What happened?
The last remaining abuse survivor on the Vatican’s Commission for the Protection of Minors has resigned. Marie Collins said she could not remain in her position given “the reluctance of some in the Vatican Curia to implement recommendations or cooperate”. For instance, Collins said, the commission’s guidelines on safeguarding were never sent out to the world’s bishops; other recommendations, such as a tribunal for bishops accused of negligence, were never implemented.
What the media said
‘‘To put it mildly,” said the Economist’s religion blogger Erasmus, “this is a body-blow to the credibility of the Holy See’s efforts in this desperately important area.” The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith had seemingly shown “massive bureaucratic resistance”. Collins’s strategy now appeared to be “shaming the Church into action, and exposing the forces which are holding up such action”.
In the Guardian, Stephanie Kirchgaessner noted that the commission had already been troubled: “Collins’s decision to leave the commission comes a year after the only other abuse survivor who was appointed to the commission, Peter Saunders, was forced to take leave of absence.” Saunders said the commission was doing far too little to tackle abuse.
What Catholics said
Speaking to the Boston Globe, the canon lawyer Nicholas Cafardi, a former adviser to the US bishops on child abuse, said the episode showed the nature of the Vatican: not a “monolith” so much as “hundreds of little kingdoms, and people are very jealous of protecting their turf”.
But at Crux, Fr Raymond de Souza said the Pope’s management style would also come under scrutiny: “Everyone knows that only one person in the Vatican holds absolute power, and that Pope Francis is more inclined to use it than his predecessors.” The Pope has tried to bypass the Curia with his own “parallel Curia”, while criticising Vatican officialdom. But this could make it hard to implement changes. If the Pope does want reform, “Is it perhaps time to try a different way of getting it?”
The most overlooked story of the week
✣ Francis criticises ‘banal’ post-Vatican II music
What happened?
Pope Francis has criticised the “banality” of some post-Vatican II Church music. Speaking at a Vatican conference on the 50th anniversary of the council document Musicam Sacram, the Pope remarked: “Sometimes a certain mediocrity, superficiality and banality have prevailed, to the detriment of the beauty and intensity of liturgical celebrations.”
Why was it under-reported?
Apart from a brief controversy over ad orientem worship, liturgical controversies have not been in the headlines in recent years. So the Pope’s comments don’t fit into any established narrative. They certainly can’t be interpreted along the lines of “Liberal Pope moves Church into 21st century”, since Francis seemed sceptical about the idea of progress in sacred music. “The encounter with modernity and the introduction of [vernacular] tongues into the liturgy,” he said, “stirred up many problems: of musical languages, forms and genres.”
What will happen next?
Probably not very much, said Fr John Zuhlsdorf on his blog wdtprs.com. “Benedict XVI and John Paul II said similar things about music and liberals ignored them.” More progressive voices, who treat the Pope’s words as “a combination of the Gospels, the oracle of Delphi and an apparition of Vishnu”, might be less appreciative of his warnings about modern music.
Pope Francis also suggested that sacred music should be developed in ecumenical ways – but it is not clear what this might mean in practice.
✣The week ahead
Up to 10,000 young people are expected to attend Britain’s biggest Catholic youth event at Wembley arena tomorrow. Flame 2017 is organised by the Catholic Youth Ministry Federation (CymFed). There will be music from Grammy award-winning singer Matt Redman and the day will end with Adoration, led by Cardinal Vincent Nichols.
St Peter’s Basilica will host Anglican Evensong for the first time on Monday. Archbishop David Moxon, director of the Anglican Centre in Rome, will preside at the service and music will be sung by the Choir of Merton College, Oxford.
The Dutch are heading to the polls for their general election on Wednesday. Geert Wilders’s Party for Freedom is neck-and-neck in the polls with prime minister Mark Rutte’s People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy. Catholic bishops have urged voters not to “indulge in anger”.
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