VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI
fired a 52-year-old Slovak bishop for apparently mismanaging his
diocese in a rare show of papal power over bishops that could have
implications for U.S. sex abuse cases.
Usually when bishops run into trouble — either for alleged moral lapses or management problems — they are persuaded by the Vatican
to resign. But Benedict has become increasingly willing to forcibly
remove bishops who refuse to step down, sacking three others in the past
year alone.
His willingness to do so raises questions about
whether he would take the same measures against bishops who covered up
for sexually abusive priests. So far he has not.
In the most notable case to date, Benedict fired Bishop William Morris
of Toowoomba, Australia, last year after he called for the church to
consider ordaining women and married men. He also removed a Congolese
bishop for management problems in his diocese and an Italian one in May
for similar reasons.
On Monday, the Vatican said Benedict had "relieved from pastoral care" Bishop Robert Bezak
of Trnava, Slovakia. No reason was given, but Italian news reports
suggested administrative problems were to blame, and Slovak news reports
quoted Bezak as saying he thought his criticism of his predecessor may
have had a role.
Bishops normally hand in their resignation when they turn 75 years old, their customary retirement age.
The
exercise of the pope's ability to fire a bishop has important
implications, particularly concerning bishops who mishandle pedophile
priests.
In the face of U.S.
lawsuits seeking to hold the pope ultimately responsible for abusive
priests, the Holy See has argued that bishops are largely masters of
their dioceses and that the pope doesn't really control them. The
Vatican has thus sought to limit its own liability, arguing that the
pope doesn't exercise sufficient control over the bishops to be held
responsible for their bungled response to priests who rape children.
The
ability of the pope to actively fire bishops, and not just passively
accept their resignations, would seem to undercut the Vatican's argument
of a hands-off pope.
"If the
pope can fire a bishop, that implies he's their supervisor," said Nick
Cafardi, a U.S. canon lawyer and former chairman of the U.S. bishops'
lay review board that monitored clerical abuse. "This will invite more
lawsuits attempting to sue the pope in American courts."
Jeffrey
Anderson, who is seeking to hold the Holy See liable for a case of an
abusive priest in Oregon, said the Vatican was trying to have it both
ways.
"They will remove, using
their canon laws and their own protocols, bishops, priests and clerics
for any reasons — for theological or any other reasons — but when it
comes to sexual misconduct, they never use those same standards," he
said.
Even the most well-known case, that of Cardinal Bernard Law,
ended when Law offered his resignation after the sex abuse scandal
exploded in his Boston archdiocese 2002. Law subsequently was named
archpriest of one of the Vatican's basilicas in Rome, St. Mary Major.
That
said, things may be changing: The Vatican's sex crimes prosecutor,
Monsignor Charles Scicluna, warned in February that bishops could face
possible church sanctions for malicious or fraudulent negligence if they
fail to follow the Vatican's rules on handling sexually abusive
priests. But he acknowledged that such bishop accountability needed to
be "further developed."
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