Doctrine watchdog overrules Secretariat of State's greenlighting of laicized pedophile
If you value articles like this, sign up for our daily email newsletter and support us with a donation.
Editor's note:
Election Day is Nov. 5. Be ready for the ballot box by registering to vote.
For information on registration deadlines in your state or territory, click here.
To register to vote online, or update your registration, click here.
A civil war has erupted between the Vatican's doctrine watchdog and the Secretariat of State after the powerful department, which governs the papal bureaucracy, reinstated a pedophile priest who was defrocked for sexually abusing children in Argentina.
The conflict between the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF), headed by the Argentinian Cdl. Víctor Manuel Fernández, and the Secretariat of State, led by Cdl. Pietro Parolin, is said to be the most public skirmish between Vatican departments in years.
On Monday, Abp. John Joseph Kennedy, head of the DDF's disciplinary division, wrote to Bp. Adolfo Uriona of the Diocese of Villa de la Concepción del Río Cuarto, overruling a Sept. 23 order from the Secretariat of State, which reversed the laicization of predator priest Fr. Ariel Alberto Príncipi.
The order rehabilitating Príncipi was signed by the Sostituto ("substitute") of the Secretariat of State, Abp. Edgar Peña Parra, second in command to Parolin. Peña Parra has been accused of being "blackmailable" and a "notorious homosexual" by Vatican whistleblower Abp. Carlo Maria Viganò, who was excommunicated in July for schism.
ABUSING CHILDREN
Príncipi was convicted in 2021 of delicta graviora contra sextum cum minoribus (graver offenses against the sixth [commandment] with minors) and expelled from the clerical state by the Interdiocesan Tribunal of Córdoba, Argentina, on June 2, 2023, and confirmed on appeal on April 8, 2024, by the Interdiocesan Tribunal of Buenos Aires.
The sexual abuse is reported to have been perpetrated by Príncipi while conducting "healing prayers" in the Catholic Charismatic Renewal prayer circles.
On Sept. 25, Bp. Uriona published the notification from Peña Parra which announced that the predator priest would be restored to ministry under an "extraordinary procedure," which prohibited him from contact with minors or from concelebrating the Mass, or assuming responsibility for a parish.
Peña Parra explained that the laicization had been reversed "as a result of the further evidence presented by some diocesan bishops of Argentina, as well as by several faithful in the months of June and July 2024."
The result of that "extraordinary procedure" was that Príncipi was found guilty of unspecified canonical crimes for having been "very imprudent in the exercise of the so-called 'healing prayers,'" the Sostituto for the Secretariat of State noted.
However, on Oct. 8, Bp. Uriona published a follow-up notification on the diocesan website announcing the latest DDF decision to annul the "extraordinary procedure."
UNUSUAL INTERVENTION
According to canon law experts, the intervention by the Secretariat of State is a serious breach of the disciplinary process in the case of accusations of clerical sexual abuse of minors, since the DDF has the sole authority to adjudicate such cases and deliver verdicts.
The Secretariat of State has no judicial function or power assigned to it by Praedicate evangelium, Pope Francis' 2022 apostolic constitution which defining the roles and limits of Vatican departments.
In its letter overruling Peña Parra's decision, the DDF pointed out "that after the time periods established by law have elapsed, the restitutio in integrum has not been filed with this Court."
Kennedy observed:
"That the Secretariat of State has communicated that the case is again subject to the ordinary process in this Dicastery, according to the norms provided for by the Law of the Church. Consequently, the sentence of the Interdiocesan Tribunal of Buenos Aires of April 8, 2024, which confirmed the penalty of expulsion from the clerical state of Mr. Principi, previously established by the Interdiocesan Tribunal of Córdoba on June 2, 2023, must be considered valid in all its parts and, consequently, the case has been archived."
The unprecedented intervention has given rise to questions over the involvement of Pope Francis in the case of the Argentinian predator priest, since only the Supreme Pontiff has the powers to bypass a Vatican department.
Francis is understood to be close to Peña Parra both in a personal and official capacity.
In September 1990, Peña Parra, a Venezuelan prelate, "was accused of having seduced two minor seminarians from the parish of San Pablo," according to Viganò's unconfirmed testimony.
In August 1992, when he was a student at the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy, Peña Parra was allegedly involved in the death of a doctor and a certain Jairo Pérez, who were killed by an electric shock. The bodies were found naked, "the victims of macabre homosexual practices," Viganò stated.
The whistleblower also revealed that "in January 2000, the Maracaibo journalist Gastón Guisandes López made grave accusations against several homosexual priests of the Diocese of Maracaibo, including Peña Parra."
In July, Peña Parra testified for the third and final time at Britain's Royal Courts of Justice in the ongoing civil case on the Sloane Avenue property purchase, claiming that the Holy See was a victim of fraud in the multi-million pound property scandal.
Dr. Jules Gomes, (BA, BD, MTh, PhD), has a doctorate in biblical studies from the University of Cambridge. Currently a Vatican-accredited journalist based in Rome, he is the author of five books and several academic articles. Gomes lectured at Catholic and Protestant seminaries and universities and was canon theologian and artistic director at Liverpool Cathedral.
留言