De Omnibus Dubitandum Est.

The Tablet reports that a French court has ordered Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, the Archbishop of Lyon, to be tried early next year for “failing to denounce a sexually abusive priest”. The report states that the trial, already delayed twice, will now move forward on 7-9th of January despite the Vatican’s “failure to respond to a summons issued to Cardinal Ladaria" .  Cardinal Luis Ladaria Ferrer was appointed prefect for the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith by Pope Francis after the abrupt dismissal of its previous prefect, Gerhard Ludwig Müller, in 2017. Some commented that this was because Ladaria was "more malleable". Lawyers for the victims say Ladaria had advised Barbarin by letter in 2015 to discipline Preynat but avoid public scandal. At the time, he was secretary of the CDF, the Vatican department that handles clerical sexual abuse cases. The Tablet reports that “Nadia Debbache, a lawyer for the victims, said the Vatican’s failure to acknowledge ...

Yesterday, Marie Collins, former member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors posted an open response to Cardinal Müller's dismissal of her allegations that his office apparently refused to reply to letters from victims of clergy sexual abuse, a decision which led Collins, the only abuse survivor on the pontifical commission about the matter, to resign her post. The Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said in an interview  with Italy's Corriere della Sera newspaper , it is "a misunderstanding" to think that his office "could deal with all the dioceses and religious orders in the world." "It is good that personal contact with victims be done by pastors in their area,"  Müller said "When a letter arrives, we always ask the bishop that he might take pastoral care of the victim, clarifying to him or her that the Congregation will do all that is possible to give justice." Having the Vat...

This is really fascinating and well worth watching. A decade ago, and just two years before he became Pope, EWTN's Raymond Arroyo interviewed the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who had been Prefect for the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith for 22 years. The CDF, previously known as the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition (wherefrom arose the names Roman Inquisition or Holy Inquisition popularly used in reference to the 16th century tribunals against witchcraft and heresy), and after 1904 called the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office, is the oldest of the nine congregations of the Roman Curia. Among the most active of the congregations, it oversees Catholic Church doctrine. Its offices are housed at the Palace of the Holy Office at the Vatican. What we see here is Joseph Ratzinger before he became Pope, speaking about liturgy, about his vision for the future, about the sex abuse scandal, about the Papacy of John Paul II, and abou...