.
Again, lying is not the same as abuse and when I sign a subpoena handed to me does not mean I admit to committing anything wrong, I just acknowledge receiving the subpoena. As Mr. Karazamov noted, it is an injustice for Cardinal Cipriani to not know what he is accused of. Even the Sanhedrin and Pilate let Jesus Christ know what he was convicted of, even if it was false.
All I would like is for the Pillar to put more detail into their reporting about Cardinal Cipriani. In their reporting on the Syro-Malabar Church controversy regarding the change in liturgy, the Pillar included a backstory about controversial real estate investments done by the former Major Archbishop that may play a part in why the conflict is so heated. Real estate and who the priest faces during Mass seems unrelated, but the Pillar rightfully took it into account.
Reporting about the Cipriani-Bergoglio feud in CELAM could be an important component of the story that good journalists should report on. It is like reporting about Trump being accused of financial crimes in a New York court and failing to report about any links between the prosecutors, the Biden administration, and the DNC.
Except that it isn’t. Other media sources now say that Cipriani has been accused, credibly, of sexual abuse. Had The Pillar focused on Argentinian clerical politics, it would have missed the real story while impinging upon the dignity of the Holy Father. I don’t know why you’re carrying water for Cipriani at this point.
See: https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/261833/prominent-cardinal-denies-allegations-of-sexual-abuse-that-led-to-disciplinary-measures
What does "credibly accused" mean? You are innocent until proven guilty. Cardinal Pell was also "credibly accused" and found innocent. There was another Cardinal, Henryk Gulbinowicz of Wroclaw, Poland, who was "credibly accused" and sanctioned to not perform any public ministry. He just happened to be the most vehemently anti-Communist bishop in Poland.it turned out after his death that all the accusations came from men who were found in Polish Communist secret police archives to be agents who purposely made up stories which the Church investigators initially fell for. Like with Pell, it is the civil investigations that often reveal the truth. I hope Cardinal Cipriani has his day in court where rules of evidence will determine whether he is guilty or not. Nonetheless, while Cardinal Cipriani, a rival to the Pope, is penalized, Father Rupnik, who the Pope likes, is working without any restrictions in Slovenia after raping several religious sisters. Just seems suspicious.
It seems to me that your motivating theory here is corruption by the current pope. I see no evidence of this, relative to Cipriani. Ongoing discussion, therefore, strikes me as futile. Peace and blessings to you, though.
This is sort of funny actually. You act like this is happening in a vacuum where there isn't a history of well connected senior prelates getting preferential treatment. In the absence of information, the logical thing to wonder is that it's likely this one is like the last several