Crowd applauds as Pope takes on Mafia
Can the Pope’s accusers force him to resign? Philip Pullella , of Reuters, reports.
PALERMO: Pope Francis appealed to Sicily’s Mafia yesterday to abandon a life of crime and violence, saying the island needed ‘‘men and women of love, not men and women of honour’’, using the term mobsters apply to themselves.
The Pope, speaking in the Sicilian capital, said organised crime members, many of whom go to church and worship openly, ‘‘cannot believe in God and be Mafiosi’’ at the same time. In his appeal, he referred to them as ‘‘dear brothers and sisters’’.
He visited Palermo to commemorate Father Giuseppe ‘‘Pino’’ Puglisi, a priest shot dead by Mafia hit men in 1993 because he challenged the organisation’s control over one of the city’s toughest neighbourhoods.
Puglisi was killed on his 56th birthday during a bloody Mafia offensive against the state and anyone else who threatened the group’s existence. Magistrates Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino were killed in twin bomb attacks in Palermo in 1992.
‘‘A person who is a Mafioso does not live as a Christian because with his life he blasphemes against the name of God,’’ the Pope said during a Mass for some 80,000 people in Palermo.
The crowd applauded each time he denounced the Mafia.
The Pope yesterday expelled a Chilean priest under investi gation in a case involving the sexual abuse of children, a report by local media said, amid a growing global abuse scandal that has shaken the Roman Catholic Church. The Archdiocese of Santiago said the Pope had decided to defrock Fr Cristian Precht, local
daily El Mercurio reported.
Precht, formerly the head of a human rights group that challenged Pinochet over the use of torture in the 1980s, has been accused of sexual abuse as part of the investigation into allegations against members of the Marist Brothers religious community.
Precht has denied the charges. — Reuters
CALLS by a Roman Catholic archbishop and his conservative backers for Pope Francis to resign could make it difficult, if not impossible, for him to do so, Church experts say.
Canon (Church) Law says a pope can resign but the decision must be taken freely. In 2013, Francis’ predecessor, Benedict, became the first pontiff in six centuries to resign.
Benedict, then 85, abdicated because he said he no longer had the strength to run the Church. Unlike now, noone had publicly demanded his resignation, which was a surprise even to top Vatican officials.
How did the Vatican and the Pope get to this point?
In an 11page statement published on August 26, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, the former Vatican ambassador to Washington, launched an unprecedented broadside by a Church insider against the Pope and a long list of Vatican and US Church officials.
He said that soon after the Pontiff’s election in 2013, he told Francis that Theodore McCarrick, the former archbishop of Washington, DC, had engaged in sexual misconduct.
He said the Pope did nothing and even lifted sanctions that had been imposed on McCarrick by Benedict, the former pope.
Critics of Vigano say his statement has holes and contradictions. They say McCarrick disregarded any sanctions, appearing in public often, even alongside Benedict, in the years after Vigano says the former pope sanctioned McCarrick. Vigano stands by his accusations.
Vigano, who is in hiding and communicating exclusively through reporters for conservative media outlets who helped him prepare, edit and distribute the statement, says there is a ‘‘homosexual network’’ in the Vatican that promotes the advancement of gays in the Church.
His statement included no supporting documents.
In July, after US Church officials said there was evidence that McCarrick (88) had sexually abused a minor more than 50 years ago, Francis sacked him as cardinal and ordered him to live the rest of his life in seclusion, prayer and penitence. Francis’ defenders say he took strict action against McCarrick while Benedict had not.
Francis told reporters on his plane returning from Ireland that he would ‘‘not say one word’’ about Vigano’s accusations.
‘‘Read the document carefully and judge it for yourselves. It speaks for itself,’’ he said.
What is the genesis of the current conservative escalation?
Since his election in 2013, conservatives have sharply criticised Francis, saying he has left many faithful confused by pronouncements that the Church should be more welcoming to homosexuals and divorced Catholics and not be obsessed by ‘‘culture war’’ issues such as abortion.
Their attacks on the Pope hit a new level with Vigano’s broadside. Much of the drama has been played out in newspapers and social media, part of what has become an often shrill proxy war between Francis’ defenders and Vigano’s allies, who back his call for the Pope to step down.
What does canon law say about papal resignations?
Canon 332, paragraph two, states:
‘‘If it should happen that the Roman Pontiff resigns his office, it is required for validity that he makes the resignation freely and that it be duly manifested but not that it be accepted by anyone.’’
Canon lawyers say much hinges on the interpretation of the word ‘‘freely’’ and whether the demands being made by the Pope’s fiercest critics has constituted enough of a climate of duress to put its validity into doubt.
What do canon law experts say?
‘‘The Pope has the right to freely resign. That’s what the canon says. The doubt is whether the situation Francis is in now really allows for a free choice because there is a political faction in the Church trying to force it,’’ Nicholas Cafardi, former dean of Duquesne University School of Law, said.
‘‘I don’t see how [the Pope can resign freely] when you have people campaigning for it,’’ Cafardi, who is also a former member of the Board of Governors of the Canon Law Society of America, said.
Kurt Martens, professor of canon law at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., agreed.
‘‘I think were are getting to the point of it becoming impossible because the pressure on him is so intense psychologically that it would be impossible to withstand and therefore it would be invalid,’’ Martens said.
A Romebased canon lawyer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of his position in the Church, said he believed a resignation could be possible but that ‘‘it would be very complicated and hairy’’ and its validity hotly contested because some would see it as a result of duress.
Edward Peters, a conservative canon lawyer based in Detroit, has said on his blog that Francis should not be considered any different to other bishops who canon law says should resign for just or grave causes. The Pope is also Bishop of Rome.
But some experts also say two former popes (Benedict and Francis) would be just too much for Catholics to digest and would confuse the faithful.
Father Raymond de Souza, a widely read conservative commentator based in Canada, said it would be wrong to treat ‘‘the papal office as something worldly that can be relinquished under adverse circumstances’’.
What does canon law say about papal contesters?
Canon 1373 says one ‘‘who publicly either stirs up hostilities or hatred among subjects against [a pope] . . . is to be punished by an interdict or by other just penalties’’.
Cafardi said: ‘‘I think they [the harshest papal critics] are violating it [canon 1373] or are very close to violating it because of the hate they are trying to stir up against Francis’’.
Can a pope be deposed?
Not these days. He can die in office or resign of his own free will. There is no impeachment procedure for a pope.
But Church history is nothing if not colourful. At the start of the 15th century there were three men claiming to be the true pope, each backed by political powers in Europe and Church factions. The Council of Constance, which ran from 1414 to 1418, deposed two of them and the third abdicated.