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Pope Calls U.S. Cardinals To Vatican Concerning Scandal
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Pope John Paul has called U.S. Cardianls to Rome to discuss
scandal
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ROME, April 16 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Pope John Paul II will meet with his 13 U.S. cardinals on April 23-24 session to discuss the crisis facing the Catholic Church over a series of child sexual abuse cases involving American clergy, the Vatican announced Tuesday.
The pope, in his first direct public role addressing a scandal shaking the church in the United States and other countries commented the Washington Post, will meet the cardinals for a two-day "working meeting" to discuss the crisis beginning next Tuesday, according to a Vatican statement.
The meetings would involve U.S. cardinals and the heads of Vatican congregations. There was no mention of meeting the Pope himself, but it is widely believed the cardinals would see him, reports CNN.
News agencies report the Pope called the meeting to discuss "guidelines meant to restore security and serenity to the families" and to restore "trust to the clergy."
"It was a due and urgent response to Catholics and public opinion in the United States, where prestigious newspapers accused the pontiff of inertia, or even of being incapable of leading the Church," said a U.S. bishop at the Roman Curia who did not want to be identified.
The Post quoted Dennis M. Doyle, a professor of religious studies at the University of Dayton in Ohio, who said, "This is a recognition of the magnitude of the problem, that an extraordinary measure like calling together the cardinals is being taken."
Ecclesiastical scholars in Rome said Tuesday that the meeting could take on the characteristics of a trial, the results of which will be an example to the Church around the world.
"The object of the meeting is to examine the problems created in the Church in the United States following the scandals connected to pedophilia and to introduce guidelines designed to restore security and calm to the families, and confidence to the clergy and to the faithful," the Vatican said in a statement.
The announcement follows a papal summons sent to U.S. cardinals on Monday.
John Paul II has rarely spoken of the pedophilia crisis facing the Church, but last month he wrote that all priests are profoundly affected by "the sins of some of our brothers" who have succumbed to "the most grievous forms" of evil.
Among the U.S. cardinals summoned to Rome are New York Archbishop Edward Egan and Boston Cardinal Bernard Law who have come under fire for covering up years of abuse by priests in their charge, sparking a furor and alienating public opinion in the United States.
Facing them at the meeting will be some of the most powerful officials in the Catholic Church.
They include the head of the Congregation of the Clergy, Colombian Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, head of the Congregation for the Docterine of the Faith, and Italian Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, leader of the Congregation for Bishops.
The Vatican statement said the meeting would discuss the Church's response to cases of pedophilia among U.S. clergy and to ways of restoring public confidence in the Church in the United States.
The Post reports that it has been more than a decade since the pope last called U.S. cardinals to Rome to discuss the Church in America. John Paul last summoned U.S. cardinals in 1989 to discuss tensions between U.S. Catholics and the Vatican over such issues as birth control and divorce, reports the paper.
Opinion polls and newspaper editorials in the U.S. have called for Law and Egan to be sacked.
Ratzinger, one of the Vatican's longest serving and most experienced cardinals, was earlier this year given special authority by the pope to deal with sex abuse cases.
Ratzinger reached the retirement age for cardinals, 75, on Tuesday, but could remain on in the post he has held since 1982 if the pope should decide.
The primary duty and responsibility of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is to promote and preserve the Catholic Faith throughout the Church.
Last month, a personal friend of the pope, Polish Catholic archbishop Juliusz Paetz, 67, became one of the most senior members of the Church to lose his post over allegations of sexually harassing seminarians and priests.
Paetz had been a member of the pope's personal entourage in Rome for a number of years.
Catholic clergy have been hit by sex scandals, mostly of a pedophile nature, not only in the United States, but in Mexico, France, Ireland, Britain, Spain, Poland and a number of African nations.
Since January, dozens of priests in at least 17 U.S. dioceses have been removed or suspended in cases of sexual abuse.
However, the Catholic Church hierarchy's handling of one case in particular has helped to turn public opinion against the Church in the U.S.
Father John Geoghan, 66, was sentenced to 10 years in prison last month for sexually abusing a boy in Boston in 1991.
More than 130 complaints had been brought against Geoghan, but Church officials responded by moving him from parish to parish and secretly paying out compensation to the victims.
The scandal has swelled in Boston, where the archdiocese was recently forced by a court to turn over hundreds of pages of damaging internal documents, reports CNN.
Geoghan’s case is but one, as another recent case - the impetus for the Pope’s call – revolves around now-retired priest, Paul Shanley, who according to documents had gone so far as to publicly defend sexual relationships between men and boys.
Cardinal Law, head of the Boston archdiocese, was aware of numerous allegations of abuse against Shanley.
Law, who said last week he would not resign as leader of the country's fourth-largest diocese, has faced growing criticism since acknowledging he transferred Shanley to another parish despite knowing of sexual misconduct allegations against him, news agencies report.
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