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| June 1, 2002 |
Boston College President Fr William P Leahy SJ announced plans for programs at BC over the next two years to examine issues relating to the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church. The program, which will be titled "The Church in the 21st-Century," will combine BC's educational and theological resources with other Catholic experts to provide a public forum for discussion.
"News stories in recent months have left many Catholics angry and confused, feeling betrayed, and asking serious questions about the meaning of their faith as well as their relationship to the hierarchy and the Church," said Fr Leahy. "I think it will be valuable for Catholics to engage in a process of prayer and reflection, but also to have serious dialogue about significant issues facing them and the Church."
Among these, said Leahy, are the Church's moral and ethical teachings; the role of lay men and women, priests, and bishops in the Catholic community; and "the challenges facing Catholics in living their faith in our time."
Fr Leahy will appoint an advisory committee of BC faculty, administrators, students, and alumni to direct the effort, which will include public lectures at Boston College and in other parts of the country; seminars for the campus community, alumni, and the general public; preparation of "issue papers" for scholars and the public; and the development of new undergraduate and graduate courses concerning ecclesiology, evangelization, and sexuality.
The programs will involve scholars from BC's Theology Department, Center for Ignatian Spirituality, Institute for Religious Education and Pastoral Ministry, Jesuit Community, and other institutions as well as members of the Catholic Church hierarchy. [Source: Boston College]
Under church [canon] law, victims of sexual abuse have a right to compensation from offending priests but not from local bishops, unless the bishop has failed to remove a definite abuser from ministry, said Fr Gianfranco Ghirlanda SJ, a Vatican City appeals court judge and a consultor to several Vatican agencies.
"From a canonical point of view, the bishop or religious superior is neither morally nor legally responsible for a criminal act committed by one of his clerics," said Fr Ghirlanda in an article published in the May 18 edition of the Jesuit magazine, La Civilta Cattolica.
The exception would be when a bishop had been previously notified of abuse allegations and failed to use the means at his disposal, including a church investigation to ascertain the facts and correct the problem or remove the cleric from ministry. In that case, a bishop would have some legal responsibility under church law for subsequent abuse, Fr Ghirlanda said.
Fr Ghirlanda said a bishop should generally act in a way that does not risk leaving a priest damaged by false accusations. Specifically, he said, it is not a good pastoral practice for the bishop to inform civil authorities of abuse allegations against a priest, so that the bishop can avoid being implicated in any future civil action taken by an accuser. [Source: CNS. Do not repost electronically]
Catholic bishops in the United States say they intend to continue turning over to secular authorities the names of priests accused of child sexual abuse, despite the article by Fr Gianfranco Ghirlanda suggesting they should not do so.
"The bishops are determined to make sure that they don't have people who would abuse children in the priesthood," said Sr Mary Ann Walsh, associate director of communications for the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. "The church needs to be a safe environment for all Catholics, especially for children, and the bishops will do what has to be done to make sure it is a safe environment."
Since the clergy sexual abuse scandal erupted in January, numerous bishops in states that do not require reporting of allegations have begun voluntarily to report such allegations under pressure from the public and prosecutors.
Bishop Wilton Gregory, the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, has said he expects the bishops next month to debate a requirement that they report allegations of abuse to secular authorities, regardless of what local laws require. [Source: San Francisco Chronicle]
Fr Edward T Burke SJ pleaded guilty May 23 to sexually assaulting a mentally retarded man who worked at the Jesuit residence in Los Gatos, California, where Fr Burke lived. He could face up to three years in prison when he is sentenced June 28. Fr Burke had turned himself in to Santa Clara County sheriff's detectives May 9 and posted $50,000 bond. [Source: CNS. Do not repost electronically]
Immigration remains a hot topic in Europe: the UN estimates that in the next 50 years, 160 million people will arrive in Europe to work and compensate for the low birth rate.
The Italian government has proposed a controversial bill on immigration and asylum, and the superior of the Italian Jesuits has entered into the fray with a press release. "The legislation overlooks the dignity of countless foreign workers who are contributing to the development of our country," declares Fr Vittorio Liberti, Jesuit provincial of Italy. "It considers them only as a threat to the security and welfare of Italians."
Fr Liberti urges Italian parliamentarians to reconsider the proposed "contratto di soggiorno" (residence totally conditional on employment) that would migrant laborers to stay in Italy only if and as long as they generate wealth -- a purely market view of the immigrant. He criticizs the restrictive criteria for family reunification.
The articles on the right of asylum do not sufficiently guarantee (as the Geneva Convention requires) secure refuge for those fleeing from persecution. The bill illustrates a kind of cultural schizophrenia: refugees should be helped when they are starving or in refugee camps, but when they try to come to Italy, they become a security threat.
Fr Liberti calls for dialogue among the political and social forces involved in immigration and asylum. "In a mature democracy the basis of an immigration law should not be fear, but the safeguarding of people's dignity and rights." [Source: Jesuit Refugee Services]
An international symposium organized by the Macau Ricci Institute to commemorate the 450th anniversary of the death of Saint Francis Xavier (1506-1552) in China, Shangchuan Island, Guangdong Province, will be held on November 28-29, 2002. The venue is Pousada de Mongha, Macau, and the official languages of the conference are Chinese and English. The main themes of the conference, which form the basis for more specific topics, are as follows:
For more information, write to Fr Yves Camus SJ at riccisem@macau.ctm.net.
On May 23 a rather puckish question was raised at New York University: "Was Athanasius Kircher the coolest guy ever, or what?" New York Institute for Humanities at NYU was hosting one of many celebrations of the 400th birthday of Athanasius Kircher. He became a Jesuit scholar and one of the leading intellectuals of 17th century Europe. A German Jesuit, Kircher (1602-80), a rough contemporary of Descartes and Galileo, was no ordinary man. He studied Egyptian hieroglyphs and helped Bernini with his fountain in the Piazza Navona. He made vomiting machines and eavesdropping statues. He transcribed bird songs and wrote a book about musicology (still used today). He taught Nicolas Poussin perspective and made a chamber of mirrors to drive cats crazy. He invented the first slide projector and had himself lowered into the mouth of Mount Vesuvius just as it was supposed to erupt. He proved the impossibility of the Tower of Babel and made a model of how the animals were arranged in Noah's Ark. And he collected the objects that filled the Museo Kircheriano, Rome's first wunderkammer or collection of curiosities.
There have been recent conferences on Kircher at Stanford University, the niversity of Chicago and in Rome. There was an exhibition of Kircheriana, put on by David Wilson at the Museum of Jurassic Technology in Los Angeles. Why the revival? Lawrence Weschler, the head of the institute and the author of "Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonders" (a book about the Museum of Jurassic Technology), thinks it is because Kircher is the premodern root of postmodern thinking. With his labyrinthine mind, he was Jorge Luis Borges before Borges. In the years before Kircher's death and for 300 years afterward, he was derided as a dilettante and crackpot. The rationalism and specialization of Descartes had taken over. But now Kircher's taste for trivia, deception, and wonder is back.
"In an age of polymaths," said Anthony Grafton, a professor at Princeton University, "Kircher was perhaps the most polymathic of them all." Like other Jesuits, Kircher was a religious man and a world scholar trying to prove that Aristotle and the Bible were right. He knew Hebrew, Aramaic Coptic, Persian, Latin, and Greek. But Kircher was also "a wild man," Mr Grafton argued. He guided Bernini in erecting an Egyptian obelisk at the Piazza Navona and may even have helped him with the hydraulics for his fountain, which alluded subversively to Kircher's own ideas about the earth's underground rivers. [Source: Sarah Boxer, New York Times, Dennis Casey, and other sources.]
Those interested in further information on this fascinating character might be interested in this reference to the Museum of Jurassic Technology: <http://mjt.org/exhibits/Knots.html> , or to a recent article in Company Magazine on Kircher: <http://www.companymagazine.org/v192/renaissance.htm>
In northeastern Congo, where the Congolese Rally for Democracy (CRD) and the Patriotic Rwandan Army are fighting for control, clashes broke out in Kisangani on May 14, and sixteen or more people were killed. A Spanish Jesuit, Fr Francisco-Javier Zabalo, the parish priest of Christ the King in the district of Mangobo, was assisting some wounded people and bringing them to the hospital when soldiers of the CRD sequestered him, commandeered his vehicle, and took him to a place unknown.
At the same time his Belgian companion, Guy Verhaegen SJ, was struck with a rifle butt and knocked down for protesting against the soldiers who invaded the priests' house and pillaged it.
On 15 May Fr Zabalo was released unharmed after interrogation, but Fr Verhaegen is still suffering the effects of the blow. After a few days with the Sacred Heart Fathers, they returned to their own house. [Source: Headlines]
A second national conference to educate and encourage those who practice Ignatian spirituality as well as those involved in works rooted in Ignatian spirituality will be held July 25-28 at Saint Louis University. The conference is sponsored by Saint Louis University, the Missouri Province of the Society of Jesus and the St. Louis Center for Ignatian Spirituality.
The conference, "Coming to Love: A Spirituality of Relationship," will feature major presentations and small group workshops. Presentations will address Ignatian spirituality in everyday life, adaptations of the Spiritual Exercises for various cultural settings, and the dynamic interplay of past and future in sharing Ignatian spirituality in the new millennium.
For further information, call Saint Louis University's Office of Mission and Ministry, (314) 977-2509 or go online at http://www.slu.edu/conferences/isc/
Finding God in Cyberspace: www.fontbonne.edu/libserv/fgic/contents.htm This site, from Fontbonne University in St Louis, is subtitled 'A Guide to Religious Studies on the Internet'. It does not attempt a comprehensive list of all sources on the Internet, but selectively points to what it considers the best gateways to specific types of religious information for religious studies scholars and students of religion. For example, the Church History category links to a gateway site called 'The Hall of Church History: Theology from a bunch of Dead Guys' and a collection of links maintained by the American Society of Church History.
JesuitUSA News is a service of Company Magazine. In addition to the print edition, almost all of the items in Company Magazine can be viewed via the World Wide Web at www.companymagazine.org or www.companysj.com. Any correspondence concerning this mailing list should be sent to the editor at news@companysj.com . The newsletter is available to all Jesuits, to those who work with them, or to those who are simply interested in what they are doing. Tell your friends; the price is right! If you are requesting addition to the list, please include your real name as well as your email address. If you are changing your address, please include YOUR NAME as well as both the NEW and the OLD email addresses.
The editor of this Newsletter is Richard VandeVelde SJ who is ably assisted by Ms Rebecca Troha, Assistant Editor. They would both like to remind you of the following useful WWW links for items of Jesuit interest. Many of these links will lead you to others.
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