It's Not the Abuse They Hate, It's the Church: SNAP Protests DC Latin Mass

Allegedly Catholic members of dissident and parasitical victim's group doesn't want a Traditional Latin Mass to be said in D.C., and have appealed to Archbishop Wuerl to do something about it. They don't like its celebrant either, whose only crime is having someone print a distorted story in the newspaper about his supposed "coverup" of sexual abuse by a priest. Cardinal Mahony has done more to promote and protect child abusing homosexuals than most other prelates out there, and he's perjured himself, but other than asking for Todd Tamberg, Mahony's Communicat's director, to resign, they haven't done much officially against Cardinal Mahony. It's impossible to say that SNAP treats all perpetrators of predation the same way. It's certainly done its part to obfuscate the distinction between pedophilia and pederasty and it also exhonerates homosexuality for its role in these crimes. If SNAP were honest, they'd be going after Homosexual Rights groups and the Democratic Party as well, but they're just part of the problem.

SNAP wants to change the Church to fit the world. They don't care about victims.

A group of Catholic activists is demanding that Washington Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl intervene to prevent Cardinal Dario Castrillón Hoyos, 80, of Colombia, from celebrating a high Latin Mass on Saturday at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.

Cardinal Hoyos was exposed last week for lauding — in a 2001 letter — French Bishop Pierre Pican of Bayeux-Lisieux for refusing to denounce the Rev. Rene Bissey in that section of Normandy.

"This is the wrong man sending the wrong message at the wrong time," David Clohessy, executive director for the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) said Tuesday.

Cardinal's letter spurs protest in D.C. - Washington Times

Additionally, it's just been announced that Cardinal Hoyos will not be saying the Mass after all. Fr. Z has this to say about the news story, however:

Now I read in Columbia Passport:

According to La Verdad, a regional Spaniard journal, the French bishop did not denounce the priest because he knew it by the first instance under the Sacrament of Confession. According to the Canon Law of the Catholic Church, a priest cannot denounce the matter that is given to him under the gravity of Confession. It includes crimes.

If the bishop was held to silence under the Seal, that could explain how he didn’t think he was able to denounce Fr. Bessey to civil authorities and later gave him an assignment.

When a priest or bishop is bound by the Seal he cannot reveal the contents of the confession to anyone by either word or action. He cannot act on the content of the confession. If there was nothing else apparent and known openly in Fr. Bessey’s record that would argue against his receiving an assignment, to refuse to give him an assignment would have raised questions about why, whether there was something wrong with him that people didn’t know about. It could have been perceived as a moral dilemma for the bishop.

It strikes me that this could in some way explain why Card. Castrillon would have penned such a letter. Furthermore, knowing that the issue was complex, he sought the advice of the Pope before sending it. At issue was a defense of the Seal of confession. The French bishop was not being praised for protecting a priest, a criminal priest, but rather for upholding the Seal of confession.
I muse about this because hitherto I had not seen in news stories on this issue any mention that the French bishop had first learned of the priest’s criminal behavior under the Seal of confession.

Questions remain.

If the Vicar General knew, and told the bishop, then the bishop had an independent source of information. Even in the case it is under normal circumstances still better for priests not to act on the content of a confession, but this was not a normal circumstance.

Why did the bishop consent to hear the confession of one of his priests? This is a perfect example of why a superior should not receive the confessions of those immediately under his authority: the superior runs the risk of having his hands bound and not being able to act.

The bishop also could have found some other assignment than a parish for the priest, but that would not have solved the problem of having in the ranks of the presbyterate a criminal child molester.

In any event, perhaps I had merely missed the mention of the Seal in earlier reporting – in fact I haven’t followed this too closely because of other work. Maybe some of you saw it earlier.


But I think it is an important dimension to this story which needs to be clarified.

Discussion of the "boundaries" of the Seal comes into play.