Previously unseen correspondence shows Pope Benedict XVI taking an
active concern for “more rapid” prosecution of abusive priests, over two
decades ago.
A letter from 1988, published for the first time on Dec. 2 in the
Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, details the cardinal and future
Pope's concern that Church officials were not able to act quickly enough
to implement existing penalties in cases of priestly abuse.
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger raised these concerns about how the Church
was handling some priests' “grave and scandalous conduct” in a letter to
Cardinal Jose Lara, then president of a Pontifical commission on canon
law, on Feb. 19, 1988.
At the time, the future Pope Benedict XVI was
serving as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Cardinal Ratzinger noted in the letter that canon law allowed such
priests to be punished through the immediate penalty of “reduction to
the lay state.”
But, he complained, the “complexity of the penal
process” required by canon law presented “considerable difficulty” for
local bishops attempting to revoke the priestly status of offenders.
Because of the difficulty involved in administering this punishment,
Cardinal Ratzinger said that local bishops were choosing instead to seek
a “dispensation from priestly obligations” for abusers.
The cardinal
noted that while this procedure also had the effect of laicizing
priests, it was not an appropriate way to handle men who had disgraced
the priesthood.
He pointed out the significant difference between the punishment of
revoking a priest's faculties, and the virtual favor of dispensing such a
person from priestly obligations.
A dispensation from vows, he said,
“by its very nature, involves a 'grace' in favor of the petitioner.”
“For the good of the faithful,” he wrote, the penalty of revoking
priests' status “ought in some cases … to take precedence over the
request for dispensation from priestly obligations,” through a “more
rapid and simplified penal process.”
He sought Cardinal Lara's advice as
to how Church authorities might speed up the process while following
canon law.
Cardinal Lara concurred with Cardinal Ratzinger's concerns over
“grave conduct,” but worried that swifter and stricter penalties might
obstruct the “fundamental right” of accused priests to defend themselves
against allegations not yet proven.
He appeared to agree with Cardinal Ratzinger's judgment that local
bishops should not seek to revoke priests' status through a papal
dispensation.
Instead of seeking such dispensations from the priesthood,
he said, local bishops should rely on their own “judicial and coercive
power” according to existing canon law.
Cardinal Ratzinger's complaint, however, had hinged on the
observation that canon law made it difficult for bishops to exercise
such power, prompting their choice of recourse to Rome.
Although reforms during the 2000s gave the Vatican's doctrinal
congregation greater freedom to punish abusive priests, the process
remains difficult for local bishops due to the canonical complexities
that the future Pope noted in 1988.
Canon lawyers have spent the last
two years developing a draft version of new penal procedures, which a
team of advisers will review next year.
SIC: CNA/INT'L
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