IMAGE: CNS/Paul Haring
By Carol Glatz
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — When an influential Jesuit-run journal
criticized U.S. politics in mid-July, it was not the first time it had caused
controversy in the United States.
Stirring up controversy is nothing new for La Civilta
Cattolica, which sees defending the faith as part of its mission.
Over the years, it has written articles calling professional
boxing “attempted murder”; labeling distracted or impaired driving a
sin that should be confessed; praising the powers of Harry Potter in getting
kids to read; recommending anger management training for priests and religious;
advocating Western governments regulate mosque construction; and condemning
states from profiting from cigarette sales.
It also made some fur fly when it criticized animal rights
movements that ignore the unique dignity and superiority of human beings over
animals. It noted the hypocrisy of insisting on basic rights to life for
animals but not for the disabled, sick or young children. The editorial asked
if all animals have an equal right to exist, then wouldn’t humans have to be responsible
for protecting some species from others and “spend our entire lives
keeping the cats away from the mice?”
The journal often reflects Vatican opinion and is
reviewed by the Vatican Secretariat of State, so its contents are closely
watched. Its authority also stems from the authority, expertise and influence
of its authors, who have been top experts or leaders in the fields of canon
law, theology and education or as official advisers to important Vatican
offices and courts.
However, sometimes that scholarly expertise in canon law and
the church’s social doctrine does not mesh well with local contexts and national
initiatives.
In 2002, Jesuit Father Gianfranco Ghirlanda wrote an article
expressing reservations over the direction U.S. bishops were taking in their
national policy on clerical sex abuse. At the time he wrote the piece, he was a
Vatican City appeals court judge and dean of the canon law faculty at Rome’s Pontifical
Gregorian University.
Speaking from a perspective of church law, he had said
bishops — unless clearly negligent in investigating and correcting abuse
situations — generally are not morally or legally responsible for the actions
of their priests. His point underlined Vatican perplexity over the U.S. legal
system and the fact that dioceses had been sued because of the actions of a
single cleric.
The priest also cautioned it was not good pastoral practice
to notify civil authorities of all priestly sex abuse accusations; that
psychological testing should not be required of suspected clerical abusers; and
that, if reassigning a past abuser to active ministry, a bishop should not tell
parishioners of the past abuse. Many U.S. bishops at the time, however, were
doing the opposite.
Father Ghirlanda later told Catholic News Service that his
article should not be seen as a Vatican “directive” to U.S. bishops
as they formulated a national policy. Although the Vatican reviews the journal,
Father Ghirlanda said the article represented his own opinion.
“I honestly don’t know if the Holy See will accept
these points,” he had said.
In 2010, an article praised the passage of the Patient
Protection and Affordable Care Act, so-called “Obamacare.” It said
the health care reform law marked “a needed and long-awaited
beginning” of bringing greater justice to all citizens, especially the
most vulnerable.
It also said the position of the U.S. Conference of Catholic
Bishops, which was against the measure because of its provisions on abortion
funding and conscience protections, was morally unacceptable.
However, the Jesuit journal lamented the extreme
divisiveness of debate on the measure and said it believed the different
positions within the U.S. Catholic community just reflected a “clash”
of differing opinions over how to implement church social teaching.
It did a follow-up editorial nine months later, saying any
initial positive reactions to the health care reform law were “hasty and
partial” and “not in harmony with the position of the U.S. bishops,
who expressed their judgment on the basis on the moral teaching of the church,
taking into account every aspect of the reform.”
It said that in the eyes of the Catholic Church, the goal
must be health care for all, accomplished in a way that also “guarantees
the protection of the unborn and of the consciences” of Catholics who want
to continue their jobs as health care workers, but cannot participate in
abortions or other procedures they and the church consider immoral.
According to the journal’s website, part of its mission is
to “read and interpret” current events and trends in culture, history,
science, art and politics “in the light of the Christian faith offered by
the magisterium of the church.”
The journal was founded in 1850 by a group of Italian
Jesuits to provide a Catholic point of view for the political, religious and
cultural upheaval of the day because of increasing hostility toward religious
figures, the church’s temporal authority and its teachings. The journal wanted
to defend — against threats from Masonic groups and other perceived enemies —
the values of a “Catholic civilization,” which gave rise to its Italian
title, “Civilta Cattolica.”
Its unique relationship with the Vatican and the pope was established
by Pope Pius IX in 1866 with a papal brief that spelled out the statutes for
this Jesuit “community of writers” that would continue to produce a
journal that would fight for and defend “with all its strength and
incessantly, the Catholic religion and its doctrine and its rights.” The
journal’s authority, then, is rooted in its mission and identity as having,
according to its website, “a particular bond with the pontiff” and
being “in harmony” with the Holy See.
Recent pontiffs — St. John Paul II, Benedict XVI and
Francis — have continued to endorse and uphold the journal’s unique purpose and
relationship to the Holy See.
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Follow Glatz on Twitter: @CarolGlatz.
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