Cardinal Gerald Lacroix is archbishop of Quebec, Canada. / Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/CNA
CNA Staff, May 21, 2024 / 10:50 am (CNA).
The Vatican on Tuesday said it would take “no further canonical procedure” after an investigation into abuse allegations against a Canadian cardinal revealed no evidence of misconduct or abuse.
Cardinal Gerald Lacroix, the archbishop of Quebec and member of the Council of Cardinals that advises Pope Francis, was accused as part of a class-action lawsuit against his archdiocese of abusing a 17-year-old girl almost four decades ago. The cardinal has denied the accusation.
The Vatican in March commissioned André Denis, a former judge of the Superior Court of Quebec, to conduct an investigation into the allegations.
In a Tuesday statement, the Vatican said Denis’ investigation concluded on May 6 and had been “consigned to the Holy Father in the following days.”
“In the light of the facts examined by the judge, the report does not permit to identify any actions that amount to misconduct or abuse on the part of Cardinal Gérald C. Lacroix,” the statement said. “Consequently, no further canonical procedure is foreseen.”
Pope Francis has authorized Denis himself to issue a statement “summarizing the elements of his investigation,” the Holy See said. Denis is also permitted to “answer any questions that may arise on the matter.”
“The Holy Father extends his profound thanks to Judge André Denis for having completed, within the prescribed time, the mandate entrusted to him and which he carried out with impartiality in the context of the class-action lawsuit brought against the Archdiocese of Quebec,” the statement continued.
In January LaCroix said he “categorically” denied the allegations made against him.
“Never, to my knowledge, have I made any inappropriate actions towards anyone, whether minors or adults,” he said. “My soul and my conscience are at peace in the face of these accusations, which I refute.”
When it was filed in 2022, the class-action lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Quebec included the testimony of 101 people who said they were sexually assaulted by dozens of clerics or Church staff from 1940 to the present.
In that filing, Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet was also accused of sexual assault. The Vatican in 2022 said an investigation revealed “no elements to initiate a trial” against the prelate.
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Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, Archbishop of Bologna, Italy, in St. Peter’s Basilica on Oct. 5, 2019. / Daniel Ibáñez/CNA
Rome, Italy, Nov 25, 2021 / 11:00 am (CNA).
No, it does not seem as if Pope Francis is going to resign. Indeed, his dynamism and desire to do things, working to bring the Church closer to the people, should be appreciated.
That is how Cardinal Matteo Zuppi responded when asked if the Pope Francis era was about to come to an end.
The questions, however, were legitimate because they were asked at the launch of a book explicitly addressing the papacy’s future.
Zuppi was on a panel for the Nov. 18 presentation of the book “Cosa Resta del Papato? Il futuro della Chiesa dopo Bergoglio” (“What Remains of the Papacy? The future of the Church after Bergoglio”), by the Italian Vaticanist Francesco Antonio Grana.
The book examines what the institution of the papacy is and what it can become after the resignation of Benedict XVI and the pontificate of Pope Francis.
It reconstructs the last part of Benedict XVI’s pontificate, revealing that among the few people aware of the forthcoming resignation was Italy’s then president, Giorgio Napolitano. The book also offers a glimpse of what the next conclave might look like.
Returning from Slovakia in September, Pope Francis had complained about the prelates who were allegedly already seeking to identify his successor. For this reason, the presence of a cardinal at the launch of a book that also looks at the papal succession risked being viewed as part of a “hidden electoral campaign.”
This is especially the case as Zuppi, the archbishop of Bologna, northern Italy, is seen by many as one of the possible papabili in a future conclave.
A leading figure in the Community of Sant’Egidio, and known internationally also for his role as a peace mediator in Mozambique, Zuppi has nevertheless always maintained a low-key and ascetic profile. This approach made him a beloved parish priest, first at the Rome church of Santa Maria in Trastevere and then in a parish on the city’s outskirts.
His hierarchical ascent began with his appointment as an auxiliary bishop of Rome in 2012. He was then called by Pope Francis to be archbishop of Bologna, a major Italian see, in 2015, receiving the cardinal’s red hat in 2019.
Cardinal Matteo Zuppi receives the red hat on Oct. 5, 2019. Daniel Ibanez/CNA.
Zuppi’s presence at the book launch was all the more striking because he is a cardinal loved by Pope Francis, who gives little indication of wanting to detach himself from the legacy of the reigning pope and always defends his pastoral activities. (The one exception might be his decision not to clamp down severely on the Traditional Latin Mass in his archdiocese following the motu proprioTraditionis custodes.)
The 66-year-old cardinal’s words at the book launch were cautious. He began by reflecting on the book’s title. He then focused on the Statio Orbis of March 27, 2020: the solitary prayer in St. Peter’s Square in which Pope Francis asked for an end to the pandemic. Zuppi said that on that occasion, “for the first time, Ecclesialese — the language spoken among us priests — became the common language.”
Speaking of the crisis in the Church, Zuppi said that “we can spend a lifetime arguing among ourselves, fueling an internal conflict. But the point is that it is a crisis, generative of something new.”
He stressed that John XXIII was considered “a simpleton, who seemed to impoverish the greatness of the Church,” and that Benedict XVI “defined himself as a humble worker in the Lord’s vineyard.”
In short, Francis is not, according to Zuppi, a pope who is diminishing the institution’s importance. Rather, he is giving it a new impetus. So much so, that there is “anything but an air of resignation,” Zuppi said. “In the many decisions he has made, and in the processes he has initiated, there is a great awareness and sense of the future.”
He added: “Pope Francis tells us that there is so much to do now, and he helps us not to have a renunciatory attitude, as a retreating minority. His significant reform is pastoral and missionary conversion.”
“He allows us to place ourselves in an evangelical, straightforward way, close to the people, and shows us some priorities for a Church that speaks to the heart. He helps us to be more Church, in a world that makes identity fade.”
There was also talk of the Zan bill, a proposed anti-homophobia law discussed in the Italian Senate. The Holy See presented a formal diplomatic note to the Italian state, highlighting that the bill violated the Concordat between the Holy See and Italy as part of the freedom of education.
It was not an opinion of the Holy See, but rather a diplomatic initiative to avoid the violation of a treaty. One of the panelists, Peter Gomez, director of IlFattoquotidiano.it, suggested erroneously that the Holy See expresses an opinion and the secular state is free to make its own decisions. But this was not the focus of the discussion.
Zuppi has repeatedly refused to address the controversy publicly. Many have interpreted this as a tactical move. The general assembly of the Italian bishops’ conference is currently discussing who should be its next president. Zuppi is one of the leading candidates to succeed Cardinal Gualtiero Bassetti of Perugia-Città della Pieve.
Then there is the question of the next conclave that continues to hang over Zuppi. It was the author of the book himself, Francesco Grana, who sought to damp down any speculation. He explained that, despite its arresting title, the book was not presenting a manifesto.
He referred to a book recently published by Andrea Riccardi, founder of the community with which Zuppi is closely associated.
“Andrea Riccardi, the founder of the Community of Sant’Egidio, wrote the book ‘The Church burns.’ And if the Church burns, how can we not ask ourselves about the papacy of the future?” he asked.
Jen Psaki responds to EWTN News Nightly’s Owen Jensen question regarding Texas’ heartbeat law. / EWTN News Nightly
Washington D.C., Sep 2, 2021 / 15:50 pm (CNA).
President Joe Biden, the second Catholic president in U.S. history, believes that abortion is a “woman’s right,” White House Press Secrentary Jen Psaki said on Thursday. Her comments came in response to a question about Texas’ newly-enacted abortion ban asked by EWTN News Nightly White House Correspondent Owen Jensen.
“I know you’ve never faced those choices, nor have you ever been pregnant,” Psaki told Jensen, “but for women out there who have faced those choices, this is an incredibly difficult thing.”
Beginning Sept. 1, the “Texas Heartbeat Act” bans abortions statewide after a fetal heartbeat can be detected, which can happen as early as six weeks into pregnancy. The law also enables citizens to enforce the ban through private lawsuits.
When the Supreme Court rejected an emergency request to block the law in a 5–4 decision, Biden declared a “whole-of-government” response to “ensure” abortion access in the state.
On Sept. 2, Jensen asked Psaki about Biden’s position at a White House press conference.
“Why does the president support abortion when his own Catholic faith teaches abortion is morally wrong?” he wanted to know.
Psaki said that the president believes that abortion is a “woman’s right, it’s a woman’s body, and it’s her choice.”
In a follow-up question, Jensen asked, “Who does he believe, then, should look out for the unborn child?”
According to Psaki, Biden “believes that it’s up to a woman to make those decisions and up to a woman to make those decisions with her doctor.”
She added, “The president believes their right should be respected.”
The Catechism of the Catholic Church, which summarizes Church teaching, recognizes the inherent dignity and worth of the unborn human person and considers abortion a “crime against human life.”
“Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception,” the catechism reads. “From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person – among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life.”
Quito, Ecuador, Nov 16, 2020 / 11:50 am (CNA).- Cardinal Raúl Eduardo Vela Chiriboga, who served as Archbishop of Quito from 2003 to 2010, died Sunday after spending several weeks in palliative care.
Cardinal Vela, who was 86, died of natural causes at the Saint Camillus Hospice in Quito Nov. 15, the archdiocese told ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish language news partner.
The cardinal had received palliative care at the hospice “for several weeks due to various health complications,” the archdiocese said.
Fr. Alberto Redaelli, the director of the Saint Camillus Hospice, told the archdiocese that the cardinal died “accompanied by his closest family and friends” and “moments before his death they had been praying Vespers.”
The funeral Mass will be said. Nov. 17 at 10:00 a.m. in the Cathedral of Quito.
The Ecuadorian bishops’ conference said they “mourn his loss, but we are consoled knowing that as a faithful servant, God will receive him into his glory. We thank God for his generous dedication to the Church and the Ecuadorian people,” and asked “all the faithful for their prayers for his eternal rest.”
Cardinal Vela was born Jan. 1, 1934. He studied philosophy and theology at the San José Major Seminary in Quito and was ordained a priest of the Diocese of Riobamba July 28, 1957.
In 1969 he was appointed undersecretary of the Ecuadorian bishops’ conference.
Vela was appointed auxiliary bishop of Guayaquil April 20, 1972. He served as secretary of the bishops’ conference from 1972 to 1975.
On April 29, 1975 he was appointed Bishop of Azogues, where he served until 1989 when he was appointed bishop of the Ecuadorian military ordinariate. He served in that position until 2003, when he was appointed Archbishop of Quito.
Vela served as Archbishop of Quito until Sept. 11, 2010, when he was 76. He was elevated to cardinal that November.
Pope Francis named him his envoy to the Tenth National Eucharistic and Marian Congress of Peru held in Piura in 2015, and also made him his envoy to the jubilee for the 400th anniversary of the death of Saint Rose of Lima, held in 2017 in Peru.
In 2015, shortly before the Synod on the Family, Cardinal Vela told CNA that “The Church is the depository of the faith, and that faith is the teaching of Jesus: we can’t go against his commandment.”
He said there is no room “to expect ‘extraordinary things’ from the synod, outside of the doctrine of the faith,” and that “fundamental truths” cannot be changed, even “by more news outlets stirring things up by saying things contrary to, or wanting to misinterpret, what the Lord commands.”
The cardinal said there is a need to develop “a better pastoral approach to the faithful, as well as to the faithful who are separated, or who are in other unions.”
“However, this does not mean that they will again have the opportunity to return to receiving Communion, because their situation is irregular.”
What can be done, he added, is “to give them other (spiritual) ‘arms’, if the term can be used, such as spiritual communion, and feeling supported and aided in prayer, so that they can discover the mercy God has for each of us.”
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