Editor’s Note: FromRome.Info before the Conclave, covered the truth about Prevost’s long history of protecting pedophiles. It was public news, and yet the College of Cardinals elected him! — Now, the Archbishop of Toulouse, France, has appointed an ex-convict who as a priest raped a boy, the Chancellor of the Archdiocese of Toulouse!
The Pillar, in the above article, is trying to figure out if Prevost will do anything about it.
I think rather, the Pillar should be asking, “How on earth did the Archbishop think he could get away such such a sacrilege, if he believed ‘Leo XIV’ was committed to sexual normalcy, transparency and child protection?”
Those Catholic journalists and bloggers who refuse to report about Prevost’s record must be assumed to have no problem with it.
Many voices in “independent” Catholic media do shout out loudly when a priest who says the Mass in Latin is accused of pedophilia: however, they are not shouts of outrage on behalf of the victims, but shouts of outrage that anyone should dare accuse a priest!
The Pillar by asking its question, is actually gaslighting their readers, since the answer is obvious, and the question presupposes Prevost has no ill-record on this matter.
This is dishonest.
All Catholics, and especially journalists, need to be seriously committed to the protection of children. And we need to be rational actors who actually can connect the dots.
If they don’t, then if the crime of pedophilia is not enough to move these journalists to question Prevost, that might explain why their consciences do not even care if his election was invalid.
Indeed, as Catholics we should be shouting with 100 million voices that “chosing” anyone as pope who has such a record as Prevost, IS NOT ACCEPTABLE!
And we should be critical with Catholics who report the news of these matters, if they are not.
+ + +
For the record, my personal testimony of what I saw at St. Gregory’s Academy in Pennsylvania in 2000/2001, if I remember the year correctly, was instrumental in exposing a massive scandal in this regard at the Academy. Most of the facts of the case have been buried under the rug, but here is a pdf which summarizes the matter, even though many of the links in the pdf do not work. My affidavit is mentioned, but not contained therein. — After my affidavit became public, because of its use in court, I was blacklisted and “excommunicated” by Trad Inc..
I have taken action to blow the whistle in two other cases, but I cannot speak of them, since I have no documents to document my actions, and could be sued for naming names: but one involved my reporting of sexually explicit material on the computer of a Priestly Society, and the other regarding a priest having sexually explicit physical relations with a man in the main aisle of a Shrine to Our Lady, of which I became unwittingly the witness of, having entered the Church to recite the divine office one morning. I denounced specific persons in both cases and their superiors took immediate action. But after that second case, I can honestly say, that I was so shocked, that have lost much of my personal sense of safety in the presence of clergy.
+ + +
+ + +
The Book on the Trinity, every faithful Catholic priest would love as his next present
This is Br. Bugnolo's English Translation, of Saint Bonaventure's encylopedic book of theology on the Trinity: With this book, your priest will always have something intelligent and awesomely inspiring to preach to you about
God the Father, God the Son & God the Holy Spirit!
+ + +
A theologian and himself a victim of sexual abuse at the hands of a priest as a child, Patrick Goujon reacts to the promotion of a priest convicted of rape of a minor in Toulouse. A decision he considers to be inconsistent with canon law and which does not demonstrate the “prudence” that should be exercised in such cases:
PART I
There is much that could be said about the scandal that the Archbishop of Toulouse’s appointment of his chancellor has caused for many Catholics and French people. It is true that, in general, this type of position does not attract publicity, as noted in the Archbishop’s press release dated July 10. It is an archival task, he writes.
Canon law says a little more about the duties of a chancellor, who, while acting as an archivist, plays a more decisive role in the life of a diocese. A bishop presides over a number of diocesan councils, makes decisions concerning the property and persons of his diocese, and this extends to disciplinary decisions, as well as decisions on marriage annulment, and so on. The chancellor is the author of all these acts, in the sense that it is not, in practice, the bishop who prepares all the documents that will then be presented for his signature.
Canon law further specifies that, if these acts are to have legal effect, they must be signed not only by the bishop but “for validity, at the same time by the chancellor” (canon 474). While the office of chancellor is indeed an administrative task, and may not be seen as a promotion by the Archbishop of Toulouse, it is not subordinate and concerns sensitive matters. For all decisions resulting from a trial, it is the chancellor’s responsibility to record and disseminate them. Investigations by the CIASE and the police in certain more recent cases have shown the practice of chancelleries in destroying documents concerning pedophile priests.
Reputation
Staying with canonical arguments, what does the Toulouse communiqué say next? It seeks to respond to the remark brought to the bishop’s attention by Christians shocked by this appointment, regarding canon 483, paragraph 2 (It is clear that the faithful are sometimes well-trained, and that’s a good thing!) Let’s read it: “The chancellor and notaries must be of an upright reputation and above all suspicion.” Without being a legal expert, it is easy to understand that this refers to the “reputation” of the person who must be above all suspicion. Let us accept, using the Latin, which alone is canonically authoritative, that it is a question of being “integrae famae et omni suspicione maiores,” upright in reputation and with respect to suspicions in important matters. It is well noted that this is about reputation.
In other words, we do not judge the person, but their “fama,” a concept well-known to both jurists and Latin scholars. Varro, the famous 2nd-century magistrate and Latin scholar, taught us that the Latin word “fama” derives from the verb “fari,” meaning to say. Fama therefore clearly refers to what is said about someone. Fama was also the name of a goddess, feared and respected because her multiple eyes and ears kept her alert to everything that happened. Statues of her, equipped with a trunk, are still found today, the famous “trumpets of fame.”
When canon law speaks of reputation, it does not seek to establish the moral rectitude of the person or to require it in order to be able to occupy such or such a function in a diocese (as with judges, the bishop, the clergy, in general, according to canon 1029, to which we will return at the end). That the Archbishop of Toulouse has the deep conviction that Father Spina is today a reliable priest and that his position as chancellor separates him from children is not relevant here.
PART II
Not a Rumor
Canon law does not judge conscience (the famous internal forum); it rules on the public conditions of exercising a discreet but sensitive function. It might be objected, as the press release does, that there are rumors. It is closely related to reputation in its dark side, infamy, from the same Latin root. Here, there is no question of rumor: the judgment has been rendered, upheld on appeal, the sentence served.
While everyone is free to believe that Father Spina is in fact reliable, no one can publicly say that he is not (this could constitute defamation, punishable in law, as in the Church, according to canons 220 and 1390). On the other hand, and this is the kind of distinction that the law serves, to make informed decisions, Father Spina’s reputation is no longer unimpaired, synonymous with “intact.”
In other words, his criminal record is not clean, and that “for serious offenses,” as canon law specifies in the case where a cleric assaults a child. We can therefore conclude that the central defense argument of the press release is not relevant, that it confuses the judgment of moral esteem on the person (a delicate matter if ever there was one) with the evaluation of a reputation that has been tarnished (to put it mildly) by the commission of a serious act. The sanction given and the sentence served do not restore the reputation, in the sense that it does not prejudge the future but simply records what has been. An amnesty would be needed to erase the infamous memory, which is not forgiveness, and which amnesty never fully achieves (we see this in the reactions surrounding the Dreyfus Affair even today). It must therefore also be added that the appointment of the chancellor is not valid, perhaps even not lawful, but on this point I would need canonists to enlighten me.
A personal account
I’ll add a personal note, which the reader will forgive me for. Forty years ago, in Verdun, the priest who assaulted me multiple times, and who caused hundreds of other victims, was the diocesan archivist. In the late 1970s, this decision by the then bishop to remove from all pastoral duties a priest whose reputation as a child molester was already well-established was an unusual act. As one investigating priest from the diocese told me during the canonical inquiry: “We thought that was enough, that we had our eye on him!” Obviously not, since this priest could still come to celebrate and spend Sundays from time to time in parishes where his colleagues, in all good faith, I can assure you, allowed him to celebrate and be alone with children in the sacristy before Mass.
I am still living the consequences of what followed, as are those who survived his attacks (nearly 500, the investigating judge estimates). I therefore conclude with a final canon, 1029, which stipulates that the bishop’s judgment must be “prudent.” Here again, you will excuse me for referring to Latin as the most solid aid to the Thomist theological tradition: prudence is the virtue by which one makes a decision having established the right criteria, according to reason and the Spirit. It seems at the very least that the decision of the Archbishop of Toulouse is hardly prudent, without saying anything about the current context of this decision, a circumstance that a prudent judgment must necessarily take into account: Abbot Spina was in Betharram when three other priests were assaulting so many children (200 victims have filed complaints with the prosecutor at the moment). I really wonder by what magic the Archbishop of Toulouse can be so assured of his cleric’s reputation.
https://www.la-croix.com/a-vif/nomination-d-un-pretre-condamne-pour-pedocriminalite-a-toulouse-cette-decision-nest-pas-prudente-20250711
What a surprise, the current Archbisop of Toulouse, Archbishop Guy André Marie de Kerimel de Kerveno has masonic episcopal lineage that goes back to Cardinal Richard de la Vergne, just like popemaker, St Gallen Mafia member and pedophile protector Cardinal Danneels.