Rome & the World: abuse in Spain • Haifa archbishop arrest • assaulting JPII’s legacy?

Spanish lawyer Javier Cremades, commissioned by the Spanish Bishops' Conference to carry out an audit on sexual abuse of minors within the institutions of the Catholic Church in the country, explained in an interview with Europa Press that the first five months of investigation, carried out by a team of 28 experts, have brought to light between 1,000 and 2,000 cases. A hundred cases directly identified in this research have been added to the files of the Episcopal Conference and to the cases gathered by the daily El Pais. Of course, this is only a first and very provisional statistic. "We are facing the tip of the iceberg, I think there is a lot of silence, we come from a culture of concealment and a culture of silence, in which institutions put the institution before the individual and, on the other hand, people felt an enormous helplessness," warns Cremades. He plans to present the results of his audit in 2023, but only on the basis of documented cases, and not with a method of global estimating, as was done by the CIASE in France. While he hopes that other spheres of society will become involved in the subject in order to guarantee a safe environment for minors, he does not exclude the possibility that the Church in Spain will sell assets to pay compensation to victims, as has been done in other countries, such as in Canada recently.

Religion Digital, Spanish

Terre Sainte magazine reports on the arrest by the Lebanese authorities of Archbishop Moussa el-Haje, Maronite Archbishop of Haifa and the Holy Land, during his visit to Lebanon on July 18. The Archbishop was carrying $460,000 in cash, Israeli medicines, his passport and his cell phone, all of which were confiscated. The newspaper underlines the unprecedented nature of his arrest, as his movements are normally legally protected. The money is apparently donations from Lebanese refugee families in Israel, considered by Hezbollah in Lebanon as "traitors." However, the Maronites are in open opposition to Hezbollah. This would therefore be one of Hezbollah’s many "intimidations." Since 2014 the group has prohibited, without many results, the Maronite Patriarch Béchara Boutros Raï from visiting the territories occupied by Israel. Archbishop Mossa el-Haje chose not to present himself before the judge on July 20. 

Terre Sainte, French

Theologian George Weigel publishes a charge against the Vatican's directives on the defense of life, on the American Catholic website First Things. For him, the transformation under Francis' pontificate of the Pontifical Academy for Life and the attached John Paul II Institute, is a direct attack on the Polish Pope's legacy. He sees this action by the Holy See as "revenge" by theological "guilds" that emerged in the 1960s and did not appreciate years of progress in the Holy See's positions on abortion, contraception, and euthanasia. The Vatican's publication of a book titled Theological Ethics and Life: Scripture, Tradition, and Practical Challenges now proposes a "paradigm shift" marked by "proportionalism," which would accept that some cases would be less problematic in certain situations. The John Paul II Institute, he says, is now "a husk of its former self" and of the 264th pontiff's teaching. The "guilds" are now in the forefront of their fight against John Paul II’s supposed “black-and-white morality,” “rigorism,” and “fundamentalism," he concludes.

First Things, English