 | This article's lead section may be too short to adequately summarize the key points.(September 2016) |
Pope John Paul II was criticised for, amongst other things, [1] an alleged lack of response to child sex abuse in the Catholic Church.
| | This article's lead section may be too short to adequately summarize the key points.(September 2016) |
Pope John Paul II was criticised for, amongst other things, [1] an alleged lack of response to child sex abuse in the Catholic Church.
John Paul II was criticised by members of the abuse victims' group Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), for failing to respond appropriately to the sex abuse crisis. [2] In 2002, he wrote that "there is no place in the priesthood and religious life for those who would harm the young". [3] [4] The Church instituted reforms to prevent future abuse by requiring background checks for Church employees [5] and, because a significant majority of victims were teenage boys, disallowing ordination of men with "deep–seated homosexual tendencies". [6] [7] They now require dioceses faced with an allegation to alert the authorities, conduct an investigation and remove the accused from duty. [5] [8]
In addition to cases of abuse, much of the scandal has focused around members of the Catholic hierarchy who did not report abuse allegations to the civil authorities. In many cases they reassigned those accused to other locations where they continued to have contact with minors. [9] In defending their actions, some bishops and psychiatrists contended that the prevailing psychology of the times suggested that people could be cured of such behavior through counseling. [10] [11] Members of the church hierarchy have argued that media coverage has been excessive. [12] In response to the widening scandal, Pope John Paul II emphasised the spiritual nature of the offenses. He declared in 2001 that "a sin against the Sixth Commandment of the Decalogue by a cleric with a minor under 18 years of age is to be considered a grave sin, or delictum gravius ." [13] With the approval of the Vatican, the hierarchy of the church in the United States said that it instituted reforms to prevent future abuse including requiring background checks for Church employees and volunteers, while opposing extensions of the statutes of limitations in sex abuse cases. [14]
John Paul II was criticised for his support of the Opus Dei prelature and the 2002 canonisation of its founder, Josemaría Escrivá, whom he called the saint of ordinary life. [15] [16]
John Paul II has been criticised for hindering [17] [18] [19] the investigation into the charges of sexual immorality leveled against Father Marcial Maciel Degollado. This is despite the fact that Maciel was already under investigation by the Vatican in 1956 for drug addiction when he established the Legionaries in Ireland. At the time the Vatican had removed him as superior of the Legionaries and was investigating allegations that he abused morphine. [20]
Allegations about Maciel began resurfacing in the 1980s but were consistently ignored by the Vatican hierarchy, which approved bylaws for the group that effectively banned internal criticism of Maciel and allowed a personality cult to flourish around him. He was eventually found to have molested many seminarians and abused children he had fathered with different women despite his vows of chastity. Campaigners accuse John Paul II more generally of putting the interests of the Catholic Church above all and turning a blind eye to child sex abuse allegations. [21] [2]
 | This article is written like a personal reflection, personal essay, or argumentative essay that states a Wikipedia editor's personal feelings or presents an original argument about a topic.(August 2022) |
John Paul II's defense of teachings of the Catholic Church regarding gender roles, sexuality, euthanasia, artificial contraception and abortion came under criticism. Some Christian feminists challenged views of his on the role of women in society, including the ordination of women. However, John Paul was being consistent with Catholic teaching.
The legacy of Pope John Paul II is vibrant and extraordinary, yet painfully inconsistent. The contradiction in his legacy lies in his teaching and actions on the dignity of women. John Paul II called for women to be included as decision makers in secular governments. However, when it came to bringing women into the decision making bodies of his church, he slammed the door in our faces, barring us from ordination and locking the door by stating the discussion about women’s ordination is closed.
— Aisha Taylor (Women's Ordination Conference 2005) [22]
In addition to all the criticism from those demanding modernisation, traditionalist Catholics sometimes denounced him as well. These issues included demanding a return to the Tridentine Mass [23] and repudiation of the reforms instituted after the Second Vatican Council, such as the use of the vernacular language in the formerly Latin Roman Rite Mass, ecumenism, and the principle of religious liberty. He was also accused by these critics for allowing and appointing liberal bishops in their sees and thus silently promoting Modernism, which was firmly condemned as the "synthesis of all heresies" by his predecessor Pope Pius X. In 1988, the controversial traditionalist Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, founder of the Society of St. Pius X (1970), was excommunicated under John Paul II because of the unapproved ordination of four bishops, which was called by the Holy See a "schismatic act".
The World Day of Prayer for Peace, [24] with a meeting in Assisi, Italy, in 1986, in which the Pope prayed only with the Christians, [25] was heavily criticised as giving the impression that syncretism and indifferentism were openly embraced by the Papal Magisterium. When a second 'Day of Prayer for Peace in the World' [26] was held, in 2002, it was condemned as confusing the laity and compromising to "false religions". Likewise criticised were his kissing [27] of the Qur'an in Damascus, Syria, on one of his travels on 6 May 2001. His call for religious freedom was not always supported; bishops like Antônio de Castro Mayer promoted religious tolerance, but at the same time rejected the Vatican II principle of religious liberty as being liberalist and already condemned by Pope Pius IX in his Syllabus errorum (1864) and at the First Vatican Council.[ citation needed ]
Some Catholics opposed his beatification and canonization for the above reasons. [28]
John Paul's position against artificial birth control, including the use of condoms to prevent the spread of HIV, [29] was harshly criticised by doctors and AIDS activists, who said that it led to countless deaths and millions of AIDS orphans. [30] However, Edward C. Green, director of the AIDS Prevention Research Project at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies said "We have found no consistent associations between condom use and lower HIV-infection rates, which, 25 years into the pandemic, we should be seeing if this intervention was working. [31] James Shelton, of the US Agency for International Development, said that one of the ten damaging myths about the fight against AIDS is that condoms are the answer. "Condoms alone have limited impact in generalised epidemics [as in Africa]," Shelton wrote. [32] Critics have also claimed that large families are caused by lack of contraception and exacerbate Third World poverty and problems such as street children in South America. The Catholic Agency for Overseas Development published a paper stating, "Any strategy that enables a person to move from a higher-risk towards the lower end of the continuum, [we] believe, is a valid risk reduction strategy." [33]
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He was criticised for recentralising power back to the Vatican following what some viewed as a decentralisation by Pope John XXIII. As such he was regarded by some as a strict authoritarian. Conversely, he was also criticised for spending far too much time preparing for and undertaking foreign travel. The frequency of his trips, it was said, not only undermined the "specialness" of papal visits, but took him away from important business at the Vatican and allowed the Church, administratively speaking, to drift and rot within. Especially in South America, he was criticised for conservative bias in his appointments of bishops; with an unusually long reign of over 25 years, the majority of bishops in place at his death had been appointed by him.
Some Catholic theologians disagreed with the call for beatification of Pope John Paul II. Eleven dissident theologians, including Jesuit professor Jose Maria Castillo and Italian theologian Giovanni Franzoni raised seven points, including his stance against contraception and the ordination of women as well as the Church scandals that presented "facts which according to their consciences and convictions should be an obstacle to beatification". [34]
Pope John Paul II was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his death in 2005. He was later canonised as Pope Saint John Paul II. In his youth, he also dabbled in stage acting.
Pope Benedict XVI was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 19 April 2005 until his resignation on 28 February 2013. Benedict's election as pope occurred in the 2005 papal conclave that followed the death of Pope John Paul II. Benedict chose to be known as "Pope emeritus" upon his resignation, and he retained this title until his death in December 2022.
There have been many cases of sexual abuse of children by priests, nuns, and other members of religious life in the Catholic Church. In the 20th and 21st centuries, the cases have involved many allegations, investigations, trials, convictions, acknowledgement and apologies by Church authorities, and revelations about decades of instances of abuse and attempts by Church officials to cover them up. The abused include mostly boys but also girls, some as young as three years old, with the majority between the ages of 11 and 14. Criminal cases for the most part do not cover sexual harassment of adults. The accusations of abuse and cover-ups began to receive public attention during the late 1980s. Many of these cases allege decades of abuse, frequently made by adults or older youths years after the abuse occurred. Cases have also been brought against members of the Catholic hierarchy who covered up sex abuse allegations and moved abusive priests to other parishes, where abuse continued.
Stanisław Jan Dziwisz is a Polish prelate of the Catholic Church. He served as Metropolitan Archbishop of Kraków from 2005 until 2016. He was created a cardinal in 2006. He was a long-time and influential aide to Pope John Paul II, a friend of Pope Benedict XVI, and an ardent supporter of John Paul II's beatification.
The Congregation of the Legionaries of Christ is a Roman Catholic clerical religious order made up of priests and candidates for the priesthood established by Marcial Maciel in Mexico in 1941. Maciel was also Director General of the congregation for over 60 years until forced to step down in January 2005 as a result of a child sexual abuse scandal.
Marcial Maciel Degollado was a Mexican Catholic priest who founded the Legion of Christ and the Regnum Christi movement. He was general director of the Legion from 1941 to 2005. Throughout most of his career, he was respected within the church as "the greatest fundraiser of the modern Roman Catholic church" and as a prolific recruiter of new seminarians. Late in his life, Maciel was revealed to have been a longtime drug addict who sexually abused many boys and young men in his care. After his death, it came to light that he had also maintained sexual relationships with at least four women, one of whom was a minor at the time. He fathered as many as six children, two of whom he is alleged to have sexually abused.
George Pell was an Australian cardinal of the Catholic Church. He served as the inaugural prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy between 2014 and 2019, and was a member of the Council of Cardinal Advisers between 2013 and 2018. Ordained a priest in 1966 and bishop in 1987, he was made a cardinal in 2003. Pell served as the eighth Archbishop of Sydney (2001–2014), the seventh Archbishop of Melbourne (1996–2001) and an auxiliary bishop of Melbourne (1987–1996). He was also an author, columnist and public speaker. From 1996, Pell maintained a high public profile on a wide range of issues, while retaining an adherence to Catholic orthodoxy.
Justin Francis Rigali is an American cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He was the eighth Archbishop of Philadelphia, having previously served as Archbishop of St. Louis from 1994 to 2003, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 2003. Following a sex abuse probe into the Catholic Church, Cardinal Rigali resigned in 2011.
Christoph Maria Michael Hugo Damian Peter Adalbert Schönborn, O.P. is a Bohemian-born Austrian Dominican friar and theologian, who is a cardinal of the Catholic Church. He serves as the Archbishop of Vienna and was the Chairman of the Austrian Bishops' Conference from 1998 to 2020. He was elevated to the cardinalate in 1998. He is also Grand Chaplain of the Order of the Golden Fleece, of which he has been a member since 1961. He is a member of the formerly sovereign princely House of Schönborn, several members of which held high offices of the Holy Roman Empire and the Catholic Church as prince-bishops, prince-electors and cardinals.
Alfonso López Trujillo was a Colombian Cardinal Bishop of the Roman Catholic Church and president of the Pontifical Council for the Family.
Instruction Concerning the Criteria for the Discernment of Vocations with Regard to Persons with Homosexual Tendencies in View of Their Admission to the Seminary and to Holy Orders is a document published in November 2005 by the Congregation for Catholic Education, one of the top-level offices of the Catholic Church.
Donald William Wuerl is an American prelate, a cardinal, of the Catholic Church. He served as Archbishop of Washington, D.C., from 2006 to 2018. He was elevated by Pope John Paul II to serve as auxiliary bishop of Seattle (1986–1987), and bishop of Pittsburgh (1988–2006). He was named archbishop of Washington by Pope Benedict XVI and made a cardinal by him in 2010.
Edward Peter Cullen was an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church who served as bishop of the Diocese of Allentown in Pennsylvania from 1998 to 2009 and as an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia from 1994 to 1998.
Armando Xavier Ochoa, D.D., is an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as bishop of the Diocese of Fresno in California, bishop of the Diocese of El Paso in Texas and auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles in California.
The post–Vatican II history of the Catholic Church is the recent history of the Catholic Church since the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965).
Pope John Paul II reigned as pope of the Roman Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State for 26 years from October 1978 to his death, on 2 April 2005. Since his death, many thousands of people have been supporting the case for beatifying and canonising Pope John Paul II as a saint. His formal beatification ceremony took place on 1 May 2011.
As distinct from abuse by some parish priests, who are subject to diocesan control, there has also been abuse by members of Roman Catholic orders, which often care for the sick or teach at school. Just as diocesan clergy have arranged parish transfers of abusive priests, abusive brothers in Catholic orders are sometimes transferred.
The Catholic Church is a major provider of medical care to HIV/AIDS patients. Much of its work takes place in developing countries, although it has also had a presence in the global north. Its opposition to condoms, despite their effectiveness in preventing the spread of HIV, has invited criticism from public health officials and anti-AIDS activists.
Marcial Maciel was the founding leader of the Legion of Christ, then based in Mexico, and its general director from 1941 to January 2005. Since the 1970s the prominent Mexican Roman Catholic priest had sexually abused at least 60 minors." and fathered six children by three women. Described as a charismatic leader and the "greatest fundraiser of the modern Roman Catholic church", he was successful in recruiting seminarians at a time of declining priestly vocations. Maciel was the "highest ranking priest ever disciplined because of sexual abuse allegations."
The ecclesiastical response to Catholic sexual abuse cases is a major aspect of the academic literature surrounding the Church's child sexual abuse scandal. The Catholic Church's response to the scandal can be viewed on three levels: the diocesan level, the episcopal conference level and the Vatican. Responses to the scandal proceeded at all three levels in parallel with the higher levels becoming progressively more involved as the gravity of the problem became more apparent.
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