Well, let’s
start with two caveats. First, it may be that reality—subjected to the blazing
light and sopping humidity of the tropics—gets a little warped. In fact, I once
hesitantly breathed this theory to Harry, a native of Old San Juan.
“Of course,” he cried,
and told me the following story:
A
gringo comes to oversee a factory in a small mountain town. The factory is
running well, but the workers tend to call in sick a day or two every week.
What was wrong? Clearly, the workers were unhappy: the gringo sought to
increase morale by giving them higher pay. The result? The workers now called
in sick three times a week!
“They
weren’t interested in money,” said Harry, “they just wanted enough for their
rice and beans and a caneca (flask) of
rum. So when they got paid more, they didn’t have to work as much. See?”
It makes total
sense, really—it’s just a different way of thinking. And so after living here
for over twenty years, and after having written well-past-exhaustively on the
topic of priestly abuse, who’s to say that my own sense of reality isn’t a bit
warped?
Second caveat:
being a blogger tends to lead to a sort of conspiracy mindset. You read a lot
about something, and then go on to the next thing, and then—weeks or months
later—the first thing crops up again. You’ve now forgotten most of what you
read, which makes it easy to believe that Machiavellian forces are at work.
So now—at long
last—let me tell you what I remember.
A lawyer in
Minneapolis, Jeff
Anderson, has been an early and rigorous fighter for justice for the victims
of clerical abuse. And he has had to fight long and hard to get a few dioceses
to reveal their internal records. Chicago, for example, released
in January of this year a collection of over 6000 documents that exposed what
was happening internally in the diocese.
That’s great,
but it’s only half the story. Yes, if within the diocese’s records there are
Vatican letters, you can get a glimpse of what is going on in the Vatican. But
it frequently is the blandest, most opaque glimpse. So the logical thing to do
would be to go to court and ask for the court to tell the Vatican to hand over
its records. Especially logical since the diocese is required to report all
cases of clerical abuse to the Congregation
for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) which used to be the Holy Office, and
which—more colorfully and forcefully—started out as the Inquisition.
Thus, local
bishops were writing off to Ratzinger
and the CDF, and guess what? God’s time is infinitely, majestically,
gloriously… slow. So the bishops waited and waited, often for years at a time.
In the meantime, the bishops were stuck with seriously sick priests; you
can—almost—understand why they were shuffling them around to new victims in
different parishes. What else could they do?
So what happened
when lawyers went to court to ask the court to force the Vatican to reveal its
records? Ah, cried
the Vatican, but those bishops aren’t our employees! They are paid by the
diocese, not the Vatican!
For this, the
word jesuitry was made.
Hard shift to
the southeast, specifically Arecibo, Puerto
Rico. Puerto Rico—once defined by the US Supreme Court as not being the United
States but pertaining to the United States (anybody up there get that? Drop me
a line, if you do…)—falls within US jurisdiction.
And things have
been a little strange in Arecibo. For one thing, six priests have been expelled
in three years, and our local newspaper, El
Nuevo Día, reports
that there have been 20 cases of priestly abuse, as well as a federal lawsuit
brought by one of the victims. Here’s what The
New Day has to say in today’s electronic edition:
Fuentes de El Nuevo Día indicaron que agentes de ICE-HSI se acercaron al
secretario interino de Justicia, César Miranda, y al fiscal general José Capó
para colaborar e intercambiar información con la investigación que comenzó el
gobierno estatal la semana pasada y así ellos también poder abarcar ángulos de
jurisdicción federal.
“Hay mucho interés en indagar sobre los
detalles de abuso sexual de menores por parte de sacerdotes y todo lo que ha
salido publicado provoca que haya que actuar de inmediato”, dijo una fuente
federal.
(“Sources for El Nuevo Día indicated that agents of
IE-HIS approached the interim Secretary of Justice, César Miranda, and the
Attorney General José Capó to collaborate and exchange information with the
investigation which the state government began last week and thus to be able to
also cover any angles that are of federal jurisdiction.
‘There’s a lot
of interest in investigating the details of sexual abuse of minors on the part
of priests, and everything that has come out publically makes it necessary to
act immediately,’ said a federal source.”)
Now then, here
the waters turn murky, as the runoff of politics surges into the pond.
The highest
Catholic official on the island, Archbishop of San Juan Roberto
González Nieves, is a strong proponent of independence and rubbed it a
little too hard into people’s noses. So the statehooders
had him investigated for four things, one of which was covering up abusive
priests. And thus, in an investigation that lasted years, the papal nuncio—the
Pope’s own ambassador and yes, a Vatican official—came to Puerto Rico, and were
did he stay? Not in San Juan, but in…
…Arecibo.
The papal nuncio
for the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico was Jozef Wesolowski, and
where is he now? Apparently in the Vatican, where he fled—or was recalled—just
before investigative news series was about to show him walking the malecón of Santo Domingo in search of
something other than lovely seascapes.
Authorities in
the Dominican Republic have in some accounts asked for extradition: the Vatican
has no extradition policy and Wesolowski, as a diplomat, enjoys immunity. But
there are reports that Wesolowski didn’t behave much better in Puerto Rico than
he did in Santo Domingo. Here’s what the Dominican press said about Wesolowski
in Puerto Rico:
Según los testimonios difundidos por Burgos, en su programa Código
Calle, del canal 29 de Santiago, Wesolowski es acusado en Puerto Rico de
encubrir a los sacerdotes pederastas.
Los fieles católicos se quejaron ante el obispo puertorriqueño monseñor
Iñaqui y ante el propio Wesolowski, pero no recibieron el apoyo que esperaban.
Un seminario fue cerrado, pero todo se
mantiene en silencio, y el obispo Iñaqui [Sic.] fue promovido, en lugar de ser
sancionado.
(“According to
witnesses’ statements broadcast by Burgos in his program Código Calle on channel 29 in Santiago, Wesolowski is accused in
Puerto Rico of covering up pederast priests.
Faithful
Catholics protested to Puerto Rican bishop Iñaki
(former bishop of Arecibo) and in front of Wesolowski himself, but never
received the support they expected.
A seminary was
closed, but everything was kept silent, and the bishop Iñaqi was promoted,
instead of sanctioned.”)
Remember what I
said about reality being different in the sun-drench vibrant air of the
tropics? We seem to have Wesolowski—a man now accused of pederasty—investigating
the archbishop of San Juan for covering up…pederasty. Who’s guilty of what? I
sure don’t know.
And am I wrong
in thinking that…
…a Vatican
official may have committed crimes in the United States? This case is unique,
the case we’ve been waiting for. At long last, a US court has the right to
petition the Vatican to release its records, its internal documents, its
policies and directives to bishops. At last, we can throw open the doors of the
Vatican and take a look inside.
Am I the only
one who sees that?
