Eu levanto-me!

Vale a pena ler este texto lúcido de Teresa Toldy sobre as recentes alterações efectuadas pela Congregação da Doutrina da Fé em matéria de delitos graves e que equipara (ou não totalmente) a ordenação de mulheres e a pedofilia (o que no mínimo revela grave insensibilidade em relação a ambos os temas).

Aqui fica o texto que nos chegou por mão amiga:

«A Sagrada Congregação para a Doutrina da Fé emitiu um documento com “Normas substantivas” para julgar “delitos contra a fé, assim comodelitos graves cometidos contra a moral e na celebração dos sacramentos” (Parag. 1).

Entre estes delitos graves encontram-se os de“tentativa de ordenação de uma mulher” (Artº 5) e aqueles quesão “cometidos contra o sexto mandamento do decálogo, cometidos por umclérigo com um menor de dezoito anos” (Artº 6).

O documento é extenso, incluindo outros delitos, sobretudo relacionados com os sacramentos, bem como pormenores relativamente à instrução dos processos que exigiriam uma análise detalhada por parte de um canonista. Limitar-me-ei a comentar alguns aspectos dos dois artigos referidos: o 5º e o 6º.

Quanto ao artigo 6º, note-se que o documento refere actos cometidos contra o sexto mandamento, que manda “guardar castidade nosactos e nas palavras”. Significa isto que os actos de abuso de menoressão aqui referidos eufemísticamente como “atentados contra a castidade”.

Atente-se na linguagem “sacra” e mistificadora utilizada paradescrever os crimes em causa. Não é utilizado o termo “pedofilia”, nem é referido que a instrução de um processo dentro da Igreja não dispensa a instrução de um processo criminal, nos tribunais própriosdos Estados de direito.

Pergunto-me como se sentirão as vítimas, pois nem me atrevo a daropinião sobre isso, por respeito pelo seu sofrimento.

Poder-se-á perguntar também, quando o acto em causa é designado comosendo atentatório ao 6º mandamento, à castidade de quem se refere? À do clérigo ou à da vítima?

Quanto à punição prevista: diz o parágrafo 2º do mesmo documento que “um clérigo que cometa os delitos mencionados” será “punido de acordo com a gravidade do seu crime, não estando excluídas a demissão ou adeposição”. Portanto, depreende-se que há graus de gravidade nos actosde pedofilia, melhor, de atentado à castidade. Quais serão esses graus?

Quanto ao artigo 5º., diz-se que o clérigo que tente ordenar uma mulher “pode ser castigado com a demissão ou a deposição”. Por seu lado, a mulher que tente receber a ordem sagrada, “incorre emexcomunhão latae sententiae reservada à Sé Apostólica” (artº 5, 1º).

A associação da ordenação de mulheres a uma lista de erros graves que inclui a pedofilia é, no mínimo, insultuosa. Tanto mais insultuosa quanto relevadora, explicitamente, de que a Igreja Católica, na sua hierarquia, é provavelmente a única instituição à escala global que continua a discriminar as mulheres com base na sua própria identidade, associando-se, assim, a lógicas de pensamento xenófobas e racistas, deacordo com as quais pessoas com determinadas características físicas, constitutivas da sua identidade profunda, estão impedidas de acesso a determinados cargos por causa de possuírem essas mesmas características.

Esta associação é tanto mais grave quanto a pena para um padre ou bispo que tente ordenar uma mulher é enunciada com menos rodeios do que a pena para um clérigo que cometa abuso de menores: no caso deste último, não está excluída a demissão, mas, de acordo com a gravidadedo seu crime…

Chegados a este ponto, no início do século XXI, para que possa continuar a ser legítimo afirmar que nem toda a gente na Igreja pensa assim, que nem todos os clérigos pensam assim, que não se pode tomar a hierarquia pelo todo, será necessário que a hierarquia prove isto mesmo e que se levantem aqueles, no seu seio, que, por amor à Igreja, estejam convencidos da necessidade de não continuar a ferir o Povo de Deus.»

TERESA TOLDY

Should I stay or should I go?

Should I stay or should I go? Clerical-abuse scandal

by Timothy Radcliffe

Fresh revelations of sexual abuse by priests in Germany and Italy have provoked a tide of anger and disgust. I have received emails from people all around Europe asking how can they possibly remain in the Church? I was even sent a form with which to renounce my membership of the Church.

Why stay? First of all, why go? Some people feel that they can no longer remain associated with an institution that is so corrupt and dangerous for children. The suffering of so many children is indeed horrific. They must be our first concern. Nothing that I will write is intended in any way to lessen our horror at the evil of sexual abuse.

But the statistics for the US, from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in 2004, suggest that Catholic clergy do not offend more than the married clergy of other Churches.

Celibacy does not push people to abuse children.

(...)

It is unjust to project backwards an awareness of the nature and seriousness of sexual abuse which simply did not exist then. It was only the rise of feminism in the late 1970s which, by shedding light on the violence of some men against women, alerted us to the terrible damage done to vulnerable children.

But what about the Vatican? Pope Benedict has taken a strong line in tackling this issue as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) and since becoming Pope. Now the finger is pointed at him. (...) There are demonstrators in front of St Peter’s calling for his resignation. I am morally certain that he bears no blame here. It is generally imagined that the Vatican is a vast and efficient organisation. In fact it is tiny. The CDF only employs 45 people, dealing with doctrinal and disciplinary issues for a Church which has 1.3 billion members, 17 per cent of the world’s population, and some 400,000 priests.

(...)People are furious with the Vatican’s failure to open up its files and offer a clear explanation of what happened. Why is it so secretive? Angry and hurt Catholics feel a right to transparent government. I agree. But we must, in justice, understand why the Vatican is so self-protective. There were more martyrs in the twentieth century than in all the previous centuries combined. Bishops and priests, Religious and laity were assassinated in Western Europe, in Soviet countries, in Africa, Latin America and Asia.

Many Catholics still suffer imprisonment and death for their faith.

And some people in the media do, without any doubt, wish to damage the credibility of the Church. But we owe a debt of gratitude to the press for its insistence that the Church face its failures. If it had not been for the media, then this shameful abuse might have remained unaddressed.

Why go? If it is to find a safer haven, a less corrupt Church, then I think that you will be disappointed. I too long for more transparent government, more open debate, but the Church’s secrecy is understandable, and sometimes necessary. To understand is not always to condone, but necessary if we are to act justly.

Why stay? I must lay my cards on the table; even if the Church were obviously worse than other Churches, I still would not go. I am not a Catholic because our Church is the best, or even because I like Catholicism. I do love much about my Church but there are aspects of it which I dislike. I am not a Catholic because of a consumer option for an ecclesiastical Waitrose rather than Tesco, but because I believe that it embodies something which is essential to the Christian witness to the Resurrection, visible unity. When Jesus died, his community fell apart. He had been betrayed, denied, and most of his disciples fled. It was chiefly the women who accompanied him to the end. On Easter Day, he appeared to the disciples. This was more than the physical resuscitation of a dead corpse. In him God triumphed over all that destroys community: sin, cowardice, lies, misunderstanding, suffering and death. The Resurrection was made visible to the world in the astonishing sight of a community reborn. These cowards and deniers were gathered together again.

(...) All Christians are one in the Body of Christ. I have deepest respect and affection for Christians from other Churches who nurture and inspire me. But this unity in Christ needs some visible embodiment. Christianity is not a vague spirituality but a religion of incarnation, in which the deepest truths take the physical and sometimes institutional form. Historically this unity has found its focus in Peter, the Rock in Matthew, Mark and Luke, and the shepherd of the flock in John’s gospel. From the beginning and throughout history, Peter has often been a wobbly rock, a source of scandal, corrupt, and yet this is the one – and his successors – whose task is to hold us together so that we may witness to Christ’s defeat on Easter Day of sin’s power to divide. And so the Church is stuck with me whatever happens. We may be embarrassed to admit that we are Catholics, but Jesus kept shameful company from the beginning.

Abalo na Igreja IV

O texto aqui publicado em inglês foi para nós traduzido pelo António Alte da Veiga, com esta epígrafe: "Eles podem falar comigo porque «dormi com eles na cama, sou da mesma condição" (Pedro Homem de Mello/Amália Rodrigues)

Paddy McCafferty é um padre que foi ele próprio vítima de abuso do clero. Ele oferece-se como uma ponte entre os que sofreram como ele e a Igreja.

Comecei a falar publicamente em 1996 porque senti que os bispos não respondiam às vítimas com compaixão e verdadeira vontade de ser justos. Isso não me trouxe amigos e sofri real hostilidade, mas não era o que me preocupava. Eu queria, como padre, mostrar solidariedade às vítimas desses crimes. Foi uma tarefa difícil porque eu tinha as minhas próprias feridas desde criança e seminarista.
A resignação forçada do Cardeal Arcebispo de Boston, Bernard Law, em Dezembro de 2002, foi um catalisador. Nessa altura pedi publicamente a resignação do Cardeal Desmond Connell, então Arcebispo de Dublin, que só foi aceite por João Paulo II em Abril de 2004.
O relatório Murphy sobre abusos na Diocese de Dublin mostrou que o Cardeal Connell tinha tratado “mal” os escândalos dos abusos porque ele foi “lento em reconhecer a gravidade da situação”. As respostas que ele deu sobre o conhecimento dessas actividades sob o seu controlo foram julgadas inadequadas.
Sem fé não teria sobrevivido à depressão que sofri. Graças a Deus, eu tinha uma boa experiência na Igreja e isso ajudou-me a separar o abuso de padres e a minha fé em Deus, mas a minha vida espiritual foi afectada e conduziu-me a uma escuridão terrível. A oração já não me dava conforto e ainda sofro muito com a depressão.
Tenho agora 47 anos e trabalho numa paróquia enquanto preparo o doutoramento no Milltown Institute. A minha tese é em teologia da Cruz como um conforto para os sobreviventes de abuso. Faço algum trabalho pastoral não oficial com vítimas de abuso. A maioria das vítimas que me contactaram não foram abusadas pelo clero, mas algumas foram, e estas sentem que podem falar comigo porque sofri a mesma experiência.
Muito mais deste assunto tem de ser contado e a Igreja tem de continuar a ouvir. Os abusos cometidos pelo clero são diferentes dos outros abusos, porque se alguém foi abusado na família talvez encontre conforto na fé e na Igreja. As vítimas de abuso do clero sentem geralmente que esse conforto lhes está vedado.
É necessário que estes casos sejam totalmente transparentes e que se ponha fim a este lento escape do escândalo. Deixem isto vir à luz numa sessão de verdade para todos os bispos.
Não deve haver qualquer esconderijo para qualquer cardeal, bispo ou qualquer um que ponha crianças em perigo. Mas este lento escape de escândalos e o frenesim público que se lhe segue retraumatiza as vítimas, traz-lhes novamente a angústia e mergulha-as no inferno. É como picar novamente a ferida. Põe em perigo o bem-estar mental das vítimas. Algumas aguentam, outras não.

(Fr. Paddy McCafferty é capelão paroquial em Rathmines, Dublin. Deu uma entrevista a Sarah Mac Donald, jornalista freelance.)


Aqui fica também a carta enviada por Bento XVI aos Irlandeses.

Abalo na Igreja - III

Estes dois artigos do "The Tablet", de 3 de Abril, são notáveis por várias razões:

O primeiro é de um padre de 47 anos e que foi vitima de pedofilia da parte de um padre. Diz claramente que se não tivesse fé não tinha aguentado o sofrimento.
O outro é de um canonista que há 25 anos trata de casos de crianças vitimas de abusos sexuais.
Ambos apresentam de modo impressionante o sofrimento e as marcas profundissimas dos abusos sofridos da parte de padres.
Outra razão é que o que apresentam não é "contra" ou "a favor" do Papa e da Igreja Católica: são a favor de uma atitude justa para com os principais intervenientes: as vitimas. Vê-se também que conhecem bem a realidade e os processos.
Votos a todos de uma Páscoa vivida por dentro do Mistério da nossa Fé: dar-se totalmente à maneira de Jesus ("não há maior amor do que dar a vida pelos outros") e assim mergulhar na libertação "radical" (pela raiz) da Morte, do Desamor e do Mal.
frei Eugénio

‘They can talk to me because I’ve been in their shoes’
Paddy McCafferty is a priest who was himself a victim of clerical abuse. He is offering to act as a bridge between those like himself who have suffered, and the Church

I began to speak out publicly in 1996 because I felt the bishops weren’t responding to victims with compassion and a true desire to be just. It didn’t make me any friends, and I experienced real hostility, but that wasn’t my main concern. I wanted to show solidarity as a priest to the victims of these crimes. It was a difficult and painful journey and it brought me to the brink because I had my own wounds.
The forced resignation of the Cardinal Archbishop of Boston, Bernard Law, in December 2002, was a catalyst. At the time I called publicly for the resignation of Cardinal Desmond Connell, then Archbishop of Dublin, whose retirement as archbishop Pope John Paul II accepted in April 2004.
The Murphy report on abuse in Dublin Diocese subsequently found that Cardinal Connell had handled the abuse scandals “badly” as he was “slow to recognise the seriousness of the situation”. Answers he gave regarding the extent of his knowledge of the abusive activities of priests under his control were regarded as inadequate.
In 2003, before the cardinal’s resignation, I had a nervous breakdown, and as a result I had to seek help. I’d been putting a sticking plaster on deep wounds that needed healing. I had suffered abuse as a child and then as a seminarian. The Diocese of Down and Connor funded counselling in the United States because one of my abusers was a priest.
Without faith I would not be alive. Thank God, I’d experienced plenty of good in the Church and that’s what helped me separate the abuse by the priest from my faith in God. I knew that the abuse had nothing to do with God. But it did affect my spiritual life.
It caused me to go into terrible darkness, and prayer didn’t bring me the comfort it
had always brought me. I still suffer a lot with depression, but I just try to keep going.
I am now 47 and work as a parish chaplain while studying for a doctorate at the Milltown Institute. My thesis is on the theology of the Cross as a comfort to survivors of abuse. I do some unofficial pastoral work with victims of abuse. Some of them have contacted me, having heard me speak publicly about my experiences; others have heard of me through the rape crisis centre.
Most of the victims who have contacted me are not victims of clerical abuse. But there are some who are, and they feel they can talk to me because I’ve been in their shoes.
A lot more of the story needs to be told and the Church needs to continue to listen.
It needs to study and engage with the spiritual effects and spiritual harm caused by clerical abuse.
Abuse by clergy is different from other abuse, because if you were abused in your family, you can perhaps find comfort and healing in faith and the Church. Victims of clerical abuse often feel that that comfort is shut down to them.
There needs to be complete transparency about what occurred and an end to this slow release of scandal. Let it all come out into the open through a truth session of some form for every bishop in the country.
There should be no hiding place for any cardinal, bishop or anybody who has endangered children. But this slow release of scandal and the public frenzy that follows re-traumatises victims. It brings them back into their anguish and plunges them into hell. It is like puncturing the wound again. It is draining and endangers victims’ mental well-being. It puts them at risk of despair.
Some can take so much but some can’t. It is putting straws on camels’ backs, and each revelation could be the one straw that breaks the camel’s back.

Fr. Paddy McCafferty is a parish chaplain in Rathmines, Dublin. He spoke to Sarah.
Mac Donald, a freelance journalist.


‘Church officials often rebuffed the victims’
A canon lawyer involved with child-abuse cases for 25 years, Thomas Patrick Doyle
believes the Church must move beyond the facts and consider why such abuse happens

There is no doubt Pope Benedict truly believed that his pastoral letter to the Irish people would have a healing effect. Yet widespread reactions confirm that it not only failed in this respect, but in fact was a cause of more pain and certainly more anger.
The victims of sexual abuse, the most important of those to whom the letter was addressed, saw only more words when what they desperately hoped for was action. The Pope, his curial officials and far too many bishops persist in believing that their words are equivalent to action and will change reality. From that standpoint alone, the letter is a failure.
On the positive side, Pope Benedict acknowledged the toxic role of clericalism as a cause of the scandal. Yet he neutralized this realistic assessment by shifting blame to the secular culture and what he believes to be a misinterpretation of the Second Vatican Council. A more serious flaw was placing the “immense harm to victims” on the same level as the damage done to the institutional Church and to the image of the priesthood. There is no comparison.
The violation of victims by trusted clerics and the rejection by bishops is far worse than harm. It is the murder of their souls.
It is clear that the Pope believes that the path to healing is through reconciliation with the institutional Church. But for many victims, that would symbolise a return to their abuse.
The injection of several references to the reputation and renewal of the Church reveals that the core issue for the Vatican, even if not consciously acknowledged by the Holy Father, is not healing the victims or purging the evil, but power – the institutional Church’s power – and the assurance that more of it won’t be lost.
The tumultuous week ended with the reve lation of official documents regarding the case in the United States of a priest in Milwaukee who had molested 200 deaf boys. The papers showed that the then Archbishop of Milwaukee, Rembert Weakland, wrote to Pope Benedict in his then capacity as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, requesting that the priest be defrocked. Cardinal Ratzinger did not reply, but eight months later the priest was subject to a canonical trial, later halted after the priest wrote to the future Pope, saying he had repented.
Then there was the case in Germany when the Pope was Archbishop of Munich, where an abusive priest from another diocese was transferred to the city, and after being sent for therapy went back to work. The vicargeneral of the time in Munich said he had made the decision.
The resulting media frenzy was predictable. The Vatican and its supporters faced off with the expected denials and blame-shifting. Yet the latest revelations, even though they implicate the Pope, should not be shocking because they are part of a church-wide culture. This includes accusations that the media is engaged in a campaign to defame the Pope and bring nothing but embarrassment to the Church.
The problem with these claims is that the secular media didn’t invent the cause of embarrassment, nor did it fabricate stories to stoke public outrage. The Pope himself admitted that when victims found the courage to speak, “no one would listen”. Not only would no one listen, but church officials often rebuffed the victims, telling them to avoid the media and to keep it a secret. In so doing, they sentenced the victims to return to their prisons of shame, fear and guilt.
It took the media to rip away the Church’s protective blanket of denial and give voice to the victims. Had they not spearheaded this exposure, carried to even deeper levels by the civil court actions, there is little doubt that the abuse would have continued.
The press in several countries continues to report what Church defenders dismiss as “old cases”. No matter how “old” the case is, it is not a dossier of paper. It is a human being who was once an innocent, devout and trusting Catholic child who now, as an adult, still lives with the intense pain and spiritual isolation that the years cannot heal.
The victims were pushed into the shadows back then, and today, in the middle of the debate, one wonders what has changed. They have suffered devastation and yet they are still relegated to the shadows by a Church obsessed with protecting its hierarchy.
What we need now is a fearless probing of the clerical caste and hierarchical governing culture of the Church to determinewhy the spiritual welfare of the Church’s most vulnerable members was sacrificed for the image and power of the institution and its office-holders. All the expressions of regret and sympathy offered by the Pope and the bishops will be meaningless unless they move past the fact that it happened to the threatening question of why it happened.

Thomas Patrick Doyle is the co-author of Sex, Priests, and Secret Codes: the Catholic Church’s 2,000-year paper trail of sexual abuse. He is a drug and alcohol counsellor on a military base in North Carolina, USA.

Abalo na Igreja

Sobre a questão da pedofilia - que está a causar um abalo na Igreja Católica que não tem precedentes - é dada aqui por Anselmo Borges uma boa achega para a reflexão que urge fazer.

"O pior, no meio deste imenso escândalo, foi a muralha de silêncio, erguida por quem tinha a obrigação primeira de defender as vítimas. Afinal, apenas deslocavam os abusadores, que, noutros lugares, continuavam a tragédia.
Há na Igreja uma pecha: o importante é que se não saiba, para evitar o escândalo. Ela tem, aliás, raízes estruturais: o sistema eclesiástico, clerical e hierárquico, acabou por criar a imagem de que os hierarcas teriam maior proximidade de Deus e do sagrado, de tal modo que ficavam acima de toda a suspeita. Mas, deste modo, aconteceu o pior: esqueceu-se as vítimas - no caso, crianças e adolescentes, remetidos para o silêncio e sem defesa."

Outra contribuição para a reflexão é este artigo de António Marujo, no Público.

"A mês e meio da viagem de Bento XVI a Portugal, percebe-se que a crise continuará a revelar mais casos. Como em todas as histórias, percebe-se que também há interessados em atingir a credibilidade da Igreja. Mas esta tem que ser a primeira a reflectir o porquê dessa aversão e a procurar razões no seu interior – uma atitude própria desta Semana Santa que os cristãos hoje começam a viver. O cerco à volta de Ratzinger também continuará. Será, por isso, um Papa ferido aquele que virá a Portugal. Talvez rodeado por grupos interessados prioritariamente em defender a instituição dos “ataques” – já correm textos nesse sentido na Internet, em blogues, em mails…

Convém não esquecer que foi a preocupação pela defesa da honra da instituição que levou ao actual estado de coisas. Só uma atitude purificadora e aberta à mudança permitirá à Igreja recuperar a credibilidade perdida nesta crise. Os cristãos chamam a esse acontecimento ressurreição. E celebram-na no próximo domingo."

A maior crise da Igreja Católica dos últimos 100 anos - Mundo - PUBLICO.PT