In the almost fifteen years now since I was suspended from ministry as a priest, I have regularly complained about the lack of due process in the dealings with my case, and also the fact that there was no appeals process. Now I discover that I was wrong. There is an appeals body in the Curia. It is known as the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, and it is an established body within the Vatican, and one of its functions is to deal with cases of the removal of a priest’s ministerial faculties.
For starters, it is a fairly intimidating name for somebody like myself, a fairly lowly member of the Church officialdom, an ordinary priest. Over the past fifteen years numerous people, including some high ranking ones, have written to various bodies in the Vatican about my situation, including the Pope himself, and as far as I am aware not one of them even got a reply. So how could one get to this august ‘Supreme Tribunal? If my case was ever considered by them during those years I was not informed. I presume it never got near their table.
Maybe that had to do with the fact that I am a Redemptorist, a religious order, and that it would have needed the headquarters of the Redemptorists to bring my case to them. But my experience of the head office of the ‘Reds’ was that, like the Kerry team last Sunday, they showed a distinct lack of energy in doing anything, except to leave the sanction that they themselves had decreed on me, in place.
Anyway, I read with interest a recent report in the National Catholic Reporter that Leo had appointed some new members to this body. Three of the new members surprised me. The first one is San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone. This gentleman has been one of the most outspoken conservatives in the American Church, railing against, among other issues, any change in same-sex marriage laws, and also demanding more access to the pre-Vatican II Latin Mass. In other words, he was a significant opponent of the previous pope. Two more of Leo’s appointments are equally surprising, two Spanish canon lawyers who are members of Opus Dei.
In recent years a lot has emerged about that particular body, Opus Dei, that one would have thought, those appointments are strange, to say the least.
This ultimately does not concern me personally in the least, and I will not be expecting a phone call from Cordileone anytime soon. But it does make me wonder what exactly Leo is up to, and how he is going to steer the Church during his time as pope. ‘Unity’ seems to be a major concern for him. He does not seem to want to do anything that might cause a split in the Church, so he is leaning backwards to reach out to the traditionalists. The first signs of this was, shortly after his appointment, one of the first people he met was Cardinal Raymond Burke, not only meeting him, but inviting him to celebrate Mass in St. Peter’s.
That is all well and good, but in my view, it augurs badly for the Synodality movement. That movement, initiated by Francis, is radical, in the sense that it would involve a major change in the way the Church is governed, giving far greater say to all the baptised, and as a consequence, lessening the power of the clerical church. Traditionalists, especially those who have problems with the teachings of Vatican II, are totally against the movement. As long as Leo emphasis unity above all else, which he seems to, synodality will not succeed. The traditionalist will block it as every turn. The only possible way it could be successful would be to give freedom to the different areas in the world church to move at their own pace. For instance, let the German Church bless same-sex marriages, or the Belgians and South Americans ordain married men to the priesthood. If others don’t want to do it, that is fine too. Why do we all have to be exactly the same?
It wont work. Splits and divisions express themselves in different ways. Not every group of believers react like the Pius XII movement. Most just move quietly away, not wishing to belong anymore. We see that everywhere.
So I’d say to Pope Leo: Of course meet up with the traditionalists, even give them jobs in the Vatican. But what will you do for all the women who no longer feel at home in a Church where they believe they are second class citizens?
