1.
The statement below is _______ true / ________false
The
Vatican said Friday that Monsignor Jozef Wesolowski was found guilty by the
Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in recent days, and
sentenced to the harshest penalty possible against a cleric: laicization,
meaning he can no longer perform priestly duties or present himself as a
priest.
If
you answered “true,” you got a zero on the quiz, but guess what? You’re also
not alone. Here’s a sweet
little description of “the harshest penalty possible against a cleric:”
Poor prisoners
are called "ranas" or frogs. They sleep on the floor with mice and
vermin around them. They have no private rooms or baths and they must use
latrine-type holes in the jail patio and openly evacuate. These prisoners all
shower together and fight for the last drop of water, while the goleta owners
enjoy private baths. Every morning at about 9am there is a "conteo"
or prisoner count where they are asked to walk out of the cells into the
hallway to be counted.
Wesolowski
was the papal nuncio to the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, and had the habit
of strolling, beer in hand, the malecón and contracting the local boys to do you-know-what. And he
was so open about it that the local news picked up on the story. Before he could be investigated and /or
arrested, however, the
archbishop of Santo Domingo went off to tell the pope that they had a
little problem. The pope did what they always do: refused
to turn the pedophile over to the civil authorities. Instead, for the last
ten months, Wesolowski has been sitting in the Vatican, where he enjoys—or
enjoyed diplomatic immunity.
So
Wesolowski has two months to appeal the decision, and then faces a criminal
trial in the Vatican. If convicted, he’ll be jailed there, presumably under
conditions a bit more humane than the ones in Dominican Republic.
Isn’t it
time to say it? The
“state” of Vatican City is a joke—it not only is the smallest nation in the
world, it also is just 108.7 acres, making it smaller than the average American
farm. And I had assumed that the nationhood that everybody accords it was an
ancient thing, from the times with the Vatican had real states. Wrong again—it
dates from 1929.
OK, you
say, so it’s bogus, but who cares? What difference does it make?
Well, for
one thing, the Vatican denied
the Dominican Republic’s extradition request, on the grounds that Wesolowski
was a “citizen of Vatican City,” which has a policy of not extracting people.
There’s
more. Allegations have been floating around the Internet that a common dodge
for bishops is to give the files on abusive priests to the papal nuncio, since
in several dioceses, victims of abuse have successfully
sued to have the files made public.
And so
Wesolowski may still have diplomatic immunity. What no one is saying is that he
allegedly committed crimes, yes, in the Dominican Republic, but also here, in
Arecibo, Puerto Rico. And since the FBI, reportedly, is looking into the
situation of priestly abuse, are they also looking at Wesolowski? Because Wesolowski
made frequent trips to Puerto Rico, and stayed in the parish of a now
defrocked priest, José
Colón Otero. More, the parishioners were doing everything short of standing
outside the church with cardboard placards, so desperate were they—the
parishioners, not the placards—to get some church official to do something.
They wrote to the bishop, then Wesolowski, and finally the Vatican. And what
did Wesolowski do? Nothing.
There is
something fishy going on in Arecibo. Consider the fact that the current bishop,
Daniel
Fernández Torres, is being investigated by the FBI for abuse. Oh, and he
came out and said the Congregation
for the Doctrine of the Faith had cleared him of the whole thing. But the
lawyer representing the victim? She came out and said
the Vatican never talked to her client.
Guys? It’s
hard to know which is greater: the arrogance or the shamelessness.
