AP Interview: Vatican sex crimes prosecutor on sin

AP Interview: Vatican sex crimes prosecutor on sin

hosted.ap.org

VATICAN CITY (AP) -- When Pope Benedict XVI announced last month he was transferring his respected sex crimes prosecutor to Malta to become a bishop, Vatican watchers immediately questioned whether the Holy See's tough line on clerical abuse was going soft - and if another outspoken cleric was being punished for doing his job too well.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Sorry if this was posted already, but I didn't see it during a search. Anyways, this is the first I've heard of this and I find the Vatican's decision suspiciously coinciding with the UK paedophile scandal that broke last month. It really makes me wonder if the sex crimes investigator's transfer and "promotion" are related to the goings on with the UK paedo rings being investigated -- especially Jimmy Sevile's revealing. After all, Parliament (or the Palace) had to contact the Vatican to get permission to take away Sevile's knighthood. Reading about this raised several red flags for me. I wouldn't have thought for a second that the Queen needed the Pope's permission to strike one's knighthood. After all, all the evidence was there and Sevile's family had already taken it upon themselves to destroy his headstone.

So, ATSers, do you believe that the Vatican's sex crime investigator's transfer was related to Sevile and/or the UK paedo rings? Did the investigator know and not say anything, or had he reported his damning discovery, but the Vatican chose to ignore his evidence?

I think the Vatican chose to ignore his findings and had to give him a "promotion" in order to keep him quiet.

Scicluna was named the Vatican's promoter of justice in 2002, a year after then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger pushed through church legislation requiring bishops to send all credible abuse allegations to his office for review and instructions on how to proceed.

Ratzinger, now pope, took over after realizing that bishops were simply moving abusive priests from parish to parish rather than prosecuting them under church law, and would continue to do so unless Rome intervened.

It appears to me that the Bishops may have still been transferring church paedos instead of reporting them so they could face prosecution.

The investigator was obviously good at his job.

In his decade on the job, Scicluna became something of the face of the Holy See's efforts to show it was serious about ending decades of sex crimes and cover-up by the church hierarchy. Short, round and affable, with tiny hands and a garrulous laugh, Scicluna, 53, didn't speak out frequently, since much of his work was done behind closed doors, covered by pontifical secret.

But when he did, it carried weight.

"Scicluna embodied the zero-tolerance line on sex abuse," veteran Vatican reporter Andrea Tornielli wrote recently.

His actions, too, often spoke louder than words.

"Scicluna did a remarkable job," said Juan Vaca, a former priest who was the first abuse victim Scicluna interviewed in the long-delayed investigation of the Rev. Marcial Maciel, the once-exalted founder of the now-disgraced Legion of Christ religious order. In the years that followed Maciel's church condemnation, "he continued to prosecute other similar cases with the same integrity," Vaca told AP.

However, he's made it clear that he's not going to stop working on finding and prosecuting church paedophiles.

Scicluna insisted he not only will continue to work with the Holy See on abuse issues, but will do so now wielding the authority of a bishop, a job he considers his vocation after marking his first quarter-century as a priest last year.

"So I can tell bishops to listen to me now as a fellow bishop. That gives me in the Roman Catholic Church a qualitative leap into what I say." he said.

Yet, it appears as though the Vatican will continue to cover up sex crimes no matter what.

In fact, in recent years, civil law has begun going where the Vatican has so far refused, prosecuting bishops and high-ranking church officials for covering up the crimes of the priests in their care and failing to report suspected abuse to police.

Considering all the sex crimes involving powerful people within the UK and the Vatican, I believe that they are making a combined orchestrated effort to protect each other and anyone who doesn't agree with them is sent elsewhere so their voices become the equivalent of a whisper.

In closing,

Yet at last week's national meeting of U.S. bishops in Baltimore, church leaders made no public comment on Finn's failure to follow the bishops' own policy on reporting suspected child abuse to civil authorities. He remains a bishop and participated fully in the meeting. Also attending was Cardinal Justin Rigali, who retired as archbishop of Philadelphia in disgrace after failing to fix an archdiocese that was faulted by the same grand jury indictment that accused Lynn of endangering children.

Scicluna acknowledged that the pope has yet to discipline any bishop for negligence in handling an abuse case. While Cardinal Bernard Law resigned in 2002 after the abuse scandal erupted in his Boston archdiocese, he wasn't sanctioned and was in fact named archpriest of one of the Vatican's pre-eminent Rome basilicas - a cushy promotion to his critics.

Church law provides for bishops to be punished for negligence, and in the past year Benedict has forcibly removed a handful of bishops for mismanagement and doctrinal dissent in a hint that he may be more willing than ever to get rid of problem bishops. The issue is theologically problematic, though, because bishops are considered by divine right to be the stewards of their dioceses.

"The rules are there but they need to be applied" when it comes to disciplining bishops who botch abuse cases, Scicluna said. "People make mistakes. They need to repent and change their ways. But if they are not able to repent and change their ways, they should not be bishops."

hosted.ap.org
(visit the link for the full news article)

A few points, firstly the man's name was Jimmy Savile, not Sevile, very important to get names right when naming paedophiles as the BBC found out to their cost recently.

Secondly the Queen does not need permission from the Vatican to revoke a knighthood, where on earth did you hear that? The decision is made by a committee and finalised by the Queen.

The forfeiture committee – whose members include the cabinet secretary, the top civil servant at the Home Office, the top lawyer at the Treasury and the top official in the Scottish government – made the decision to recommend the removal Goodwin's knighthood. The Queen has the sole authority to rescind a knighthood, after taking advice from the committee.

Source

You may of course be referring to his papal knighthood which has nothing to do with his UK knighthood bestowed by the Palace. However, in the above article I have quoted, it seems that once a person is dead, their UK knighthood is gone anyway, so there is nothing to revoke

reply to post by destination now


Thanks for correcting my spelling of the pervert's name. Yes, Savile. Sorry I spelled his name wrong, but I hardly think I confused anyone who doesn't live under a rock.

I also apologize for not linking to any article linking the Vatican in regards to SoVile's knighthood, but all you have to do is google that phrase and info pops up.
Here's an article: It does appear that it was the Catholic Church and not Parliament who contacted the Vatican.
www.nodeju.com...
(The site won't allow me to copy the text, so please visit the site to read about it.)

It appears that the Vatican states that the knighthood dies with the person, but I believe that a public ceremony deomnstrating that SoVile is no longer a knight would be a welcome gesture to his victims and others who have been affected.

Found another article that will allow me to copy its text.
www.guardian.co.uk...

LONDON (AP) — The Vatican says it cannot rescind the papal knighthood awarded to television star Jimmy Savile, who emerged as an alleged child sex predator after his death.

But the Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, told The Associated Press on Saturday that the names of people who receive the knighthood don't appear in its yearbook and that the honor dies with the individual.

But, yes, you're correct. It's his Papal Knighthood and not the one the palace bestowed upon him.
Anyways, his knighthood is not the main premise for this thread. It was simply to help illustrate the connection between the Royals, Parliament, and the Vatican. I believe they are all heads of the same monster.

Originally posted by Afterthought

Anyways, this is the first I've heard of this and I find the Vatican's decision suspiciously coinciding with the UK paedophile scandal that broke last month. It really makes me wonder if the sex crimes investigator's transfer and "promotion" are related to the goings on with the UK paedo rings being investigated

Also a Royal Commision in Australia into child abuse....
www.abc.net.au...

Interesting turn of events that reinforces the idea that the Church of England and the Vatican are not interested in stopping the sex crimes against children that they have been well aware of the entire time, but keep covering them up and protecting the sickos.
religion.blogs.cnn.com...

After decades of debate, the Church of England formally voted down draft legislation that would have allowed women to become bishops.

Queen Elizabeth is the Supreme Governor of the Church of England. The two archbishops of the church, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Archbishop of York, along with 24 other bishops, have seats in Parliament in the House of Lords. The Church of England is part of the global Anglican Communion. The Church of England says 1.7 million people take part each month in services and four in 10 people in Brittain say they belong to the church.

Just as we saw in the article that this thread is about, the Bishops are one of the main problems here and they are being protected. I suppose it would be a disaster to the religious paedo ring if women, who are usually more concerned about a child's well being due to their maternal extincts, were allowed to become Bishops. I believe that these women would make sure that the perps were prosecuted and not simply sent elsewhere as though nothing ever happened.