Benedict XVI Starts with Brother Gino
Pope Benedict
XVI is not going to waste time showing that he has no tolerance for homosexual
and pedophile priests. To prove this
point he directed Archbishop William Levada, the new
prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, to remove the
highest profile priest in the world from head of his order and from active
priesthood. Unity Publishing has been
fighting this man (Gino Burresi) since 1984 as can
been seen by our report http://www.unitypublishing.com/Apparitions/Geno.html
Here in Fatima,
two of Gino's priests work at the Shrine, and up to 10 of his nuns live here
and some work here. They have nothing to
do with me (will
not talk with me at all) because they know what I think of Gino. Although they pretend to be faithful to the
Church, Gino used to come into
Taken from
National Catholic Reporter's Word From
By
By
A recent decree
by a
The action also
may provide some hint of how the
The
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued the decree May 27 in the case
of 73-year-old Italian Fr. Gino Burresi, founder of a
religious order called the Congregation of the Servants of the Immaculate Heart
of Mary. The contents of the decree, which drew little public notice, were
announced by the Italian bishops' conference on July 19. It specifies that:
Burresi's faculties to hear confessions are revoked;
He is
definitively prohibited from providing spiritual direction;
He is barred
from preaching, as well as from celebrating the sacraments and sacramentals in public;
He is barred
from giving interviews, publishing and taking part in broadcasts that have
anything to do with faith, morals, or supernatural phenomena.
The decree, in
effect, amounts to removal from public ministry. The only thing left is private
celebration of the
The original Vatican
decree, which was not released publicly, but a copy of which was obtained by NCR,
was signed by Archbishop William Levada, the new
prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, as well as
Archbishop Angelo Amato, the secretary. It stipulates that in an audience given
by Benedict XVI to Amato on May 27, the pope confirmed the decree in forma specifica, meaning that he made its conclusions his
own, and that no appeal is possible.
Though the
decree cites abuses of confession and spiritual direction,
The case has
significance for at least three reasons: it's the first such decree under Levada and the new pope; Burresi
is a widely known mystic and Fatima devotee sometimes compared by his
followers, including groups in the United States and Canada, to the Capuchin
mystic and saint Padre Pio; and finally, because it involves action against a
widely known founder of a religious community on the basis of decades-old
accusations.
This last
point, observers say, could potentially have implications for how the
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith eventually handles similar cases,
such as charges of sexual abuse against Fr. Marcial Maciel Degollado, the founder of
the Legionaries of Christ. Maciel has been accused by
a number of former seminarians of sexual abuse. His case is reportedly under
investigation by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Until 1992, Burresi was a member of the Oblates of the Virgin Mary, an
order founded in 1816 by Italian priest Bruno Lanteri.
Burresi became a devotee of the Fatima revelations in
the 1950s, and was the driving force behind the creation of a Marian sanctuary
in San Vittorino, outside
Critics later
charged that Burresi faked these phenomena, using,
for example, rose-scented perfume to produce the odor.
Burresi attracted a number of vocations to the Oblates, as well as a larger
circle of adherents. One person who came to know Burresi
in the 1970s was Fr. Nicholas Gruner, who has gone on
to become an ardent champion for the
Burresi left the Oblates of the Virgin Mary in 1992 amid a bitter internal
dispute and founded a new order, the Congregation of the Servants of the
Immaculate Heart of Mary. Currently the Servants number some 150 members.
The May 27
decree against Burresi is the culmination of a long
ecclesiastical battle. Accusations of sexual misconduct with seminarians first
emerged in June 1988, at which time Burresi was
removed from San Vittorino and sent first to an
Oblate residence in Austria, and then to Tuscany. The Oblates conducted a
lengthy investigation. In the end, 11 accusations surfaced, though no canonical
process against Burresi was launched. These
accusations generally involved sexual contact between Burresi
and young adult seminarians, not minors.
Sexual
misconduct, however, is not the primary charge. On May 10, 2002, a tribunal
within the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith concluded a penal process
against Burresi that had been launched in 1997, five
years after his split with the Oblates. The process resulted in a decree signed
by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and his secretary Tarcisio Bertone, today the
cardinal of
A 20-page
report from the tribunal, a separate document from the decree, was obtained by NCR.
It cites seven offenses by Burresi:
Direct
violation of the seal of the confessional;
Indirect
violation of the seal of the confessional;
Soliciting the
violation of the seal of the confessional;
Illegitimate
use of knowledge acquired in the confessional to the detriment of the penitent;
Illegitimate
injury to one's good name and violation of the right of personal privacy;
Soliciting
aversion and disobedience against superiors;
Pseudo-mysticism,
as well as asserted apparitions, visions and messages attributed to
supernatural origins.
Sources told NCR
that the charges of violating the confessional stemmed from Burresi's
practice of encouraging penitents to repeat their confessions for purposes of transcription,
and if they declined, sometimes making his own notes, with names included.
The report also
mentions that in 1989 a commission of cardinals was created to examine
accusations against Burresi, including
"homosexuality."
In its
conclusion, the report urged the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to
take
"It should
not be forgotten that during this process some persons said that the accused
'would come out of it triumphant, more esteemed than ever, and thus without any
shadow, indeed more glorious than before,' " the judges wrote.
"[They
said] 'that the Secretariat of State defends Fr. Gino, thus victory is
assured.' If no new limitation is applied to his ministerial liberty simply due
to the fact that the proven offenses have been prescribed [by the statute of
limitations], probably the sentence of this court will be used as an instrument
of propaganda in favor of the accused. He will be able to continue to do
harm to those psychologically weak persons who place themselves under his
spiritual direction."
The findings
were signed by a four-judge panel. The president of the panel was Velasio De Paolis, now a bishop
and secretary of the Apostolic Signatura, the Supreme
Court of the Catholic church.
Though the
document does not clarify the reference to the Secretariat of State, a member
of the Congregation of the Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the order
founded by Burresi, is Fr. Angelo Tognoni,
a mid-level official in the Secretariat of State. Tognoni
sometimes appears with the pope at the Wednesday General Audience, reading
greetings in Italian.
Burresi currently resides in