CARDINAL DARIO Castrillón Hoyos has claimed that Pope Benedict XVI, as cardinal prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), was involved in a 2001 decision to praise a French bishop for protecting a priest convicted of raping a boy and sexually assaulting 10 others.According to the Associated Press, Cardinal Castrillón told Colombia’s RCN radio on 22 April that the decision to send a congratulatory letter to Bishop Pierre Pican of Bayeux-Lisieux was the product of a high-level meeting that included the then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.
“It was a meeting of cardinals,” he said. “Therefore the current Pope [Benedict XVI], who at the time was a cardinal, was present. The Pope [John Paul II] was never at those meetings. However, the Holy Father was indeed present when we spoke about this matter in the council, and the cardinals ruled,” Cardinal Castrillón reportedly said.
It is the second time that the Colombian-born cardinal, who was prefect of the Congregation for Clergy in 2001, has claimed that Pope John Paul authorised his letter to Bishop Pican but the first time that he has attempted to implicate the former Cardinal Ratzinger in the controversial decision.
Cardinal Ratzinger’s attendance at such a meeting would be normal. He and Cardinal Castrillón would have met regularly at the time as fellow members of several Vatican congregations.
But the suggestion that the future Pope supported the sending of a letter is less plausible. That same year – 2001 – the CDF issued new procedures to be followed by bishops in cases of clerical sexual abuse of minors. These included the specific instruction that bishops should report such allegations to the police.
The instruction is spelt out in a lay guide to the procedures that was placed on the Vatican website on 12 April.
The Vatican has continued to reject any claims that Pope Benedict was complicit in cover-ups, insisting that he has done more than anyone else in the Church to deal openly and swiftly with sexual abuse by priests.
On Saturday, Cardinal Castrillón was due to celebrate the old-rite Mass at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC, but was replaced days ahead of the event as news emerged of the letter he had sent to Bishop Pican.
Bishop Edward Slattery, of Tulsa, Oklahoma, who is familiar with the rite, filled in at the last minute as celebrant.
Another prelate to be tarnished by the abuse scandal is Roger Vangheluwe, 73, who stunned Belgium on 23 April by resigning for sexually abusing a young male nephew “before and a little bit after” he became Bishop of Bruges in 1984.
Meanwhile, Bishop Anders Arborelius of Stockholm said he is prepared to resign over the Church’s failure to investigate abuse allegations made in 1990.
One of the alleged victims claimed the Church had failed to take her allegations seriously for the past two decades despite meeting with Bishop Arborelius in 2003 as well as having also contacted the previous bishop, Hubertus Brandenburg, and another senior figure in Sweden’s Catholic Church.
The crisis threatens to reach catastrophic proportions. A staggering 6.25 million German Catholics, that is a quarter of the German Church, are expected to leave the Church this year because of the scandal, according to a poll in the Frankfurter Rundschau daily.
This will cost the Church millions of euros as people leaving opt out of paying church tax (8 per cent of income tax).
In Austria, 30,000 Catholics have left the Church this year, compared to 21,000 by this time last year, which was a record year.
The Pope on Sunday thanked all those who are “dedicated to the prevention” of “violence, abuse and indifference” against children.
Paying tribute to a Sicilian child-protection charity, Meter, he thanked “parents, teachers and many priests, sisters and catechists”.
SIC: The Tablet