Pope Francis highlights St. Josephine Bakhita’s example of forgiveness

Vatican City, May 9, 2019 / 04:01 am (CNA).- New Vatican norms for the Church’s handling of sex abuse, issued Thursday, place seminarians and religious coerced into sexual activity through the misuse of authority in the same criminal category as abuse of minors and vulnerable adults.

The norms also establish obligatory reporting for clerics and religious, require that every diocese has a mechanism for reporting abuse, and put the metropolitan archbishop in charge of investigations of accusations against suffragan bishops.

Pope Francis promulgated the law May 9 via a motu proprio, titled, “Vos estis lux mundi” (“You are the light of the world”). He approved its promulgation on an experimental basis for a period of three years. It will enter in effect June 1, 2019.

“The crimes of sexual abuse offend Our Lord, cause physical, psychological and spiritual damage to the victims and harm the community of the faithful,” the pope wrote, stating that the primary responsibility for improving the handling of these issues falls to the bishop, though it concerns all who have ministries in the Church or “serve the Christian People.”

“Therefore, it is good that procedures be universally adopted to prevent and combat these crimes that betray the trust of the faithful,” he said.

The norms regard what are called, in canon law, “delicts against the sixth commandment of the Decalogue,” consisting of sexual acts with a minor or vulnerable person; forcing someone to perform or submit to sexual acts through violence, threat, or abuse of authority; and the production or possession of child pornography.

The new law also concerns any actions intended to cover-up a civil or canonical investigation into accusations of child pornography use, sexual abuse of minors, or sexual coercion through abuse of power.

It establishes the so-called “metropolitan model” for the investigation of accusations against bishops and their equivalents, as proposed by Cardinal Blase Cupich at the November meeting of the U.S. bishops’ conference and the Vatican February summit on the protection of minors.

According to the new law, the metropolitan archbishop will conduct the investigation into a suffragan bishop with a mandate from the Holy See. The metropolitan is required to send reports to the Holy See on the progress of the investigation every 30 days and to complete the investigation within 90 days unless granted an extension.

The metropolitan archbishop may use the assistance of qualified laypeople in carrying out the investigation, though it is primarily his responsibility, the norms state. Bishops’ conferences may establish funds to support these investigations.

The document emphasizes that “the person under investigation enjoys the presumption of innocence.”

At the conclusion of the investigation, the results are sent to the competent Vatican dicastery, which will then apply the applicable penalty according to existing canon law.

In the event a report concerns a major archbishop, it will be forwarded to the Holy See.

One article states that Church authorities shall be committed to ensuring “that those who state that they have been harmed, together with their families, are to be treated with dignity and respect,” be welcomed, listened to, and supported, offered spiritual assistance, and medical and psychological assistance.

The norms also introduce obligatory reporting, requiring that every cleric or religious man or woman who has become aware of an accusation of abuse or cover-up report it “promptly” to the proper church authority.

The ‘motu proprio’ also states that it will be required that every diocese create a stable mechanism or system through which people may submit reports of abuse or its cover-up. The exact form of the system, which could also be an entire office, will be left to the discretion of the individual diocese, but must be established by June 2020.

“Even if so much has already been accomplished, we must continue to learn from the bitter lessons of the past, looking with hope towards the future,” Pope Francis wrote.

“In order that these phenomena, in all their forms, never happen again, a continuous and profound conversion of hearts is needed,” he said, “attested by concrete and effective actions that involve everyone in the Church.”

“This becomes possible only with the grace of the Holy Spirit poured into our hearts, as we must always keep in mind the words of Jesus: ‘Apart from me you can do nothing.’”

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Vatican City, Mar 9, 2017 / 03:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Barbara Jatta, the newest director of the Vatican museums, and the first woman to hold the position, said that working with art was a natural path for her to follow – and she can’t imagine a better place to do so.

On her extensive background in art, Barbara Jatta told CNA: “I don’t think I chose it.” Her mother and sister are both restorers, her grandmother was a painter and her grandfather was an architect, she said. “All my family is in the art world…”

“So I grew up in art, looking at art, going to museums with my family. It was really something so natural for me to choose this,” Jatta said.

“I don’t feel I have a career, I have the privilege of working with what I like. With what I really think is important for me to do and I’m doing it in the best place I can ever imagine.”

Asked what she thinks will be the greatest challenge in her new position, she said bringing “harmony in to this place.” She wants to “give the visitors the idea that they are in a privileged place with privileged people that work here.”

“I mean, all the people working here know that they work for the Pope, they work for a mission, rather than just having a simple work. And I would like to focus on this more and more,” she said.

Another challenge Jatta faces is balancing preservation of the art in the museums with accessibility to the public.

“I do think that it’s very important to preserve what we have received from the past,” she said, “and at the same time, sharing it is one of our focuses. So it’s important also to share the beauty in what we have here.”

The museums have recently made other changes as well, including launching an updated website at the end of January that is more user-friendly and includes an “Explore” section, where website visitors can view museum content right from their homes.

Expanding accessibility to the extensive collections of the museums, whether through the website or for in-person visitors is a major focus, Jatta said.

“The idea is to let the people and the visitors arriving spread out in the different museums…and so let them go into the different part of the museums that are not as often visited. We have wonderful parts of the museum that visitors generally do not go to, do not visit,” she said.

And the number of visitors to the museums continues to grow. In 2016, six million people visited the Vatican, she said, but that number is predicted to be even greater in 2017.

In Jan. and Feb. of 2017, “we had an increase of 18,000 people in the two months, compared to the other years,” she noted.

The large number of visitors is excellent for the museums, but not always great for protecting the artworks themselves.

Because of this, “we have a very important program for preservation of the entire spaces of the museum,” Jatta said, “which costs a lot in effort and money, but we do think that it’s a very important part of our organization.”

Why should someone visit? The Vatican museums are a unique place, she said. For instance, it isn’t just one museum, but in fact many, all joined together. “So it’s not only a museum of archeology – you have many other archeology museums in Rome or in other parts of Italy.”

What makes the Vatican museums unique is “the idea of having the different witnesses of the culture, art and faith, that’s an important part, a fundamental part of this museum.”

For example, the ethnological museum has more than 80,000 pieces, from different continents, and all witnessing to the faith, she said. This museum is comprised of pieces that were given as gifts to the popes, especially Pius XI.

“But it really is an ongoing museum that is still receiving items from all over the continents and that’s probably the most important aspect of our museums. The idea that they preserve witnesses of faith.”

Jatta was vice-director of the museums starting in June 2016, but before that, since 1996, she worked and led the prints section of the Vatican Library. “So I was always an art historian working within the Vatican walls,” she said.

She met Pope Francis while in her former job when she presented him with a work of art for the Jubilee of Mercy. “For sure, Pope Francis is very interested in art,” she continued, highlighting how he brought homeless to visit the Sistine Chapel because “he thought that they would never have the opportunity to see it and this is very important.”

He speaks “about art very often, and the sense that beauty and art link people is something very, very important that he tells us…and it’s one of my ideas in leading these museums,” she said.

Mary Shovlain contributed to this story.

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Vatican City, Mar 14, 2018 / 07:00 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- On Saturday, Pope Francis will make a short trip to the Italian towns of Pietrelcina and San Giovanni Rotondo, the places where St. Padre Pio was born and lived his life, and where his work contin… […]