It is customary that the offices of the Holy See in Rome move progressively to a veritable standstill as the weather in the Eternal City continues to grow warmer. With only a few weeks to go before the Roman holiday begins, the past few days have seen a few publications of length find their way into the public forum.
Among these is a clarification notice published by the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei last Friday which is meant to provide some clarifications (that usually means that there have been more than a few questions raised) about the implementation of the Holy Father's Apostolic Letter Motu Proprio (literally published on his own authority) entitled Summorum Pontificum (original text published in Latin only on July 7, 2007).
Just a few days later (yesterday to be exact), a circular letter was published by the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and addressed to the various Episcopal Conferences throughout the world. This circular letter provides guidelines for dealing with cases of reported sexual abuse of minors by clergy. A letter of introduction written by Cardinal Levada (pictured above), as well as the guidelines themselves are published in various languages. There's even a synthesis of the docuement included in the publication packet, perhaps for the sake of brevity, but more probably in order to help various media outlets to make quick work of presenting the essentials of the document.
From here, each Episcopal Conference (the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops being one of them) must take these guidelines and develop them for use within their specific countries. Each Arch-diocese will then (presumably) have to develop specific details for implementation within their own jurisdictions. The work has been a long time in the works, but still has a way to go before it's fully enacted, but then this is the stuff of the living Church, and where there is life, there is always change.
Just a few days later (yesterday to be exact), a circular letter was published by the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and addressed to the various Episcopal Conferences throughout the world. This circular letter provides guidelines for dealing with cases of reported sexual abuse of minors by clergy. A letter of introduction written by Cardinal Levada (pictured above), as well as the guidelines themselves are published in various languages. There's even a synthesis of the docuement included in the publication packet, perhaps for the sake of brevity, but more probably in order to help various media outlets to make quick work of presenting the essentials of the document.
From here, each Episcopal Conference (the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops being one of them) must take these guidelines and develop them for use within their specific countries. Each Arch-diocese will then (presumably) have to develop specific details for implementation within their own jurisdictions. The work has been a long time in the works, but still has a way to go before it's fully enacted, but then this is the stuff of the living Church, and where there is life, there is always change.
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