At this moment I would be revising my opinion of Archbishop Peña Parra if I could remember what that opinion was (perhaps a general "what is he smoking" would loosely cover the occasion.)
It is a bit of a mind-bender to realize that there are people, at all levels of all societies and organization, who think we should not be unduly harsh to those who have sexually abused children. Where "unduly harsh" is sometimes "doing anything unpleasant whatsoever".
But there was the particularly egregious example earlier this year, which the news media treated as a story of how a 9-year-old had to cross state lines to get an abortion, and whose mother defended the abuser through the allegations, the confession, the DNA evidence, and the conviction.
Satan is active in the world, and his smoke has entered the Church, making people stupid, evil, and both.
Sancte Michael Archangele, defende nos in proelio.
The vatican seems unable to answer an easy question:
Who has authority to deal with abuse cases? It cannot answer that because who handles the cases depends not on the facts of the case, but who can most effectively give Pope Francis the result he desires for questions of personal whim. Sometimes that personal whim is abhorrence at the case. Other times that personal whim is for flagrantly corrupt self-interested reasons.
This is exactly why you have a system of law, where even the sovereigns total authority is inserted into a framework.
518 is interesting, because it says parishes are generally supposed to territorial, but if I’m recalling my classes and the surrounding burdens correctly, doesn’t put a strong burden on lay Catholics to do anything with that information on a day to day basis. A diocese would have to add on their own rules to that to constrain the daily choices of its members, though I’m not familiar enough with Arlington’s particular law and policies to say if they’ve done that.
So often Catholics take a rule or a law and add things on — maybe even generally good but not mandatory things — and present them as mandatory. I think this undermines trust in the rule of law.
This fiasco reminds me of the infamous case of Father Mauro Inzoli, aka Don Mercedes. Yes, the guy with the weakness for expensive cars and teenage boys.
I think this is a bit different, and arguably worse.
The Inzoli issue wasn't so much as friends in high places as it was Francis himself advertised a new approach to abuse cases, one that included mercy for abusers, provided they were deprived of access to continue harm. The Pope and his comms people aggressively promoted this as a logical extension of the Pope's new theology of mercy he was bringing to the Vatican.
That approach flopped when people were scandalized, rightly pointing out there's more to justice than preventing future harm, but of punishing for current harm, and the institution not encouraging future harm by its laxity. The Pope (in a trait that is both admirable and deplorlable) saw this pushback and immediately folded, and just stopped talking about it. There was never any doubt that he was in charge of his pontificate and he was the person making decisions, even wrong ones. Even colossaly stupid ones.
With the current affair, there really is no clear understanding who is in control, who is responsible, and what process they are following. Nature abhors such a vacuum, so if it is not defintiively solved soon, expect everyone to learn lessons from this going forward.
Here in Charlotte,NC one of the largest parishes in the diocese awaits five years a reinstatement of our Pastor who was removed because the former bishop “ questioned his behavior because of three complaints” Imagine 3 complaints out of thousands of parishoners in three parishes he ministered and all three of which the former bishop assigned him to. The priests reputation has been shredded and he still waits for return to ministry. This is clear abuse by the church! And who cares about the thousands of parishoners who have signed petitions,written to the Pope,nuncio,Metropolitan in Fathers’ s defense. No one!!! A CLEAR example of not being able to admit a mistake and now trying to cover by the newly appointed Bishop. You can’t make this stuff up.
I really don't understand the logic of "Here's the prefect of the DDF, which has a disciplinary section, and said prefect is the final word on the DDF's decisions, except in abuse cases, in which case the head of the disciplinary section directly gets final say, and the prefect shouldn't even be in the room when these cases are discussed." Like, from the standpoint of consistency and coherence of authority, it makes no sense. Maybe it's some 5D chess move to keep Fernandez and Kennedy at odds with each other Vader-and-Tarkin* style, but I don't think it does anything to actually help the DDF do its job well. Competing authority just leads to confusion and politicking. All that said, I have no issue with Archbishop Kennedy's decision, as the Secretariat of State clearly had no jurisdiction and should never have been involved.
*To explain my silly reference, the explanation for why Grand Moff Tarkin got to order Darth Vader around in Star Wars: A New Hope is that the Emperor specifically put him under Tarkin's thumb to remind Vader who's boss, while also making sure Tarkin himself didn't present a challenge to his power. Naturally, this arrangement fell apart about the time that a certain farm boy blew up the Death Star.
I highly recommend Archbishop Kennedy check his phone for bugs every time he uses it. In fact it's best he just assumes all his communications are being monitored.
the reason he needs to watch out is because Archbishop Pena Para has openly stated in court that he would order extrajudicial wiretapping anytime he sees fit.
From what I've heard, wiretapping is common in the Vatican, to such an extent that most of the Curia has secondary phones. Pena Para is not the only one doing ordering wiretapping.
This reporting touched very briefly on this...seems to me the most likely explanation is that he thought Francis would have his back on this case. I suppose this quite more likely than grandmaster-level incompetence on Parra's part, though your mileage may vary depending where you are on the charity <------> prudence spectrum.
Then again, the [so-called] reversal is only a couple of days old, so perhaps it's best to watch this space!
// In fact, the sostituto of the Secretariat of State — the role occupied by Peña Parra — does not have any defined role in any canonical penal process. Such cases are entirely unconnected to the sosituto’s work — making Peña Parra’s involvement hard to understand. //
Quibble. I wince when I read someone writing that something is "hard to understand" when he means simply that it's puzzling. This is sloppy thinking leaking into sloppy writing. We're adults. If it's hard to understand, walk us through your understanding.
Edgar, try it. If Kennedy doesn't like it, he'll understand and keep quiet. If he makes a scene, it'll be on his head. If anything happens, try to get back to me, my friend.
I think it's long past time that the Secretariat of State, and Archbishop Parra in particular, had their wings clipped rather harshly. How Archbishop Parra got away with saying he'd illegally wiretap anyone he saw fit without getting fired is quite beyond me. Now there's this little gem of illegal interference. I'm glad the DDF isn't taking it lying down.
I've thought for a long time Peña Parra has some issues to deal with, but there is no way he wrote that order without the express consent of the pope. Even seminarians know that the competency for these cases lies with the DDF. The only authority (or in this case, power) that can trump the DDF (aka, la suprema) is the pope.
I wouldn't be surprised that this priest has connections with bishops who told the pope the priest was misjudged, the other bishops overreacted, etc. . Then the pope, who clearly is someone who only says what he thinks people want to hear, says, "absolutely, get Peña Parra in here to stop this process."
Peña Parra will have to fall on his sword on this one, but I'd bet serious cash that the pope was the one who disrupted the process - Hagan lio!
That was certainly my first thought, especially since the priest was Argentinian. But if it did come from the Pope would the DDF push back like this? I would think they'd be reticent to do so, but I genuinely don't know.
This is a good point. I don't know what to think about this whole ordeal, but the obvious question is why would Archbishop Peña Parra make this move when he would know that he has no such authority? One logical answer would be as you suggest...that he has backing from the Pope. If this is in fact the case, I hope he got it in writing, but I doubt he did. If not, then he's probably going to be the one taking the fall for this either way. I'm not betting that he'll be removed or anything that drastic, however, regardless of what really happened.
> but there is no way he wrote that order without the express consent of the pope
I can as easily imagine that he decided to boldly follow the axiom "forgiveness (and where applicable, radical sanation) is easier to obtain than permission". This is because I do not understand the rationale for the disregard for some laws, and so I don't know where exactly the disregard stops.
If there's someone in the Vatican who can undo what you have done, just like that, then essentially you have zero authority. So Abp. Kennedy simply had to act. And if the Holy Father backs Abp. Peña Parra, then Abp. Kennedy should resign--there's no point in holding office if you don't have the authority that allows you to fulfill the responsibilities of that office.
Maybe it would be easier if the Vatican had a separate dicastery dedicated entirely to letting sexual abusers from Argentina get away with it. Would save everyone else a lot of time. They can write all their documents in invisible ink for easy deniability purposes.
I'm curious about the technical definition of papal delegation. Would it be accurate to say that all curio heads do their work by the delegation of the pope's authority?
The heads of the dicasteries serve at the pleasure and will of the Holy Father and assist him in the governance of the Universal Church. Their mandate is usually for a 5-year term (renewable).
What I'm confused about: it almost sounds to me like Kennedy has more independence than other curial leaders. Because it sounds like he makes judgements and then presents them as faits accomplis to the dicastery chief without any intervening papal oversight. Is that accurate, and if so, does it mean that Kennedy is in effect more unconstrained than most dicastery heads?
Abp Kennedy is a Secretary of the DDF, and head of one of the sections —the Disciplinary. Card. Fernandez remains the Prefect. But, at least from what I can garner, Fernandez has recused himself, at the request of the pope, from having anything to do with the Disciplinary section. So, at least theoretically, Kennedy has more autonomy than other section heads in the DDF.
If I'm reading the wiki right, +Kennedy was also made an archbishop right in the middle of this mess, on Sept 28! Which is probably why his family was meeting with the Pope.
Go +Kennedy, go! Knowing what we do about the way the Church in Ireland has been affected by the abuse crisis, it's heartening to see one of its own standing up for what's right.
At this moment I would be revising my opinion of Archbishop Peña Parra if I could remember what that opinion was (perhaps a general "what is he smoking" would loosely cover the occasion.)
It is a bit of a mind-bender to realize that there are people, at all levels of all societies and organization, who think we should not be unduly harsh to those who have sexually abused children. Where "unduly harsh" is sometimes "doing anything unpleasant whatsoever".
But there was the particularly egregious example earlier this year, which the news media treated as a story of how a 9-year-old had to cross state lines to get an abortion, and whose mother defended the abuser through the allegations, the confession, the DNA evidence, and the conviction.
Satan is active in the world, and his smoke has entered the Church, making people stupid, evil, and both.
Sancte Michael Archangele, defende nos in proelio.
The vatican seems unable to answer an easy question:
Who has authority to deal with abuse cases? It cannot answer that because who handles the cases depends not on the facts of the case, but who can most effectively give Pope Francis the result he desires for questions of personal whim. Sometimes that personal whim is abhorrence at the case. Other times that personal whim is for flagrantly corrupt self-interested reasons.
This is exactly why you have a system of law, where even the sovereigns total authority is inserted into a framework.
Yes, the rule of law is important!
518 is interesting, because it says parishes are generally supposed to territorial, but if I’m recalling my classes and the surrounding burdens correctly, doesn’t put a strong burden on lay Catholics to do anything with that information on a day to day basis. A diocese would have to add on their own rules to that to constrain the daily choices of its members, though I’m not familiar enough with Arlington’s particular law and policies to say if they’ve done that.
So often Catholics take a rule or a law and add things on — maybe even generally good but not mandatory things — and present them as mandatory. I think this undermines trust in the rule of law.
This fiasco reminds me of the infamous case of Father Mauro Inzoli, aka Don Mercedes. Yes, the guy with the weakness for expensive cars and teenage boys.
https://www.france24.com/en/20170628-pope-defrocks-don-mercedes-priest-convicted-sex-abuse
He was defrocked, refrocked and defrocked again. It certainly looked like an example of how important it is to have friends in high places.
I think this is a bit different, and arguably worse.
The Inzoli issue wasn't so much as friends in high places as it was Francis himself advertised a new approach to abuse cases, one that included mercy for abusers, provided they were deprived of access to continue harm. The Pope and his comms people aggressively promoted this as a logical extension of the Pope's new theology of mercy he was bringing to the Vatican.
That approach flopped when people were scandalized, rightly pointing out there's more to justice than preventing future harm, but of punishing for current harm, and the institution not encouraging future harm by its laxity. The Pope (in a trait that is both admirable and deplorlable) saw this pushback and immediately folded, and just stopped talking about it. There was never any doubt that he was in charge of his pontificate and he was the person making decisions, even wrong ones. Even colossaly stupid ones.
With the current affair, there really is no clear understanding who is in control, who is responsible, and what process they are following. Nature abhors such a vacuum, so if it is not defintiively solved soon, expect everyone to learn lessons from this going forward.
Here in Charlotte,NC one of the largest parishes in the diocese awaits five years a reinstatement of our Pastor who was removed because the former bishop “ questioned his behavior because of three complaints” Imagine 3 complaints out of thousands of parishoners in three parishes he ministered and all three of which the former bishop assigned him to. The priests reputation has been shredded and he still waits for return to ministry. This is clear abuse by the church! And who cares about the thousands of parishoners who have signed petitions,written to the Pope,nuncio,Metropolitan in Fathers’ s defense. No one!!! A CLEAR example of not being able to admit a mistake and now trying to cover by the newly appointed Bishop. You can’t make this stuff up.
I will 100% take a Bugatti over a Mercedes any day of the week:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_Battista_Bugatti
I really don't understand the logic of "Here's the prefect of the DDF, which has a disciplinary section, and said prefect is the final word on the DDF's decisions, except in abuse cases, in which case the head of the disciplinary section directly gets final say, and the prefect shouldn't even be in the room when these cases are discussed." Like, from the standpoint of consistency and coherence of authority, it makes no sense. Maybe it's some 5D chess move to keep Fernandez and Kennedy at odds with each other Vader-and-Tarkin* style, but I don't think it does anything to actually help the DDF do its job well. Competing authority just leads to confusion and politicking. All that said, I have no issue with Archbishop Kennedy's decision, as the Secretariat of State clearly had no jurisdiction and should never have been involved.
*To explain my silly reference, the explanation for why Grand Moff Tarkin got to order Darth Vader around in Star Wars: A New Hope is that the Emperor specifically put him under Tarkin's thumb to remind Vader who's boss, while also making sure Tarkin himself didn't present a challenge to his power. Naturally, this arrangement fell apart about the time that a certain farm boy blew up the Death Star.
Hey, someone's gotta make sure that the competent ecclesiastical authority isn't choking on his aspirations!
Phenomenal reference!
I highly recommend Archbishop Kennedy check his phone for bugs every time he uses it. In fact it's best he just assumes all his communications are being monitored.
He's an archbishop at the Vatican, which would be enough to assume that.
He's also working in the area of child sexual abuse, which would also be enough on its own to assume that.
the reason he needs to watch out is because Archbishop Pena Para has openly stated in court that he would order extrajudicial wiretapping anytime he sees fit.
From what I've heard, wiretapping is common in the Vatican, to such an extent that most of the Curia has secondary phones. Pena Para is not the only one doing ordering wiretapping.
Assume nothing anymore
More gross overreach by the Vatican Secretariat of State/Vatican diplomats?
Remind me how they became “bishop-makers” within their nuncio regions??
Wow. In a word, what is Abp Parra thinking?
This reporting touched very briefly on this...seems to me the most likely explanation is that he thought Francis would have his back on this case. I suppose this quite more likely than grandmaster-level incompetence on Parra's part, though your mileage may vary depending where you are on the charity <------> prudence spectrum.
Then again, the [so-called] reversal is only a couple of days old, so perhaps it's best to watch this space!
// In fact, the sostituto of the Secretariat of State — the role occupied by Peña Parra — does not have any defined role in any canonical penal process. Such cases are entirely unconnected to the sosituto’s work — making Peña Parra’s involvement hard to understand. //
Quibble. I wince when I read someone writing that something is "hard to understand" when he means simply that it's puzzling. This is sloppy thinking leaking into sloppy writing. We're adults. If it's hard to understand, walk us through your understanding.
Edgar, try it. If Kennedy doesn't like it, he'll understand and keep quiet. If he makes a scene, it'll be on his head. If anything happens, try to get back to me, my friend.
I think it's long past time that the Secretariat of State, and Archbishop Parra in particular, had their wings clipped rather harshly. How Archbishop Parra got away with saying he'd illegally wiretap anyone he saw fit without getting fired is quite beyond me. Now there's this little gem of illegal interference. I'm glad the DDF isn't taking it lying down.
I've thought for a long time Peña Parra has some issues to deal with, but there is no way he wrote that order without the express consent of the pope. Even seminarians know that the competency for these cases lies with the DDF. The only authority (or in this case, power) that can trump the DDF (aka, la suprema) is the pope.
I wouldn't be surprised that this priest has connections with bishops who told the pope the priest was misjudged, the other bishops overreacted, etc. . Then the pope, who clearly is someone who only says what he thinks people want to hear, says, "absolutely, get Peña Parra in here to stop this process."
Peña Parra will have to fall on his sword on this one, but I'd bet serious cash that the pope was the one who disrupted the process - Hagan lio!
That was certainly my first thought, especially since the priest was Argentinian. But if it did come from the Pope would the DDF push back like this? I would think they'd be reticent to do so, but I genuinely don't know.
my favorite part of this comment was "even seminarians." lol. :-)
This is a good point. I don't know what to think about this whole ordeal, but the obvious question is why would Archbishop Peña Parra make this move when he would know that he has no such authority? One logical answer would be as you suggest...that he has backing from the Pope. If this is in fact the case, I hope he got it in writing, but I doubt he did. If not, then he's probably going to be the one taking the fall for this either way. I'm not betting that he'll be removed or anything that drastic, however, regardless of what really happened.
> but there is no way he wrote that order without the express consent of the pope
I can as easily imagine that he decided to boldly follow the axiom "forgiveness (and where applicable, radical sanation) is easier to obtain than permission". This is because I do not understand the rationale for the disregard for some laws, and so I don't know where exactly the disregard stops.
If there's someone in the Vatican who can undo what you have done, just like that, then essentially you have zero authority. So Abp. Kennedy simply had to act. And if the Holy Father backs Abp. Peña Parra, then Abp. Kennedy should resign--there's no point in holding office if you don't have the authority that allows you to fulfill the responsibilities of that office.
Maybe it would be easier if the Vatican had a separate dicastery dedicated entirely to letting sexual abusers from Argentina get away with it. Would save everyone else a lot of time. They can write all their documents in invisible ink for easy deniability purposes.
😭😂😭
I'm curious about the technical definition of papal delegation. Would it be accurate to say that all curio heads do their work by the delegation of the pope's authority?
The heads of the dicasteries serve at the pleasure and will of the Holy Father and assist him in the governance of the Universal Church. Their mandate is usually for a 5-year term (renewable).
What I'm confused about: it almost sounds to me like Kennedy has more independence than other curial leaders. Because it sounds like he makes judgements and then presents them as faits accomplis to the dicastery chief without any intervening papal oversight. Is that accurate, and if so, does it mean that Kennedy is in effect more unconstrained than most dicastery heads?
Abp Kennedy is a Secretary of the DDF, and head of one of the sections —the Disciplinary. Card. Fernandez remains the Prefect. But, at least from what I can garner, Fernandez has recused himself, at the request of the pope, from having anything to do with the Disciplinary section. So, at least theoretically, Kennedy has more autonomy than other section heads in the DDF.
This calls to mind Archbishop Peña Parra's intervention in the Zanchetta affair: https://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=56450
If I'm reading the wiki right, +Kennedy was also made an archbishop right in the middle of this mess, on Sept 28! Which is probably why his family was meeting with the Pope.
Go +Kennedy, go! Knowing what we do about the way the Church in Ireland has been affected by the abuse crisis, it's heartening to see one of its own standing up for what's right.
Wouldn’t surprise me if Abp Kennedy is soon relieved of his duties, for this daring act.