CBS News Story Distorts 1962 Vatican Document from CWNews.com
Thursday,
August 07, 2003 12:00:00 AM GMT
Why,
then, did CBS News draw a broad general conclusion from a tightly focused legal
document?
Why
did the network fail to distinguish between the ecclesiastical crime of
solicitation and the public offense of pedophilia?
CBS
News Distorts Catholic Outrage at its Dishonest Reporting
by Tom Allen
Jeff
Cavins' Position Twisted Inside-Out on Friday's CBS Evening News
In
response to Wednesday's dishonest report on the CBS Evening News (see the Catholic
World News report below), Catholic Exchange co-founder and Relevant Radio talk show host Jeff
Cavins dedicated a portion of his Friday "Morning Air" broadcast to
pointing out CBS correspondent Vince Gonzales' specious reporting on the issue.
Cavins called for Mr. Gonzales' dismissal from CBS for violating journalistic
ethics and offending millions of faithful Catholics throughout the country by
misrepresenting the contents of the Vatican document in question to inflame the
broader story of the Church sex scandals.
Cavins
asked his listeners to call CBS (national desk in N.Y.: 212-975-4114; L.A. desk
where the report originated: 323-575-2202) to politely register their
complaints about Mr. Gonzales' misrepresentation of the contents of the 1962
Vatican document, and a flood of calls streamed in throughout the day.
Consequently, CBS invited Cavins to an in-studio interview in Minneapolis to
represent his listeners' position, and Cavins accepted the invitation.
Incredibly,
CBS compounded its dishonesty by misreporting Cavins' position through
"creative editing" of his comments. CBS made it seem as though Cavins
and his listeners were outraged at the Catholic Church's alleged criminal
"secrecy," rather than at CBS's dishonest reporting. Unfortunately
for CBS, Cavins left the studio with a recording of the entire interview, and
intends to demonstrate CBS' rank dishonesty on his Monday show.Catholic World
News, the National Catholic Register, and the Catholic League for Religious
& Civil Rights have all expressed interest in picking up this story as
further evidence of an indefensible bias on the part of the mainstream
broadcast media against the Catholic Church.
To
read the Web version of CBS' second dishonest report click below
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/08/08/eveningnews/main567456.shtml
Boston, Aug. 07 ( CWNews.com ) –
A CBS network news report, claiming that
the Holy See orchestrated a cover-up of sexual abuse by Catholic priests, is
based on a gross misinterpretation of a 1962 Vatican document.
In
a sensationalist report aired on August 6, CBS Evening News claimed to have
discovered a secret document proving that the Vatican had approved-- and even
demanded-- a longstanding policy of covering up clerics' sexual misdeeds.
The
document cited by CBS does nothing of the sort.
In
fact the network's story misrepresented the Vatican document so thoroughly that
it is difficult to attribute the inaccuracy to honest error.
The
CBS story is based on a secret Instruction issued to bishops in March 1962 by
Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani, then the prefect of the Holy Office (now known as
the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith). That document sets forth the
canonical procedures to be followed when a priest is charged with the
ecclesiastical crime of "solicitation"-- that is, using the
confessional to tempt penitents to engage in sexual activity.
[The
Vatican document, in an awkward English translation, can be downloaded from the
CBS News site. CBS also offers the Latin original.]
The
Vatican document deals exclusively with solicitation: an offense which, by
definition, occurs within the context of the Sacrament of Penance. And since
that sacrament is protected by a shroud of absolute secrecy, the procedures for
dealing with this ecclesiastical crime also invoke secrecy.
In
short, by demanding secrecy in the treatment of these crimes, the Vatican was
protecting the secrecy of the confessional. The policy outlined in that 1962
document is clearly not intended to protect predatory priests; on the contrary,
the Vatican makes it clear that guilty priests should be severely punished and
promptly removed from ministry.
It
is important to keep in mind that the 1962 Vatican Instruction dealt
exclusively with "solicitation" as that term is understood in
ecclesiastical usage, under the terms of the Code of Canon Law. The policies
set forth by Cardinal Ottaviani do not pertain to the sexual misdeeds of
clerics, but to the efforts by priest to obtain sexual favors though the misuse
of their confessional role.
It
is also important to note that because solicitation takes place inside the
confessional, only the accused priest and the penitent could possibly have
direct evidence as to whether or not the crime took place. If the solicitation
led to actual sexual activity, that misconduct could be the subject of an
entirely separate investigation, not bound by the same rules of secrecy.
The
crime of "solicitation" has always been viewed by the Catholic Church
as an extremely serious offense, calling for the strongest available penalties.
Cardinal Ottaviani stresses that any confessor who solicits sexual favors from
his penitents should be suspended from ministry and stripped of all priestly
privileges. These penalties apply to all cases of solicitation, whether they
involve minor children or adults of either sex. The 1962 document is not
concerned with all instances of solicitation; it does not concentrate on the
solicitation of children.
The
CBS report claimed:
The
confidential Vatican document, obtained by CBS News, lays out a church policy
that calls for absolute secrecy when it comes to sexual abuse by priests--
anyone who speaks out could be thrown out of the church.
That
is inaccurate.
While
it is true that the Vatican document threatens excommunication for anyone who
discloses the proceedings of an ecclesiastical trial for
"solicitation," it does not bar the priest's accuser from making
separate charges about the priest's sexual misconduct. In fact the document
makes it clear that during the canonical trial, the accuser should not be
questioned about any sexual activity that he may have undertaken with the
priest; the accuser is to be questioned solely about what occurred within the
confessional.
Thus,
someone who was sexually abused by a priest would be free, under the 1962
Vatican policy, to bring criminal charges against that priest for his sexual
conduct, while simultaneously charging the priest with "solicitation"
in an ecclesiastical court.
In
fact, the Instruction from Cardinal Ottaviani stresses (in section 18) that
every Catholic has a solemn duty to bring canon-law charges against a priest
who attempts to solicit sex through the confessional. The importance of that
obligation is underlined by the fact that a Catholic who fails to report
solicitation is subject to excommunication. Moreover, the penitent remains
under this solemn obligation to report solicitation even if the priest has
already confessed his crime.
The
document on which CBS based its distorted story is a densely worded 24-page
document, couched in the technical idiom of canon law, and accompanied by a
36-page Appendix that provides the formulas to be used in an ecclesiastical
trial. No careful reader could fail to recognize that this was a specialized
document, providing a set of procedures for a particular ecclesiastical
offense.
Why,
then, did CBS News draw a broad general conclusion from a tightly focused legal
document?
Why
did the network fail to distinguish between the ecclesiastical crime of
solicitation and the public offense of pedophilia?
The
questions are worth pondering.
This
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