Today in the VIS there is an English rendering of the article I mentioned yesterday from L’Osservatore Romano.
CARDINAL RATZINGER AND REVISION OF CANONICAL PENAL LAW
VATICAN CITY, 2 DEC 2010 (VIS) – Given below is the text of an article by Bishop Juan Ignacio Arrieta, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts. the article is to be published on 4 December by the Italian magazine “Civilta Cattolica” under the title “Cardinal Ratzinger’s Influence on the Revision of the Canonical Penal Law System”.
[…]
This complicated article needs comment by a canon lawyer. However, at a quick scan by a layman, it appears to recount a 20-year campaign conducted by Cardinal Ratzinger, starting in 1988, to introduce penal law procedures to deal more expeditiously with deal with “cases of priests who, in the exercise of their ministry, have been guilty of grave and scandalous conduct”. We all know now where the apparent foot-dragging on the part of others led.
Henry: 20-year campaign conducted by Cardinal Ratzinger
That is about the size of it.
The sound of crickets from the lamestream media and other fellow travelers who’ve been trashing the Holy Father for doing nothing, when faced with evidence that contradicts their agenda, is deafening.
Yahoo.com had an article on this only when I logged into my email and it was the bottom article in the list. Not exactly the prominence they gave the libelous “reporting” from earlier this year.
It doesn’t matter how much they trumpet or downplay this though. The MSM has already set the template of: Pope shielded pedophiles when Cardinal.
All their disgusting lies and distortions were soundly refuted at the time. Most were ridiculous on their face. But it doesn’t matter now. Already SNAP and the like are responding that a single letter doesn’t make up for his actions over 20 years. Even though what they portray as his actions have no basis in reality.
They introduced their flawed, deceitful, hateful premises and now they will always use those premises as their touchstone for ALL reporting on this story.
I find the story interesting. For a long time I was unconvinced that Vatican II reforms had anything to do with abuse by priests. It has been increasingly difficult to maintain that. Now I read that the provisions of the penal code that made bringing cases against abusive priests more difficult was made as a result of attempting to bring the CIC more in-line with the Council. Fascinating and disturbing!
There was a piece in the NYT this morning about the story.