So, how bad is l’Affaire Aupetit?
It depends on how you look at it.
From a PR standpoint, it is going to be a rough few days in the papers, maybe a rough few weeks. If French reporters crack a few nuts, it could become one of those recurring nightmares that come over months.
To hear Francis tell it, the allegations are that Archbishop Michel Aupetit had a “failing on his part, a failing against the sixth commandment, but not total, of small caresses and massages that he did to the secretary,” some years ago, before he was even a bishop, but apparently while he was serving in the Paris chancery.
As a matter of Church governance, it is very bad – worse than the Bishop Barros crisis that exploded in Pope Francis’s face almost four years ago, after he pulled pin on the Chilean abuse-and-coverup hand grenade and dropped it in his own lap – in large part because Francis has looked at the whole miserable business and decided on the one course that could be more disastrous than the already insane route on which he had previously taken himself and the whole government of the Church.
For those of you who need it, here’s a primer / refresher on l’Affaire Barros.
Pope Francis precipitated the Barros crisis when he accused three Chilean survivor-advocates – Juan Carlos Cruz, James Hamilton, and José Andrés Murillo – of calumniating one of their abuser’s protégés.
Their abuser was then-Fr. Fernando Karadima, a powerful Chilean celebrity cleric and serial sexual abuser who finally faced a semblance of justice from a canonical trial at the Vatican in 2011. Cruz, Hamilton, and Murillo claimed that then-Fr. Juan Barros witnessed the abuse Karadima perpetrated against them and others, covered for Karadima, and otherwise enabled Karadima’s abusive conduct.
Among Karadima’s chief lieutenants, Fr. Barros received consecration to the episcopate in 1995. Barros was one of four Karadima protégés who eventually became bishops. Over the objections of both the faithful and the bishops of Chile, Pope Francis picked Barros to lead the Diocese of Osorno in 2015.
Pope Francis first accused Cruz, Hamilton, and Murillo of calumny in an unscripted exchange that was part of a press gaggle at the gate to the venue in Iquique, Chile, where the pope was going to celebrate Mass on the last day of what was supposed to have been a fence-mending visit to the country.
After news of the pope’s “hot takes” dominated headlines during his next stop in Peru, Francis fielded a question about the business during his in-flight presser on the return trip to Rome. In short, Francis doubled down on calumny accusations. He said he hadn’t seen any evidence to support the allegations of wrongdoing, and that the victims had never brought their case to him.
“You [reporters], in all good will, tell me that there are victims, but I haven’t seen any, because they haven’t come forward,” Francis said.
The only problem is that neither assertion comported well with fact.
Cruz, Hamilton, and Murillo were eyewitnesses. Their allegations were evidence. Also, Juan Carlos Cruz had written a letter to Pope Francis, which the head of Pope Francis’s Commission for the Protection of Minors, Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston, personally delivered to Francis by hand, in 2015.
Eventually, Pope Francis sent his top sex crimes investigator, Archbishop Charles J. Scicluna of Malta, to Chile. Scicluna returned with a 2,400 page report that has never been published, which reportedly detailed widespread abuse and systemic coverup. Francis invited Cruz, Hamilton, and Murillo to the Vatican so they could hug it out among themselves, and called an emergency meeting of the whole Chilean episcopate, at the end of which every sitting bishop in the country tendered his resignation.
Pope Francis accepted only a few of them, piecemeal. Francis also eventually laicized Karadima and a couple of other Chilean prelates. The Church in Chile has not recovered. Her vicissitudes were prelude to four years of unremitting worldwide scandal, during which the global scope and persistence of the underlying leadership crisis has finally begun to emerge.
In short, Pope Francis dealt with the Barros business by trusting the word of a prelate, Juan Barros of Osorno, over the testimony of victims and the persistent protests of the faithful in Osorno, Chile, before he “repented” of his conduct and then – to judge by his conduct – repented of his repentance.
Then, Pope Francis preferred the accused bishop over victim-witnesses his own canonical tribunal had found credible, and ignored the protests of the faithful – when he wasn’t actively and pointedly insulting them – for years, before half-heartedly acceding to an investigation that was desultory in effect and conducting a dog-and-pony show in lieu of a real reform.
In the Aupetit case, Pope Francis is now acceding to what he describes as a clamoring mob. “What did he do that was so serious he had to resign?” Pope Francis asked with some rhetorical flourish in answering a query he fielded during his in-flight presser en route to Rome from Athens on Sunday. “Someone answer me,” Francis continued, “what did he do?”
“[W]hen the chatter grows, grows, grows and takes away a person’s good name,” Francis continued, “he will not be able to govern, because he has lost his reputation.”
“That is why I accepted the resignation,” Francis went on to say.
Comparison to another judge – infamous for dealing similarly with another accused fellow – rather invites itself. Pilate, however, conducted an investigation and reasonably believed the man in his custody was innocent of the charges against him. Pope Francis has detailed allegations and an admission of some untoward behavior. It appears that both have sacrificed truth to political expediency.
As for the clamoring, one may readily accept that a public thirsty for scandal will make a ruckus. That is the way of things. On the other hand, we have it on reasonable authority that bishops are supposed to be blameless. Now, “blameless” is not the same as perfect. Nevertheless, not feeling up the secretary – leave aside the not entirely irrelevant question whether she was game for the touching – is not a terribly high bar.
The faithful have a right to know the character and conduct of their rulers in the faith.
If you’re wondering why the Church seems to be making such halting progress in dealing with abuse – and with episcopal malfeasance regarding both abuse and coverup – a fair surmise could be that it’s because the head man doesn’t think sexual sins by clergy are all that serious. In the meantime, however, he’ll sack a guy without even investigating, if he garners just a couple rounds of bad press (because the truth isn’t important). That’s not any sort of interpretation interpretation. Pope Francis said so, himself, in words.
“This is sin,” he said of Archbishop Aupetit’s alleged transgression(s), “but it is not of the most serious sins, because the sins of the flesh are not the most serious.”
“The gravest sins,” Francis continued, “are those that are more angelic: pride, hatred. These are graver. So Aupetit is a sinner, as am I – I don’t know if you are aware … but probably – as was Peter, the bishop on whom Jesus Christ founded the Church.”
Here’s the thing, though.
Granted, even arguendo, that Pope Francis is not wrong about the relative gravity of sexual sins, there is always something of the “angelic” in the mix when men who wield ecclesiastical power commit them.
Rehearsing only a few of the outstanding questions regarding Archbishop Aupetit will offer sufficient cases-in-point. if Aupetit’s immediate predecessor, Cardinal André Vingt-Trois, knew about the allegations and didn’t say – as Aupetit himself has suggested – then Vingt-Trois should be sanctioned. (Aupetit’s mentor, Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger, is dead.)
If Rome knew – or had reasonable suspicion – about Aupetit’s extracurricular lapse, then one may fairly inquire why Aupetit continued to advance in his ecclesiastical career. Paris is not exactly Osorno, either. Either the Vatican knew, or the Vatican did not know. If the Vatican knew, then the pope should have known. If the pope didn’t know, he ought to be firing people, starting with the Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, Cardinal Marc Ouellet.
If Pope Francis is unwilling or unable to carry this thing through, to fire anyone and everyone who needs it – without fear or favor, as he has certainly proved himself willing and able swing the ax when it has suited him – then perhaps he should consider the example of his predecessor, who resigned when he realized that he could no longer govern.
In any case, the deep grammar of corruption and rot in the Church – the nexus of clerical sexual misconduct and ecclesiastical power – is something Francis himself has recognized, and even addressed thematically under the rubric of “clericalism” in an August 2018 letter to the people of God. Whether Francis really understood what he was saying in his letter, or even really meant what he said, have both been questions from the get-go.
Here’s hoping this business in Paris hasn’t given the definitive answer.
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If Pope Francis had not acted promptly, he could have been accused by the same chattering mob that accused him before for waiting too long for a report. With some people, the Pope can never win.
I’m sure some would have said that. But more responsible folks such as Mr. Altieri (and, yes, myself) would have fully understood and supported him for simply saying, “We need an investigation and we need facts, etc.” You need to realize that Francis is far too often his own worst enemy. This article more than adequately explains how so in at least one prominent case.
And why is he his own worst enemy? Because, as the author expressly points out, the truth is unimportant to him and his moral theology is relativistic and proportionalistic, by his own explicit admission. Consider for a moment what this means. The man who occupies the seat of Peter professes and practices a morality and moral theology that contradicts the doctrine and dogma of the Church. And that in a serious matter involving one of the 120 Cardinal princes of the Church who held one of the most prestigious and work-renowned arch bishoprics in the world. If that isn’t stunning, I don’t know what else is.
It is not that the truth in this case is unimportant. Let us see what the Pope really said: “I wonder what Aupetit did that was so serious that he had to resign. What did he do? … If we don’t know the accusation, we cannot condemn.”
So yes, the Pope did not know the whole truth and like a true Christian did not condemn him. He simple wondered what Aupetit did that drove him to resign.
But then, if he didn’t know the “whole truth,” shouldn’t he have sought to get it and not accepted Aupetit’s resignation so precipitately?
Francis can never “win” because he competes against the Catholic religion. His “sins of the flesh being less serious than other sins” comment is not surprising coming from a Pope who has never given much indication of having been schooled in Catholic moral theology outside of Jesuitical circles. I suppose since abortion has long established itself as the single greatest evil in human history over a significant period of time in modern history, even this forum of conservative Catholics can become jaded enough to ignore its direct precursor from the moral entropy provided by the sex revolution and let this comment go ignored.
I can understand how a shallow mind like that of Francis does not make the connection and never does make the connection, but please. Every act of illicit sex is the moral equivalent of manslaughter, just as every act of drunken driving is an act of morally culpable manslaughter whether you cause an accident resulting in mortality or not.
Sins are venial or mortal, and every violation of the Commandments is simply a variation of the sin of pride. Whenever we think we know better than God about how we ought to order our lives together, like the numerous heresies of social planning proposed among smug theologians, or how we think we know better than God about how to use our human faculties, like sexuality, our pride can be small or large. For a Pope to say that any variety of sinful behavior can be gauged against other varieties of sinful behavior, in terms of assent of will, as greater or lesser is flat out stupid.
Yes. For Pope Francis bashers like this author, the pontiff can never win. Damned if he does, damned if you doesn’t!
Obviously, Mal, with you he can never lose.
Carl, I do not disagree with your comment but the fact remains that whichever way the Pope went there would have been some criticism coming his way. For Bishop Barros, he waited for a report and then acted appropriately. But his adversaries attacked him for the delay. Now, he has promptly accepted the resignation of someone he personally promoted and the critics have immediately pounced on him even though the facts are not yet fully known. The Pope himself said: “I wonder what Aupetit did that was so serious that he had to resign. What did he do? … If we don’t know the accusation, we cannot condemn.” See, the Pope has accepted the resignation but has not condemned him.
Pope Francis did it to help the beleaguered Bishop. “The gossip grows, grows, grows and takes away the reputation of the person. He will not be able to speak because he has lost the reputation … and this is an injustice, and that is why I accepted Aupetit’s resignation.” I believe that this attitude will immensely please Archbishop Aupetit.
Mal, how can alleged small shoulder carresses compare with the Karadima abuse virtual rape of young Chilean men Bishop Barros’ coverup and Pope Francis’ response? “The new norms now also include the possibility of the pope decreeing the dismissal from the clerical state directly, without a trial, in cases of crimes against the faith, such as heresy, apostasy, and schism” (Courtney Mares for CNA 12.7.21). It appears this newly proposed canon granting His Holiness absolute authority to dismiss without trial, without appeal, for whatever rumor or for whatever reason he decides is consistent with the above is already in place.
Paul the Apostle warns Timothy, never accept an allegation against another cleric without added witnesses and review. As I questioned peviously why did Francis dismiss Aupetit so quickly on a prejudiced media allegation when he not only refused pro abortion, pro same sex blessing, pro same sex unions, pro ordination of women Cardinal Marx’s resignation and instead elevated him? To allege His Holiness had to end unending gossip of the Archbishop, that he acted clumsily and without thought defies reason.
Fr. Peter, as a conservative Catholic, it disgusts me when I read about prelates like Bishop Barros and I am glad that they are being removed. We might debate about the time taken in some cases to remove them but we have to be glad that they do get the chop.
As far as Aupetit is concerned, it must be acknowledged that this prelate who, unlike Barros who denied the allegations, resigned because of sins of a sexual nature. He did it to protect this person from the hypocrites who would hound him.
Pope Francis did not accept Card the resignation submitted by Card Marx because he believed that this 67 year old prelate, who is not accused of committing any abuse, should face the serious abuse crisis facing the Church and not run away from it. Yes, Card Marx did express some views about caring for individuals in unusual relationships and for allowing married priests – Card Ratzinger also once had progressive views – but Pope Francis, who made it abundantly clear that the Church will not bless same-sex marriages, wrote to the Card. saying: “And if the temptation comes to you to think that, by confirming your mission and not accepting your resignation, this Bishop of Rome (your bother who loves you) does not understand you”– Francis told him — “think of what Peter felt before the Lord when he presented his resignation in his manner: ‘depart from me a sinner’; and listen to the answer: ‘feed my sheep’.”
Fr. Peter, I used to love reading Pope Benedict’s writings but now I love this Pope’s love in action even more.
“I believe that this attitude will immensely please Archbishop Aupetit.”
I’m sure the lack of a principled approach is of great solace, just as the troubling inconsistencies in Pope Francis’s approach to clerical sex abuse as a whole had been a suave for all Catholics. Ahem.
I recommend you read what John Allen, Jr., has written about the Paris situation, keeping in mind that Allen is not right-wing, traditionalist, conservative, or a Francis basher. Quite the contrary. But he is a good journalist and he’s not easily fooled. He writes:
Allen has every right to express his opinion but it is just that: his opinion. As I wrote before Carl, unlike Aupetit, Bishop Barros DENIED the allegations against him. He said: “I never had any knowledge of any accusation concerning Father Karadima when I was the Secretary for Cardinal Juan Francisco Fresno and I never had any knowledge nor did I even imagine such grave abuses as this priest committed against his victims. I neither approved nor participated in those actions.”
We all heard of Cardinal Pell. We also know that Pope Francis had faith in him and prayed for him. He did not ask Pell to put in his resignation. However, he too had to let the court deal with the matter. Truth, which was being sacrificed in his case, eventually rescued him.
Not long before that, Archbishop Wilson of Adelaide was charged and found guilty of covering up child abuse when he was a young priest. Wilson denied it, but how does one prove that one did not know about a case and cover it up? Fortunately, the Archbishop was eventually found to be not guilty. We need to be wary of gossip, rumors, and false allegations.
Francis concurred in the resignation of Aupetit because he had lost his reputation and accordingly could no longer govern effectively.
Using Francis’ reasoning he, too, should resign since, if there’s anyone who has lost his reputation, it is Francis himself. He must now resign because he has lost the capacity to govern the Church effectively. Even Orthodox monks cry out “heretic” in the streets.
At lest I am very surprised to hear that in the case of this Msgr it is not about the usual thing, namely a Bishop engaging in sex with another man,a priest or a seminarian. According to what we are told practically weekly for many years.
Yes, that was quite refreshing. That’s my response these days…. “Well, at least the indiscretion was with a woman! Hooray!” Pretty sad, yes?
Pope Francis 2018 from a letter to the people of God
“May the Holy Spirit grant us the grace of conversion and the interior anointing needed to express before these crimes of abuse our compunction and our resolve courageously to combat them” Sadly words without a manifestation of action are just seen as a distraction/deflection.
‘In the book of Revelations, we are given an understanding of the workings of God through the faithful in the church universal in times past, present, and in the future, as seen in the accumulation of the symbolic redeeming action of four and twenty elders who fall down (In humility) and cast their crowns (Mitres) before Him’.
My understanding is that this action is a continual representation of the action of humility by the faithful in laying down one’s failings/actions especially in relation to the governance of His Holy Church.
From another article on this site “The faithful need assurance that those in charge of the Church are bound by some authority above themselves, and it helps for that authority to be as visible as possible.”
“Our Father who art in heaven Hallowed (sacrosanct, worshipped, divine, inviolable) be thy Name” Our most fundamental belief is that God’s Word (Will) is Inviolate, and sits at the base of all the Sacraments. He cannot contradict Himself; this belief is vital to the intelligibility of faith and life. Without it, the concept of truth loses all meaning.
Sadly, the elite have held Gods Word (Will) in contempt and in doing so collude with the ongoing breaking of the Second Commandment
“Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain”
So yes! we are bound by some authority above ourselves while the elite within the Church have been given the means to concur with that authority in giving a visible manifestation of humility by casting off their miters before the True DM image one of Broken Man which has been given by God Himself to the faithful (Those who serve the Truth) reflecting a new given understanding via the Holy Spirit’s divine inspiration to His Church while they the elders take them up anew before His throne while joyfully praising God.
Please continue via the link
https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2021/11/02/tradition-and-traditionalism/#comment-285137
kevin your brother
In Christ
How soon this Pope has forgotten the “railroading” and smearing of Cardinal Pell in Australia by the MSM and the modern day mobs.That are today no different than the mobs in front of Pilate.Screaming at the top of their lungs “Crucify Him”.Of course Pope Francis sadly has opted for Pilate’s response.Washed his hands of it.In hopes it would all just go away.
Pope Francis will never forget what happened to Pell. He did not suspend the Cardinal but instead prayed for him. He was so relieved when the final not guilty verdict came Pell’s way. However, Pell and Barros both said that they were not guilty, whereas Aupetit admitted and resigned because of some sexual misbehavior. How could the Pope refuse the resignation in such circumstances?
Yes, so relieved. Yep. That’s a lot of Kool-Aid. Don’t spill it.
Thank you, Carl, for your kind advice. How thoughtful of you.
In case you do not know, Card Pell was under constant attack from the usual suspects who were supported by the media, some prominent politicians and a corrupt section of the police force in his state. The court found him guilty of child abuse. Pell appealed and, sad to say, his guilty verdict was upheld. It took his final appeal to clear him. This is why the Vatican was pleased that while “entrusting his case to the court’s justice, Cardinal Pell has always maintained his innocence, and has waited for the truth to be ascertained.” Just hours after Pell’s victory, Pope Francis, during a Mass broadcast, said: “In these days of Lent we have seen the persecution that Jesus suffered, and how the doctors of the Law had it in for Him; He was judged with this dogged fury, even though He was innocent. I would like to pray today for all those people who suffer an unjust sentence as a result of those who had it in for them.” Pope Francis later received Cardinal George Pell in audience, and “in greeting him also thanked him for his witness.” as reported by Vatican news.
Cardinal Marx submitted his resignation, but this was rejected and he remains on the inner-circle C-6 (originally C-9). Cardinal Pell was charged, and then removed from the C-9, but then found not guilty, and is not restored to the C-6. But maybe he resigned along the way, or maybe not (four years younger than Pope Francis).
Exactly right, Carl. Mal has a marvelous facility to strain out gnats and swallow camels. The entire world, Catholic and non-Catholic, knows that the indisputable fact that Bergoglio abandoned Pell to the wolves, removing him from position as financial investigator of massive Vatican corruption and letting him rot in an Australian jail as he was put through a gauntlet of how trials intended to destroy him.
The world influenced by the secular MSM and Catholic MSM might think what you say they think, but Catholics who have been supporting Cardinal Pell from his haters – mostly homosexual activists, the Marxist Greens and the anti-Catholic media – since the 1980s and 1990s know how terribly he has been treated. In the midst of these attacks, Pope Francis, the Vicar of my Lord whom you refuse to acknowledge, selected him to head an important department in the Vatican. Time to open your mind and your heart.
Cardinal Pell could have remained in Rome. In order to clear his name and that of the whole Church, he willingly returned to Australia to stand trial. He trusted that truth would win in the end, which thankfully it did.
Meanwhile, MSN interprets and relays a related papal message:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/the-pope-says-sexy-sins-are-not-the-most-serious-sins/ar-AAREwR8?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531
You seem to operate from within the precincts of Francis’ mind…do you?
My thought exactly! Francis was so relieved and will never forget (this raises the sinner’s stake to claiming to know the mind of God regarding Francis’ future mental state! Will Francis remember if he’s demented or dead?). The Vatican was pleased at Pell’s release. Musings of this sort are almost worth a coin or two. They do quite entertain.
He also accepted the resignation without asking any questions. By contrast, he refused to accept Cardinal Marx’s offer of the same, even though Marx’s circumstances were far more serious and compelling.
Glen, Marx may have presented for discussion some progressive views, as Pope Benedict also once did, but he did not act on them. In fact, Card Marx has never been charged with any act of indecent behavior.
Mal, I was referring specifically to Cardinal Marx’s abject failure to address the sordid issue of priestly sexual predators under his jurisdiction, not his personal conduct. That should have been more than sufficient to warrant his removal, but then Francis himself has been seriously remiss in addressing that issue. He seems far more concerned to suppress the old Latin rite of the Mass and to castigate those of us who prefer it.
“Pope Francis sacrifices truth to political expediency” – That could be the header of almost all comments made by Jorge Bergoglio.
Christopher, a friend who used to work for Service des Rensignements told me nothing is published in France without be vetted by the service. That means there was a Political Decision to crush Aupetit. This Masonic execution from Le Point myst have been known about in Rome prior to publication. The swift response is therein. Aupetit was a Prolife Catholic Leader in a Freemasonic Republic which is losing its grip. A Prolife Website opened in Liberty Land = Jail. Political and the same politics we witnessed when the 2nd bishop on white liquidated the John Paul 2 institute, or when he announced Catholics breeding like rabbits is a sin (against which deity?)
Anyone considered the words of Paolin, “China is a model of Catholic Social Doctrine in Action” in connection with the Chinese 1 baby then abort policy? Maybe he was just considering the massive Ozone layer above China caused by the Pollutants banned in Europe, or perhaps it was the concentration camps in the North for political and religious objectors, or maybe the 1.6 billion euro Annual Franchise? Maybe someone from Rome could complete the picture? Marty, perhaps? He seems to have ears in every chamber…
That was naughty of me Carl. Hope it made you smile. Thanks for protecting me from myself. I aporeciate it. God bless you.