"A contemporary Father's Day"

Check out the funny and insightful column by Tom Purcell in today's Tribune-Review.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Sun. 06/16/02 01:41:30 PM
Categorized as Classic.

"Television's Structural Biases on Display...."

Andrew Cline's Rhetorica has received a makeover. He recently raised an interesting point:

A good example of the structural biases of television news may be seen in the handling of the Elizabeth Smart disappearance versus the more than 100 missing children in the Florida Department of Children & Families case. Smart's case saturates the news. The Florida case does not.

It seems to me that a case like these is more likely to get saturation coverage the more the child fits the description cute, white, middle- or upper-class, blonde girl.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Sun. 06/16/02 01:20:13 PM
Categorized as Classic.

Is the "Charter" Morally Binding on the Bishops?

From the Washington Post today:

.... Until the Vatican gives its approval, the charter is morally but not legally binding on every bishop. But a greater problem is that each bishop may interpret key elements of the policy in his own way....

I suspect that the "morally binding" assertion is not quite accurate. The conference of bishops has no authority to bind all the bishops legally, unless its prescriptions have been approved by the Apostolic See. (See Canon 455.) That is why the "Essential Norms" were drawn up for presentation to Rome. Where would the conference derive any authority to bind the bishops morally to these documents? Only from each individual bishop's approval of the Charter & Essential Norms. But the vote was not unanimous (13 voted in the negative): so, I think, only the bishops who approved the documents in the final vote would be morally bound by them.

(Thanks Amy.)

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Sun. 06/16/02 07:22:46 AM
Categorized as Classic.

Will Rome Say "No"?

Fr. Thomas Doyle has distributed his remarks on the results of the bishops' meeting. For comparision and contrast with the blogs immediately below, here is a portion of it, most pertinent portion underlined:

c. Concerning laicization (commonly referred to as “defrocking”) the Charter states nothing new or radical. An offending cleric will be given the option of petitioning the Holy See for laicization with the assurance that it will bequickly granted. In some cases the bishops may decide to ask the Holy See to laicize or dismiss a cleric without his consent. This too is a process that has been followed for at least the past 5 years in this country.

d. The bishops had no authority to authorize a “zero tolerance” policy on their own. To definitively dismiss a cleric from the clerical state...i.e., to defrock or laicize him, can only be done on the diocesan level by means of a canonical trial. This is a lengthy,complex process. With a good defense attorney a convicted cleric could avoid the imposition of the most severe penalty available to the tribunal, which is dismissal from the clerical state. Thus, this avenue would be practically useless in achieving the goal of removing offending clerics from the clerical state.

e. The only other alternative for the bishops would be to request the Holy See to give them the power to laicize or defrock clerics using an administrative process. The Vatican would almost certainly not permit this because of its fear that accused priests would be denied due process or that bishops would use the process to unilaterally get rid of clerics deemed troublesome for other reasons.

f. A possible course of action for the bishops would have been a specific petition to the Holy See for a streamlined and expeditious process whereby proven abusive clerics (past or present) would be laicized by the Holy See. Such a procedure, if actually followed by bishops, would possibly have satisfied the demands and concern of victims and survivors and others. Short of this, the proposals in the Charter are nothing different than what is presently contained in the Code of Canon law.

(Thanks Mark.)

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Sun. 06/16/02 07:00:22 AM
Categorized as Classic.