"Open Warfare" at the Vatican

"Open warfare" is how the London Times describes a sharp dispute between the Archbishop of Vienna, Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, and Cardinal Angelo Sodano, one of Pope Benedict XVI's closest advisers. Cardinal Schönborn has accused Sodano of covering up abuse cases and allowing predators such as the late Cardinal Hans Hermann Groer and Father Marcial Maciel, the founder of the conservative order the Legionaries of Christ. Perhaps some of the high clergy in the Roman Catholic Church are waking up to the fact that efforts to continue "business as usual" simply will not work. More and more stories of abuse and reassigning known predator priest are springing up literally every day. The Times story goes on to suggest that that part of the "Third Secret" allegedly revealed in 1917 by the Virgin Mary at Fatima referred to the collapse of the Catholic Church in scandals and “apostasy.” A revelation obviously not made public by the Vatican if the story line is true but which certainly fits with what is now occurring. Here are some highlights:
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Open warfare broke out in the Vatican over the clerical sex abuse scandal at the weekend as Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, the Archbishop of Vienna, accused one of Pope Benedict XVI’s closest aides of covering up past scandals.

Cardinal Schönborn, 65, seen as a possible future Pope, accused Cardinal Angelo Sodano, 82, the former Vatican Secretary of State (Prime Minister), of having blocked investigations into sex abuse crimes committed by his predecessor in Vienna, the late Cardinal Hans Hermann Groer.
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Cardinal Schönborn, a former theology pupil of Pope Benedict and a close ally, also charged Cardinal Sodano with causing “massive harm” to victims by dismissing claims of clerical abuse as “petty gossip” on Easter Sunday.
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Andrea Tornielli, the papal biographer, said that Cardinal Schönborn’s remarks, made to a small group of journalists and reported by the Catholic news agency Kathpress, were “without precedent” and a sign of “nervous tensions” in the Church hierarchy.
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Pope Benedict, who on Tuesday travels — volcanic ash permitting — to Portugal, today asked the faithful to “pray for the success” of his visit to the Marian shrine at Fatima, where in 1917 the Virgin Mary is said to have appeared to three shepherd children and confided three “apocalyptic” secrets to them.

The first and second secrets offered a vision of Hell and predicted the Second World War and the conversion of Communist Russia to Christianity. The Third Secret was only revealed ten years ago at Fatima by John Paul II, who — in remarks read out on his behalf by Cardinal Sodano — said that it referred to the attempt on his life in 1981. There are persistent reports that part of the Third Secret referring to the collapse of the Catholic Church in scandals and “apostasy” was withheld. Vatican officials deny this.
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Cardinal Sodano has also been accused by US Catholic journals of persuading John Paul II not to take action against Father Marcial Maciel, the once revered Mexican founder of the conservative order the Legionaries of Christ.
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A survey last month found that a quarter of Germany’s Catholics were considering leaving the church over the abuse allegations. Belgian bishops ended a week-long visit to the Vaticanyesterday with a press conference at which they spoke of their pain over the resignation last month of the Bishop of Bruges, Monsignor Roger Vangheluwe, after he admitted sexual abuse.
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Perhaps the Church hierarchy is at long last beginning to fully reap what it has sown through its deliberate policy of covering up sexual abuse of minors, threatening and intimidating victims and their families and secrecy as predators were reassigned and allowed to prey on additional victims..