John Allen on Cardinal Sodano's "troubling record"

In my last post I highlighted the importance of Cardinal Schonborn and Cardinal Sodano in the fierce struggle now in play over the direction of the Catholic Church. John Allen, arguably the leading reporter on the Vatican in the English language, explains in greater detail the significance of Cardinal Sodano and his connection to the abuse crisis:

At least one other cardinal linked to the abuse scandals is destined to be even more prominent over the next month: Angelo Sodano, former Secretary of State under John Paul II and currently the dean of the College of Cardinals. It was Sodano who delivered a brief tribute to Benedict XVI when he made his surprise announcement Monday, and he helped the pope celebrate the Ash Wednesday liturgy tonight.

In his role as dean, Sodano will preside over functions after Benedict steps down and before the new pope is chosen, including the much-watched "Mass for the election of the Roman Pontiff" that marks the last public event before the conclave.

Critics charge Sodano has a troubling record on the abuse crisis for at least three reasons.

First, he's known as a stalwart defender in the Vatican of the late Mexican Fr. Marcial Maciel Degollado, founder of the Legionaries of Christ. The Legionaries later acknowledged that Maciel was guilty of misconduct, including sexual abuse of former members. As late as 2005, while the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was reaching the conclusion that Maciel was guilty, the Secretariat of State under Sodano issued a public statement denying there was any case against him.

Second, Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Vienna charged in May 2010 that it was Sodano who blocked an investigation against Schönborn's predecessor, Cardinal Hans Hermann Groër, when Groër faced charges of sexual abuse in the 1990s. Although Schönborn later apologized for reprimanding a fellow cardinal, he never retracted the substance of the charge.

Third, it was Sodano who sparked international outrage last year by using a platform during Pope Benedict's Easter Mass to compare criticism of the church on the sexual abuse crisis to "petty gossip."

Cardinal Schonborn and the Vatican's “Moral Filth”

(Part Two of this post is here)

I have no idea if Christoph Cardinal Schonborn, the Archbishop of Vienna, should be the next pope or if he stands much of a chance of being considered seriously, but I do know that he is a man of proven conscience with respect to the moral issue of clergy sexual abuse and that the willingness of Schonborn to challenge key Vatican leaders on the issue is an important subtext to the election of a new pope. While Pope Benedict spoke with great urgency about the “moral filth” that had penetrated the heart of the Church through the leadership’s deep complicity in the crimes of sexual abuse, it has been Cardinal Schonborn more than any other Cardinal in the Church who has spoken and acted with the fierce spiritual urgency that the revelation of these sins calls forth in the Christian Soul. I quote here in full the best article on Schoborn’s courageous stand against the leadership of the Vatican and for the victims of abuse noting only that the Cardinal Sodano referred to in the article was “the second-most-powerful official in the church under Pope John Paul II, and he remains dean of the College of Cardinals, which means he would preside” over the conclave that will choose Benedict’s replacement. The struggle between Sodano and Schonborn is a key underlying story in the election of the next pope, as John Allen has reported extensively. Now, to the 2010 article in The Guardian on Schonborn’s courageous stand:

Would any other cardinal but Christoph Schönborn, the Archbishop of Vienna, have joined protesters against clerical sexual abuse in a reconciliation service in his own cathedral and spoken as he did – a service with the motto: "I am furious, God"?

Schönborn began by reading out a long and dramatic admission of the Church's guilt. He thanked the abuse victims for breaking their silence and said that abuse in the Church was particularly serious, because it defiled God's holy name. The Church must "get off its high horse", which was without doubt a painful process, he said, "but what is that pain compared to the victims' pain which we overlooked and did not hear?"

A month later, at a press briefing, Schönborn said that in meeting accusations from the general public that abuse cases had been hushed up, the Vatican had reacted "rather clumsily". He was remarkably outspoken about one of the most senior cardinals in the Catholic Church, Angelo Sodano, Secretary of State under Pope John Paul II and now dean of the College of Cardinals, who on Easter Sunday in the Pope's presence had called the reports of clerical sexual abuse "petty gossip".

Sodano had "deeply wronged the victims", Schönborn said, and he then revealed that when the then Joseph Ratzinger as head of the doctrinal congregation had wanted to investigate allegations of abuse against his predecessor in Vienna, Cardinal Hans Hermann Groer, it had been Cardinal Sodano who had stood in the way. The Roman Curia was "urgently in need of reform", he added for good measure; more consideration should be given to the "quality of homosexual relationships", as stable partnerships were certainly better than promiscuous ones; and the Church needed to reconsider its attitude to the divorced and remarried "as many people no longer marry at all".

Last week Schönborn went to Rome to see the Pope. According to many of the international media reports, he was "chastised", "rebuked" "rapped over the knuckles" and even "slammed".

But Austrian church insiders remained calm. Schönborn has supposedly been chastised by the Vatican so often in the last fifteen years and yet has emerged stronger and more prominent each time than before. And behind the scenes, his open criticism of Cardinal Sodano is being applauded even in bishops" circles.

So what really happened? Schönborn's audience with Pope Benedict went well. After 38 years – the then Joseph Ratzinger was Schönborn's teacher – the two are as close as ever. I would think it inconceivable that Schönborn would have spoken out about Sodano without the Pope's foreknowledge. But when the Pope asked Sodano and the present Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, to join him and Schönborn, the whole atmosphere would seem to have changed. As one would expect in a confrontation between two very angry cardinals.

Whether by ancient tradition or deliberately, or a mixture of both, the wording of Vatican communiqués often closely resembles the clues in cryptic crosswords, where each clue is a puzzle in and of itself. That is why they are usually open to a broad spectrum of interpretations.

According to the official communiqué published immediately after the meeting, Schönborn had asked for a private audience as he wished to report to the Pope personally, first, on the situation of the Church in Austria, secondly on his statements about church discipline, and thirdly on the role Cardinal Sodano played in the Groer affair. When the Pope asked the other two cardinals to join them, "some widely-circulated misunderstandings partially derived from some comments of Cardinal Schönborn were clarified and resolved", we are given to understand.

Schönborn expressed his regret "over the interpretations given", we are told. Two of these "misunderstandings" are then clarified in detail: "when accusations are made against a cardinal, the competence rests solely with the Pope"; and the expression "petty gossip" used by Cardinal Sodano had been "erroneously interpreted as a lack of respect for the victims of sexual abuse". In reality, the communiqué said, it was taken literally from the Pope's Palm Sunday homily, and referred to "the chatter of dominant opinion".

On his return to Vienna Schönborn himself first said that there would be no further comment on his part, but his press spokesman drew attention to the fact that the cardinal had not retracted any of his statements. Two days later Schönborn emphasised that in stating that "when accusations are made against a cardinal, the competence (of judgement) rests solely with the Pope", the Vatican communiqué was referring to the case of Cardinal Groer. Clearly, Schönborn wanted to underline that it did not refer to his criticism of Cardinal Sodano.

Between Schönborn or Sodano, only time will tell who will win. But age is on Schönborn's side – he is 65 - whereas Cardinal Sodano is 83. Schönborn is a conservative in matters of doctrine, but in favour of absolute honesty, especially as far as clearing up clerical sexual abuse is concerned, and wants to see the Church open to dialogue with the world as advocated by the Second Vatican Council. Sodano would seem above all to be determined to continue first and foremost to protect the Church's image. The Church's credibility and the reputation of Pope Benedict are at stake in the middle of what has been called the worst crisis the Catholic Church has experienced since the Reformation. Certainly as far as the next papal conclave is concerned, Schönborn has done himself no harm at all.

Quick Thoughts on Benedict's Retirement

I'm not much into blogging lately, but a few quick thoughts prompted by the extraordinary news of the day concerning Pope Benedict's decision to step away from the papacy:

1) It is an act of great humility in keeping with the Ratzinger/Benedict that people closest to him speak of. I admire him for it.

2) The early years of the youthful John Paul II's papacy dramatically changed the expectations of the men who serve as pope, and the latter years of his papacy which were marked by continual health problems demonstrated the effects of a weakened pope upon the Catholic Church. Ratzinger was a vital part of the Vatican through both of those stages and I believe the lessons learned from both stages effected his decision as Pope Benedict to step down. As historically significant and unique as it is, this is a decision that was in some ways predictable given Benedict's experience with John Paul II, and it could well become the norm. Here is a key quote from his speech this morning announcing his retirement:
"In today's world, subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith, in order to govern the barque of St. Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months, has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me."

3) A fascinating replacement would be Cardinal Christopher Schonborn. He is a figure of great intellectual capacity and conersvative theological leanings, but tremendously pastoral and prophetic in his response to the sexual abuse crisis. I suspect there will be a strong push for him in the Western media, and I would be quite pleased to see him elevated. Here is the transcript of an interview he gave to my favorite Vatican journalis,  John Allen, in the Fall of 2012.

The Hitler Analogy

My good friend Todd Thomas, who I blog with at a different site, has written a helpful response to the latest attempts to compare a sitting president to Hitler. I have written on this in the past with respect to Eric Metaxas' rhetorical bombs against Obama and the HHS Mandate on contraception and I am glad to see Todd challenging this latest effort by some  to compare the president's gun control proposals to Hitler. I particularly appreciated Todd's words to Christians engaged in this kind of language:

This is a problem of American discourse, not just of one political party or political persuasion. And when followers of Christ engage in it, it becomes a spiritual problem, a spiritual short-sightedness.

Of all of my friends and neighbors who believe that implicating connections and commonalities between their political adversaries and an historical evil such as Adolf Hitler, I ask only this: Find something constructive to do with your time. It might look like this…

1.              Find someone to encourage.

2.              Find someone to help.

3.              Pray for the political leader you feel the urge to slander and defame.

4.              Pray for people around the world suffering under political and tyrannical regimes that are actually reminiscent of Adolph Hitler’s abuses and murderous evil.

The Christian Humanism of the Heretic Victor Hugo

I have blogged this morning at a different site about my love for Les Miserables the musical, and my growing appreciation for Les Miserables the novel as I read my way through it for the first time during Advent and in anticipation of the movie’s release on Christmas Day. I mentioned in that post that the musical is for me a powerful embodiment of Christian humanism, a theme recently explored by Roger Olson at his blog. As I was working on my post I came across a profound meditation on the novel and its author, Victor Hugo, at the website of Touchstone Magazine. The author of the lengthy article, Addison Hart, carefully analyzes the religious themes in Les Miserables and on the religious convictions of Hugo.  Hart shares details of Hugo’s long life that point to the conclusion that Hugo was “a man of blemished religious and moral character by basic Christian standards”, but he goes on to demonstrate how affected Hugo was by the Gospels and how Les Miserables's themes are rich reflections of Christian humanism.

Hugo, with all his Romanticism, panentheism, theosophical musings, spiritualism, and moral struggles, still managed to come closer to the practical heart of Christ’s gospel than many authors of a more orthodox faith. To step across the threshold into the world of this vast novel is immediately to encounter the three greatest themes in all literature: God, mankind, and the human soul…

The themes of Les Misérables…are Christian themes, themes that would be inconceivable without the unique revelation of God in Jesus Christ. Victor Hugo consciously drew on these “sentiments abstractly Christian,” even though he himself stood on the boundaries of the Christian faith. If nothing else, this very fact testifies to the inherent power of the themes themselves, no matter what the limitations of the writer might be. Hugo was a heretic, but his book is a path leading us back to the God who became man and redeemed us. It is a book that may even provoke us to pray and live as better Christians. And, finally, it is the vision of God’s love that Les Misérables conveys, so close to the heart of the gospel, to which people respond in their hearts for reasons they might not fully understand. Christians could do worse than recognize the nature of its inherent appeal and consider how we ourselves present to others the love we see in Christ.

A Lincoln Conversion Story

My good friend John Armstrong has started what promises to be an enlightening series of reflections on Steven Spielberg’s new film Lincoln. There has been so much good stuff written about this movie already, but John brings a unique angle to his commentary on the film because he was raised in the Deep South.

Growing up in the Deep South I often heard the Confederate version of why honest Abe was anything but an honest and good man. I heard about a bad president who sent troops to invade our homeland. I heard about the president who suspended the writ of habeus corpus in order to attain his own political interests. (People who hated Lincoln hated him more than any moderns have ever hated either George W. Bush or Barack Obama.)

Armstrong’s thoughts about Lincoln changed as he studied him and the broader contours of American history. He now loves Lincoln “for his plainness, for his ability to think logically and consistently, for his clarity of political and moral purpose, for his willingness to change and, most of all, for his amazing courage.” I feel much the same way about Lincoln. When I used to teach I would tell my students that Lincoln was one of the few figures in history who the more you study, the more you respect. Usually, particularly with political figures, it is quite the opposite.

My New Blogging Site

In addition to this blog, I am excited to be doing another blog with my good friend Todd Thomas, pastor of Church in Bethesda where my family attends. The idea of a new blog has been growing in me for a while. I have been blogging alone at this Faith and Common Good site and been focused on issues related to religion, politics and international affairs. While I have enjoyed that work and plan to continue it, I have felt that I have other things I need to say. I have begun to yearn for a new outlet where I could write in community with a kindred spirit about topics that flow more directly from my own experiences of grace, my own joys, my own loves. This seemed a good idea to Todd as well, and so here we are--Live Your Loves! I hope you will check it out!