Protests, checks and balances enhance justice.

Development of the polity for enhancing justice is a necessary continuous process in democracies. The 2022 democracy index gives 7,04 points from ten to India which correspond with the value of a flawed democracy (Democracy Index 2022. 5. eiu-democracy-index-2023.pdf) (See my Posting “Listening and speech-acts”). India ranks 46th of 167 ranked countries. The indicators for democracy of the democracy index are electoral process and pluralism, functioning of government, political participation, political culture, civil liberties. The values for political culture and civil liberties in India are down to 5,6 and 6,1 points (ibid. 8). The following case of popular protest movement concerning the toxic pollution of the environment by Sterlite copper plant in India documents, that in a democracy, even a flawed democracy, fighting for justice and the protection of health is difficult but still possible.

The case of Sterlite copper smelter complex in Thoothukudi, Tamilnadu, India, serves as an example of irresponsible and criminal behavior of managers, politicians and judges that harms the health of tens of thousands of adults and children in South-East India. The case of Sterlite copper plant is also a case of investigative journalism that informed the people what is going on, how the fight for justice was under surveillance by the police and protesting women and men were being killed. The case of Sterlite copper plant also demonstrates the effectiveness of the political fighting of activists and the possibilities of democracies. In May 2019, the woman candidate who was more critical of the practices of the Sterlite copper smelter and the brutal force of the police, finally won elections to the lower house of India’s parliament in Delhi, the Lok Sabha. She contributed to the successful stop in Tamil Nadu of the Narendra Modi wave in India (Vasudevan, Lokpria. 2019. “DMK stops Narendra Modi wave in Tamil Nadu.” India Today. May 23. https://www.indiatoday.in/elections/lok-sabha-2019/story/dmk-modi-wave-tamil-nadu-1532979-2019-05-23).

Sterlite copper smelter complex in Thoothukudi, Tamilnadu, India, is a unit of Vedanta Limited that is a subsidiary of the London-based multi-national Vedanta Resources Public Limited Company. It was established in Thoothukudi, Tamil Nadu in 1997, after failing to set-up the same in Ratnagiri, Maharashtra in 1992, due to public protests (Jabbar, Abdul, and N. D. Jayaprakash. 2018. “An Unrepentant Polluting History: Sterlite Copper Plant, TN.” Sabrang. May 25. https://sabrangindia.in/article/unrepentant-polluting-history-sterlite-copper-plant-tn). The Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB) had issued a No Objection Certificate in August 1994. The Union Ministry of Environment & Forests reportedly gave Environmental Clearance to the company in January 1995, even without the requested Environmental Impact Assessment. In 1995, Sterlite Copper got permission to commence construction under the condition that the plant should be constructed twenty-five kilometers away from the Gulf of Mannar, in consideration of the ecological sensitivity of the biosphere reserve. In violation of that condition the plant was constructed within fourteen kilometers of the Gulf of Mannar and in October 1996 it began operations. “The failure to regulate and monitor the use of various toxic chemicals and metals at the plant soon led to contamination of air, soil and water sources in and around the plant. Incidents of toxic gas releases were reported as early as May, July and August 1997” (ibid.). In 2010 and in 2013, the Chennai High Court ordered the closure of the plant due to the violation of rules for polluting the environment. However, the Supreme Court lifted the verdict. The company was permitted to produce 70,000 tons of anode copper per annum but manufactured 175,242 tons in 2004 and exceeded more than 300,000 tons in 2018.

At that time, the people of the land intensively demanded the closure of the company, due to high pollution that induced breathlessness, burning sensation in eyes and nose, cancer cases and respiratory issues. The entire community stood up against the firm and demanded its closure. State agencies, the state government of Tamil Nadu, the district administration, and the police helped Vedanta multinationals crush the protests (ibid.). On May 22, 2018, after one hundred days of protest, police opened fire on thousands protesting during demonstrations against the Sterlite copper plant. Thirteen people were killed; protesters were brutally beaten by the police. Four Catholics were among the killed. At least twenty people were in hospital with bullet injuries, among them the Catholic priest Leo Jayaseelan. The protest followed the non-violent principle of Mahatma Gandhi. Bishop Yvon Ambroise was fending off an effort to claim the protest was instigated by the church. He said it was the people’s protest because they were seriously affected by Sterlite Copper plant (Ravinder, Tejaswi. 2018. “Catholics among 11 dead as police fire on India protest. Tamil Nadu police accused of shooting indiscriminately on Marchers opposing copper plant.” UCAnews. May 23. https://www.ucanews.com/news/catholics-among-11-dead-as-police-fire-on-india-protest/82392).

The road to justice is long. The inquiry commission probing into the deaths and the police action on the day depends on the state government that appointed it and that had ordered the police to crush the protest (Rao, Manasa. 2019. “Remember Thoothukudi: My fight for justice is under surveillance, says Snowlin’s mother.” The News Minute. May 21. https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/remember-thoothukudi-my-fight-justice-under-surveillance-says-snowlins-mother-102139).

Despite all that cruelty, violence and intimidation, the people continued their opposition against the copper plant and continued to fight for its closure. The government gave in after a few days and ordered the closing of the copper smelter. Vedanta, the parent company of Sterlite, has challenged the closure in court. The protests against the Sterlite Copper plant in 2018 was one of the biggest poll issues in Thoothukudi in the election in May 2019. The shootings witnessed during the 100th day of protest in 2018 had further turned public sentiment against the ruling BJP, the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Hindu nationalist right-wing party of Indian Prime Minister Narenda Modi.

The Indian politician, mother, poet and journalist Muthuvel Karunanidhi Kanimozhi, a Member of Parliament representing Tamil Nadu in the Raiva Sabha, the upper house of India’s Parliament, belongs to the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) political party (Thirumurthi, Privanka. 2019. “In Thoothukudi, DMK’s Kanimozhi set to defeat BJP’s Tamilisai by huge margin.” The News Minute. May 23. https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/thoothukudi-dmk-s-kanimozhi-set-defeat-bjp-s-tamilisai-huge-margin-102278). In the election campaign Kanimozhi was not openly claiming the closing of the Sterlite copper plant but referred to the party program that says that polluting industries will not be allowed to continue (Isaac, Anna. 2019. “Ground Report. Sterlite a key issue as Kanimozhi and Tamilisai face off in Thoothukudi”. The News Minute. March 27. https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/ground-report-sterlite-key-issue-kanimozhi-and-tamilisai-face-thoothukudi-99033). Her political rival, BJP’s Tamilisai, however, remained even more ambivalent about the Sterlite issue, delegating the decision on the closure to the courts (ibid.).

The historian is clear about unequal distribution of wealth and social unrest. Whenever on the cultured lands of the planet— that is, in the words of Toynbee, synonymous to the ecumenically habited parts of the planet — the rift between bureaucrats and farmers got too large, the affected reign or kingdom was condemned to decline and fall. The Chinese Caesars and the Byzantines alike, as the reigns in India and at places and times to be found in Toynbee’s book regularly suffered from the greedy lust for privileges, power, money and luxury of their bureaucracies and intelligentsias (Toynbee, Arnold. 1976. Mankind and Mother Earth – A narrative history of the world. 596–97. London: Oxford University Press). In the context of protesting the Sterlite Copper plant, we must remember that only the polity of a democracy with free elections guarantees the right of the people to vote for the candidates who represent their interests.

We must take into consideration the form of government when discussing humanizing efforts in free market capitalism. Development and democracy enhance each other on a global level. Globalized markets compete for profit making and capitalism does not principally deny the legitimacy of Human Rights. The emancipatory potential of Human Rights for capitalism is not exploited and developed in the same way as capitalism’s potential for profit making (Kabasakal Arat, Zehra F. 2008. “Human Rights Ideology and Dimensions of Power: A Radical Approach to the State, Property, and Discrimination”. Human Rights Quarterly 30 (4): 906–932. 929).

The influential Indian American journalist, Fareed Zakaria, defends this market capitalism without including the analysis of the kind of regimes of nation states. In 2019, we can assess an astonishing progress over the last 40 years in the income of the individuals living on this world, income being a simple but important indicator for individual well-being (Zakaria, Fareed. 2019. “In defense of the elites.” Washington Post. January 31. https://fareedzakaria.com/columns/2019/1/31/in-defense-of-the-elites). We have reason to celebrate “deep and lasting human progress” and at the same time should continue to work for more justice and equality in a changing world (ibid.). The Western working class is getting under pressure and many of those who enjoyed a comfortable status in the United States and in Europe call for xenophobic and protectionist policies. China, India, and Ethiopia adopted more market-friendly policies and polices supported by the Western elites helped them with access to markets; Fareed Zakaria gives credit to the “hodgepodge of politicians and business executives” for this economic success (ibid.). Market-friendly policies are ok, but I have to say that China is an authoritarian regime denying civil liberties and systematically abusing Human Rights. 37% of the world population live in authoritarian regimes, 8% in full democracies and 37% in flawed democracies, the rest being hybrid regimes (ibid. 3). Why is it out of the mind of the journalist to include in his economic analysis the analysis of the rule of Human Rights law?

Inequality has declined dramatically on a global perspective and more than one billion people have moved out of extreme poverty since 1990. “In the United States, the gap between black and white high school completions has almost disappeared”, the poverty gap between blacks and whites remains distressingly large and the gender gap between wages for man and women has narrowed (Zakaria, 2019). Yes, child mortality and maternal deaths — that is women dying because of childbirth —, have considerably decreased, undernourishment has fallen dramatically. Nevertheless, 10% of the global population, that is about 770 million people, still live in terrible and inhumane conditions (ibid.). Africa is full of hybrid and authoritarian regimes, and full of poverty (Democracy Index 2022. 5). People living in democracies are better off. It is true, “after thousands of years of being treated as structurally subordinate, women are now gaining genuine equality”, and “no countries allowed same-sex marriage two decades ago, but more than 20 countries do today”, yet much remains to be done (Zakaria, 2019). Why is it impossible for Zakaria to make a point for democracy at this point of his investigation?

In 2019 Zakaria celebrates “deep and lasting human progress” over the last forty years. His indicator is the income of individuals as indicator for individual well-being. Zakaria is not linking this progress to the costs of this progress, costs relating to pollution, costs relating to the effects of damaging the atmosphere, oceans, forests, waterways, biodiversity, and biogeochemical cycles (See my Posting “Planet Earth and Democracy). The global society needs these life sustaining Earth systems as the individual needs the cardiovascular system and respiration as life preserving functions. There is no thriving global society without the stable functioning of Earth systems (Griggs, David. 2013. “Sustainable development goals for people and planet.” Nature 495: 305–307. 305). The logic of Zakaria celebrates the progress of one billion people having moved out of extreme poverty since 1990. This logic does not think about the fact that the market-friendly policies of China and India and the help of Western money to access world markets and international trade created an economy that destructs the necessary conditions for this world economy that is the functioning biosphere of the world. I am not an economist and feel free to ask about the utility of bringing 1 billion women, men and queer out of extreme poverty using means that eventually will destroy the conditions of life for the whole 7 billion women, men and queer living on the planet now and for all future generations.

Some gases, that is carbon dioxide (CO2), methane, nitrous oxide and fluorinated gases, trap the sun's heat in the Earth’s atmosphere and stop it from leaking back into space; this man-made effect is called the greenhouse-effect. “CO2 is the greenhouse gas most commonly produced by human activities and it is responsible for 64% of man-made global warming. Its concentration in the atmosphere is currently 40% higher than it was when industrialization began,” affirms the European Commission (European Commission. 2019b. “Causes of climate change.” European Commission. Accessed May 14. https://ec.europa.eu/clima/change/causes_en). The international community has recognized the need to keep warming below 2°C to prevent catastrophic changes in the global environment (ibid.). The outlook for the most vulnerable populations on the earth is not very positive considering that even keeping global temperatures from rising to 2°C, by 2050, at least 570 cities and some 800 million people will be exposed to rising seas and storm surges (Muggah, Robert. 2019. “The world’s coastal cities are going under. Here’s how some are fighting back.” World Economic Forum. January 16. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/01/the-world-s-coastal-cities-are-going-under-here-is-how-some-are-fight).

If Zakaria celebrates in 2019 “deep and lasting human progress” over the last forty years, we need to include into the analysis the destructive effects of the man-made global climate change especially on the poor of this world. As the planet heats up, wildfires are increasing, the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets are melting, the ice losses drive up sea levels around the world, causing dangerous flooding threatening the people who lose their coastal habitats (McGrath, Matt. 2019. “Climate change: Sir David Attenborough warns of ‘catastrophe’.” BBC News. April 18. https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-47976184).

The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) is aware of the problem that aviation is one of the fastest-growing sources of greenhouse gas emissions and is ready to enter a process to bring about a reduction of emissions. The European Commission illustrates the catastrophic contribution of airplanes to CO2 emissions: “Someone flying from London to New York and back generates roughly the same level of emissions as the average person in the EU does by heating their home for a whole year” (European Commission. 2019. “Reducing emissions from aviation.” European Commission. Accessed May 24. https://ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/transport/aviation_en). In October 2016, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) agreed on a Resolution for a global market-based measure to address CO2 emissions from international aviation as of 2021 (ibid.). It is a first step, if the airlines will be required to monitor CO2 emissions on all international routes by 2021, but it will still take too much time, to effectively cut emissions and stop the global climate change.

I do not dispute Zakaria’s claim that inequality has declined dramatically on a global perspective and more than 1 billion people have moved out of extreme poverty since 1990 (Zakaria 2019). Zakaria demonstrates a generalizing willingness, uncritically rewarding the “hodgepodge of politicians and business executives” for this economic success. Democracy had been in decline in North Africa and the Middle East, beginning before the COVIC-19 pandemic (Democracy Index 2022. 31). The COVID-19 pandemic adversely affected the global economy, increased global financial risks, negatively affected the global financial markets, produced a decline in the labor force participation rate, global supply chains were disrupted, and global trade contracted (Rakesh Pradhan. K.P. Prabheesh. 2021. The economics of COVID-19 pandemic.  A survey. In: Economic analysis and policy. Vol 70. June 2021. 220-237. 220). Governments invested huge sums of taxpayers’ money to help firms and businesses. State intervention was necessary as it was essential to overcome the financial crisis of 2007-2008. Zakaria does not speak of the successful saving efforts by the intervention of states for the economy. Free-market capitalism was not able to manage neither the crisis of 2007-2008 nor the COVID-19 pandemic. On the contrary, the COVID-19 pandemic teaches on the economic level that greater national and international coordination of monetary and fiscal policies is necessary to mitigate the negative effects of the pandemic (ibid.).

For the better or for the worst, we must not forget the individual human factor. We must look at the individual, social and ecologic costs local populations must suffer in China, India, Africa, and many countries. We must distinguish politicians who work in the interest of the common good from politicians who work for their personal benefit. We must distinguish honest judges who rule according to the rule of law and corrupted ones who take bribes for favorable, unjust judgements. We must distinguish politicians and business managers taking and giving bribes and working one-sidedly for the material benefit of the companies from business managers and politicians who at the same time take responsibility for the profit of the companies and for the individual, social and ecologic needs of the people who are affected by their market-friendly policies.

The destruction of the planet’s biosphere for economic profit is the work of men. For the rescue of the planet, the cooperation of women, men and queer will be crucial. For the realization of a broad-based progress for all, the equal contribution of women and men and queer in this process of deep economic and societal transformation is critical. The founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum Klaus Schwab, a German engineer and economist, claims that “More than ever, societies cannot afford to lose out on the skills, ideas and perspectives of half of humanity to realize the promise of a more prosperous and human centric future that well-governed innovation and technology can bring” (Schwab, Klaus. 2018. “Preface“. In The Global Gender Gap Report 2018.v. Cologny/Geneva: World Economic Forum. http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GGGR_2018.pdf). The Global Gender Gap Report 2018 assesses the above observations of Fareed Zakaria. “Although many countries have achieved important milestones towards gender parity across education, health, economic and political systems, there remains much to be done” (ibid.). Since 2006, Schwab presents the Global Gender Gap Index that “seeks to measure the relative gaps between women and men across four key areas: health, education, economy and politics” (ibid.). The Global Gender Gap Report 2018 benchmarks 149 countries on their progress towards gender parity (The Global Gender Gap Report 2018.vii)

There is improvement in 89 of the 149 covered countries; globally, the average population-weighted gender gap that remains to be closed is 32% (ibid.). It is important to notice that the Index is constructed to rank countries on their gender gaps and not on their development; in the case of education, for example, the gap between male and female enrolment rates is measured, but not the overall levels of education in the countries (Global Gender Gap Report 2018, 4).

The sub-index of political empowerment measures the gap between men and women at the highest level of political decision-making in ministerial and parliamentary positions, as well as the ratio of women to men in terms of the office of prime minister or president (ibid.: 4–5). The sub-index economic participation and opportunity measures the gap between women and men and uses the following indicators:  labor force participation rates and the ratio of estimated female-to-male earned income are taken. The wage equality for similar work and the ratio of women to men among legislators, senior officials, and managers; and the ratio of women to men among technical and professional workers (ibid.: 4). The index of educational attainment measures the gap between women’s and men’s current access to education. The sub-index health and survival measures the sex ratio at birth in order to capture the “missing women”, and the gap between women’s and men’s healthy life expectancy in order to take into account the years lost to violence, disease, malnutrition and other relevant factors (ibid.).

Across the sub-indexes of health, education, economy and politics, the gap in political empowerment is the widest with 77.1%, the economic participation and opportunity gap is the second largest with 41.9%. In just 60% of the countries, women have as much access to financial services as men, and in just 42% of the countries, they have equal access to land ownership. Although the educational attainment and health and survival gaps are significantly lower at 4.4% and 4.6% there are still 44 countries where over 20% of women are illiterate (ibid.: vii). Always noting that the report uses population-weighted group averages, there are differences in the gender gap by geographic regions. Western Europe shows a gender gap of 24% and is ahead of North America with a gender gap of 27%; Latin America and the Caribbean follow with 29% and Eastern Europe and Central Asia show a gap of 29%. The East Asia and the Pacific region have gaps of 32% and Sub-Saharan Africa 34%. South Asia has also a gender gap of 34%, the Middle East and North Africa have a gender gap of 40% (ibid. 17).

It is understandable that the Global Gender Gap Report 2018 does not include the smallest state in the world by both area and population that is Vatican City State (Vatican). The Vatican really does not fit most indicators of the Index. Nevertheless, the case is, that the Vatican effectively excludes women and married men from active participation in government that is political decision-making, legislation, and jurisdiction. Head of Vatican City State is the head of the Catholic Church, the pope, who has to be a male celibate. He exercises ex officio supreme legislative, executive, and judicial power over the state of the Vatican City. Vatican City State is the only recognized independent state that is not a member of the UN, and it is the only remaining absolute monarchy in Europe when it comes to its governance and political system.[i] 

The Vatican City State covers a territory of 0.44 square kilometers and was founded in 1929 as a sovereign State under international law and distinct from the Holy See, following the ratification of the Lateran Pacts between the Holy See and the Italian fascist government under Benito Mussolini. The population of the Vatican City State is about 800 people; 400 have Vatican citizenship, the others have permission to reside there.[ii] There are about seventy cardinals resident at the Vatican, about 300 bishops and some clergy. In 2019, there are four lay women working in relatively high posts at the Vatican, three in the Curia and one heading the Vatican Museums. So, one could estimate that the gap between men and women working at high posts in the Curia approximates 99% that is the worst of any independent state in the world.

The Vatican is an absolute monarchy, the monarch is a white male celibate, and his hierarchy is exclusively made up of celibate men. These men have no interest in discussing a gender gap in their government, they are not interested in their part of gender discrimination, and they even fight the use of the term gender within the Roman Catholic Church. Officially the Vatican wants women and queer people not to be visible in the government of Roman Catholic Church. In 2024, Pope Francis calls “the gender ideology the ugliest danger of our time” (https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2024-03/pope-francis-gender-ideology-is-the-ugliest-danger-of-our-time.html). This statement is incredible, it is discriminating and ridiculing Human Rights, the basis for world peace and justice.

How does the governance of the Roman Catholic Church as an absolute monarchy function? And how does the Vatican as absolute monarchy impede the implementation of Human Rights law and democracy in the Roman Catholic Church?

The US American Jesuit priest Thomas Reese took a whole year research in Rome, “interviewing more than a hundred people working in the Vatican, including thirteen cardinals” ( Reese, Thomas J. 1996. Inside the Vatican. The politics and organization of the Catholic Church. viii. Cambridge: Harvard University Press). Most of the interviewees insisted on their anonymity concerning the tapes of the interviews, “Very few wanted their names to be used. This in itself says much about politics in the Vatican” (ibid.). It is clear, the power structure of the absolute monarchy is sustained by censorship on anything that would officially leave the walls of secrecy and breaking the law of silence means the end to one’s career in the Vatican and the Catholic Church. “People in one office often do not know what is happening in another”, visitors and bishops coming to Rome are confused by overlapping jurisdictions and secretive procedures (ibid. 4). This sinful structure of intransparency helps to cover-up crimes such as endemic abuse of power, exploitation of dependencies, and psychic and sexual abuse of minors and women. Church teachings and Church policies are irreconcilable and contradictory. The pope could change structures and church law. He could end the impunity of clerical abusers but so far, the popes are incapable to do so.

The papacy’s influence is all-pervasive in the Catholic Church (ibid. 2). The pope authorizes The Catechism of the Catholic Church a publication that since 1993 directs the religious education of adults and children and will do so for some time because the popes are not willed to change the Church’s teachings. What Reese reports on John Paul II is also true for Benedict XVI and Pope Francis. They oppose married clergy and women priests, divorce, and birth control. Rome decided that there is no gendering when Scripture is read at Mass or in any official documents. Rome determines “how difficult it is for divorced Catholics to get annulments before they can be married again in the church” (ibid.: 3). Bishops who are out of line with Vatican directives are deposed, like in 1995 the French bishop Jacques Gaillot and Vatican officials demand that dissident theologians lose their right to teach (ibid.). Until 2024, nothing has really changed since these days of the papacy of John Paul II and possible change will have to wait for future popes.

As the ruler of Vatican City, the pope is an absolute monarch with supreme legislative, judicial, and executive authority, and these powers are not controlled by any checks and balances (ibid. 25). The pope therefore can resist the laws of liberal democracies that ended discrimination of women, men and queer by the rule of law. Liberal Western democracies lead the fight for realizing Human Rights, for equal dignity, freedom and rights of women, men and queer. The Vatican abuses and distorts the Gospel of Jesus Christ to resist ending discrimination of women, men and queer in the Church and thereby encourages authoritarian politicians who favor male supremacy and suppression of women and queer.

It is true, maintaining unity of the Church is an essential responsibility of the pope and the college of bishops, but the dictate of unity is different from a consensus that has been reached on the basis of equal dignity, liberty, freedom and rights of all Christians. It is also true that a strong papacy helped John Paul II to successfully liberate the Church in Eastern Europe. He worked for a freer Church in China, Cuba and Vietnam and defended the rights of Catholic minorities, especially in Muslim regimes that deny religious freedom to the church but also in the subcontinent of India with its political Hindu nationalism (ibid. 28).

Absolute power without any checks and balances leaves the Church with great risks. The sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests and the role of John Paul II in the cover-up of the abuses lead the Catholic Church into a fundamental crisis. John Paul II opposed the Reagan administration on economic sanctions against the imposition of martial law in Poland in 1981, the pope feared that sanctions would weaken the opposition to the communist regime (ibid. 4). The pope wanted to strengthen the Independent and Self-Governing Trade Union Solidarnosc that was founded by the worker protests in August 1980. In 1989, the Solidarnosc movement was crucial in bringing down the Communist dictatorship.

The link between the leader of Solidarnosc, Lech Walesa and John Paul II was the priest Henryk Jankowski, a respected leader and excellent organizer of the underground anti-communist opposition. In the 1990s, he became a luxury-loving prince of the Church and stirred controversy making anti-Semitic remarks in his famous political preaching (Guzik, Paulina. 2019. “Solidarity-era priest accused of abuse a monumental problem for Polish Church”. Crux. Markh 9. https://cruxnow.com/church-in-europe/2019/03/09/solidarity-era-priest-accused-of-abuse-a-monumental-problem-for-polish-church/). Jankowski died in 2010 and only in 2018, the 63-year-old Barbara Borowiecka came public claiming that she was twelve when Jankowski first abused her, and the priest was well known in the whole neighborhood as “the one who chased the kids” but the Church does not investigate the case (ibid.). John Paul II did not listen to information from Austrian Catholics on the Benedictine priest Hermann Groer warning of his pedophile activities. In 1986, John Paul II made him archbishop of Vienna and in 1988 created him cardinal. John Paul II did not consider sexual abuse of children, minors, and adults by Catholic priests as a criminal offense that inflicted terrible sufferings and post-traumatic symptoms of depression and sometimes suicide and had to be dealt with by the state authorities.

Molestation and sexual abuse by priests were first given significant media attention in the 1980s, in the US and Canada. In the 1990s, the issue began to grow, with stories emerging in Argentina, Australia and elsewhere. In 1995, cardinal Groer, the Archbishop of Vienna, Austria, had to step down amid sexual abuse allegations. The local Church suffered a significant loss in trust. In the 1990s, revelations began of widespread historical abuse in Ireland. Jason Berry (2019) was the first to report on clergy sex abuse in any substantial way, beginning with a landmark report in 1985. He documents that in November 1989 U.S. bishops responded to a rising tide of abuse lawsuits. They sent a team of canon lawyers to Rome, seeking the authority for bishops to defrock child predators, but John Paul II refused them the power to oust the worst of them and continued to support the cover-up proponents of the sexual abuse in the Vatican until his death (Berry, Jason. 2019. “Francis must fix cover-up culture that John Paul II enabled.” National Catholic Reporter. February 21. https://www.ncronline.org/news/accountability/francis-must-fix-cover-culture-john-paul-ii-enabled). We see how a refusal of checks and balances by the pope leads to criminal decisions that protect the abusers and discriminate the violated. We see also the important role of a free press as part of a functioning democracy. The press investigates scandals and published facts, the juridical powers take care of investigating the cases.

With his blindness to the problem and his absolute powers, John Paul II made it possible that cardinals and bishops who allegedly covered up the abuse and did not cooperate with civil authorities were not held accountable for protecting abusive priests by moving them from parish to parish where the abuses continued unimpeded. In 2002, John Paul II protected Cardinal Bernard Law, the figure at the center of the cover-up of the Boston sex abuse scandal and gave him a symbolic role in Rome close to the Vatican, allowing him to maintain his rank, despite outrage from victims (“Catholic Church child sexual abuse scandal.” 2019. BBC News. February 26. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-44209971). In 2001, John Paul II made the Australian George Pell Archbishop of Sydney and in 2003 created Pell cardinal. In 2008, Pope Benedict XVI made him responsible for his organization of the Curia, and, under Pope Francis, Pell held the post of Vatican treasurer. In February 2019, Pell had been found guilty by an Australian court of abusing two choir boys in 1996 (ibid.). In Markh 2019, he was sentenced to six years in prison for child sex abuse including anal penetration (Whiteman, Hilary. 2019. “Cardinal George Pell sentenced to six years in prison for child sex abuse.” CNN. March 13. https://edition.cnn.com/2019/03/12/australia/cardinal-george-pell-sentencing-intl/index.html).

In 1996, after a Sunday mass the archbishop of Melbourne forced his penis into the mouth of one of the two 13-year-old boys in a room at the back of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne. The now thirty-five years old man says in a statement that was revealed after the verdict that he has experienced “shame, loneliness, depression and struggle” (Allen, John L., Jr. 2019b. “Victim in Cardinal Pell’s sex abuse case speaks out.” Crux. February 26. https://cruxnow.com/church-in-oceania/2019/02/26/victim-in-cardinal-pells-sex-abuse-case-speaks-out/). On April 7, 2020, I read in the judgement summary of the High Court of Australia “the High Court granted special leave to appeal against a decision of the Court of Appeal of the Supreme Court of Victoria and unanimously allowed the appeal”[iii]. The court found “a significant possibility that an innocent person has been convicted because the evidence did not establish guilt to the requisite standard of proof”. “The unchallenged evidence of the opportunity witnesses was inconsistent with the complainant's account, and described: (i) the applicant's practice of greeting congregants on or near the Cathedral steps after Sunday solemn Mass; (ii) the established and historical Catholic church practice that required that the applicant, as an archbishop, always be accompanied when robed in the Cathedral; and (iii) the continuous traffic in and out of the priests' sacristy for ten to 15 minutes after the conclusion of the procession that ended Sunday solemn Mass” (ibid). The High Court of Australia “did not find that Pell didn’t do it, nor that the complainant was a liar. It found there was sufficient doubt to demand an acquittal” (Silvester, John. April 7, 2020. “High Court takes the high road on question of passion or precedent”. The Sydney Morning Herald. https://www.smh.com.au/national/victoria/high-court-takes-the-high-road-on-question-of-passion-or-precedent-20200407-p54hwn.html). The case of Cardinal Pell illustrates the necessity of the rule of law that “Everyone charged with a criminal offence shall have the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law” (Universal Declaration of Human Rights UDHR 11). Australia gave Cardinal Pell a fair trial. The trials of the Roman Catholic Church are not fair, there are no public hearings, and the accused is not present at the trial and has no chance to defend herself or himself. The Vatican’s Canon Law does not obey the legal rights of (UDHR) 10: “Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him” (UDHR 10).

Concerning the institution of the Roman Catholic Church, the assessment of a systematic failure to deal with sexual abuse and abuse of power persists. The complete failing of the pope John Paul II (1978–2005) and the failing of Benedict XVI (2005–2013) to deal rightly with the sex abuse scandals of the Catholic Church result from the lack of checks and balances for the papal government in the church. From 1981 to 2005, that is during his presidency of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the then Cardinal Ratzinger was too busy disciplining anyone who dared step out of line with Church teachings on personal sexuality and family planning to bother with the thousands of priests molesting children (Stille, Alexander. 2016. “What Pope Benedict Knew About Abuse in the Catholic Church.” The New Yorker. January 14. https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/what-pope-benedict-knew-about-abuse-in-the-catholic-church).

After becoming Benedict XVI in 2006, he became the first Pope to kick predator priests out of office. Nevertheless, it was too little, too late. As the second most powerful man in John Paul II’s pontificate, “Ratzinger had more ability to know and to act than almost anyone” (ibid.). The actions he finally did take were largely dictated by a series of embarrassing scandals in Ireland, the United States and Australia (ibid.). In 2008, on his visit to the United States, Pope Benedict met for twenty-five minutes with several victims of sexual abuse by priests in the Boston area but did not mention the cover-up to keep the abuse secret and suggested that the abuse was over (Fisher, Ian and Laurie Goodstein. 2008. “Benedict Meets With the Victims of Sexual Abuse.” The New York Times. April 18. https://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/18/us/nationalspecial2/18pope.html).

Peter Saunders, a British survivor of clerical abuse and founder of a victims’ association says, that the Catholic Church needs to end decades of obfuscation and cover-ups (Squires, Nick. 2015. “Pope Francis told to hand priests over to police as new Vatican child abuse commission starts work.” The Telegraph. February 6. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/vaticancityandholysee/11394714/Pope-Francis-told-to-hand-priests-over-to-police-as-new-Vatican-child-abuse-commission-starts-work.html). In July 2014, he met the pope for a one-to-one encounter in which he told the pope that he and other victims had been “very damaged” by sexual abuse perpetrated by Catholic clergy, and some of the victims end up taking their lives. Victims want a sincere apology from the Church and concrete action to be taken to bring to justice priests accused of pedophile abuse (Squires 2015). Pope Francis appointed Mr. Saunders to the new commission for protection of minors that he had created in December 2013.

The pope wrote a letter to the bishops around to world ordering them to cooperate with the commission. He wanted “to rid the Church of the scourge of the sexual abuse of minors and to open pathways of reconciliation and healing for those who were abused”; but the pope stopped short of ordering bishops to introduce a policy of mandatory reporting of abuse allegations to the police (Squires 2015). Pope Francis did not hand over to the police all the Vatican documents on Catholic priests accused of sexually abusing children. It took another two years until in February 2015, the complete commission convened for the first time. Saunders claims that the Church must show it is compassionate (ibid.). So far, the Church did not show this compassion.

The four-day summit of 114 bishops, the presidents of the bishops’ conferences around the world, with the pope in February 2019 in Rome on preventing clergy sexual abuse, provided relatively little in terms of concrete new policies or law (Allen 2019a). There was the promise of guidelines to follow in abuse cases. On March 26, 2019, Pope Francis published an apostolic letter on the protection of minors and vulnerable persons, and a law and guidelines for the protection of minors and vulnerable persons of Vatican City State (Francis. 2019. “On the Protection of Minors and Vulnerable Persons.” The Holy See. http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/motu_proprio/documents/papa-francesco-motu-proprio-20190326_latutela-deiminori.html). What was the scope of the summit? For Africans, Asians, Eastern Europeans, many Latin Americans, and most Catholics from the Middle East to hear senior Church officials acknowledge openly that clerical abuse exists and must be addressed is shocking news (Allen, John L., Jr. 2019. “Four take-aways from the pope’s summit on clerical sexual abuse.” Crux. February 25. https://cruxnow.com/news-analysis/2019/02/25/four-take-aways-from-the-popes-summit-on-clerical-sexual-abuse/). Denial and neglect still reign. This inability of the bishops from all around the world to deal with sexual abuse, might explain why representatives of victim organizations and activist groups were not allowed to participate in the summit; abuse survivors therefore felt humiliated, and many Catholics were offended again (ibid.).

Listening is the possibility condition of speech-acts and therefore the possibility condition of the social realization of dignity with speech-acts. If the bishops and priests of the Catholic Church lack the capability to listen empathically to the testimonies of women, men and queer, who suffered sexual abuse by priests and bishops they will not be able to show compassion. Consequently, they are not able to answer the claim of the victims of sexual abuse for sincere apologies. Then the pathways of reconciliation and healing for those who were abused are closed and not opened as Pope Francis hoped for and there is no social realization of dignity, neither for the dignity of the victims of sexual abuse by priests and bishops nor for the priests and bishops who declined to listen to the traumatized men, women, and queer. Saunders told the pope that he is still in therapy, because “the abuse screwed up my life” (Squires 2015).

The Church’s apology does not heal the traumas of abuse by priests. Saunders demonstrates the importance of therapy for tens of thousands of abuse victims. After years of therapy, the victims still struggle to hold themselves and their families together and still there is no real rest for them (Whiteman 2019). For the moment, most of the world’s Catholic bishops seems not to be capable of showing compassion with the victims of sexual abuse by clerics and the pope is not capable of realizing a policy of zero tolerance on sexual abuse by clerics.

The Second Vatican Council did not succeed introducing a system of checks and balances into the government of the Roman Catholic Church. The national episcopal conferences in the end are not allowed to practice equal participation of the clergy and the faithful. The Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) did not challenge papal primacy, although the bishops discussed and debated the concept of collegiality of the college of the bishops with the pope (Reese 1996, 36). National episcopal conferences would again get more power, and the ancient tradition of the patriarchal synods was a model therefore (ibid.: 39). This was the plan, but already Pope Paul VI began restricting the powers of synods and episcopal conferences again.

Reese suggests that these conferences and the possible future councils learn from modern secular legislative bodies how to institutionalize collegial structures in the church. Periodic sessions, committees, staff, and parliamentary procedures are important instruments securing a system of checks and balances, controlling bureaucracies and the abuse of executive power as legislators (ibid. 39–40). Structures will be needed that permit the full participation of lay women, men and queer at all levels of church life and governance (ibid. 40). During the long reign of John Paul II, the open consultative process used by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB) in drafting pastoral letters was not liked by the Vatican and conservative bishops. Consequently, the pope appointed bishops that were in keeping with his views (ibid. 34). The NCCB disagreed with John Paul II on many points. Such were “regulations dealing with annulments of marriages, the age of confirmation, lay preaching, altar girls, alienation of church property, the role of retired bishops in the bishops’ conference, terms for pastors, inclusive language in liturgical books and the Catechism of the Catholic Church, granting the chalice to the laity on Sundays, and other liturgical issues” (ibid. 33–34).

The Vatican’s resistance to change and to structural reform is nurtured and sustained by the fear of losing power over the government of the Roman Catholic Church. The papal offices that help the pope in the governance of the universal church are called the Roman Curia. These agencies “organize the people who gather and process information, give advice to the pope, and implement his decisions” (Reese 1996, 109). In 2019, the Roman Curia includes the Secretariat of State, nine congregations, three dicasteries, three tribunals, five pontifical councils and other offices.[iv] The Vatican Secretariat of State coordinates the work of the Vatican and handles any issue that does not fall into some other office’s jurisdiction (Reese 1996, 175). One section for general affairs acts as the pope’s secretariat for any document or correspondence going to and from the pope, and one for relations with states (ibid.). In 2017, Pope Francis established a third section for diplomatic staff of the Holy See.[v]

The three tribunals are the Apostolic Penitentiary and deals with excommunications reserved to the Holy See (Reese 1996, 109); the Roman Rota mostly is busy with marriage cases and the Apostolic Signature is the supreme court of the church that also receives reports from diocesan tribunals (ibid. 111–12).

The members of a congregation are only cardinals and bishops, that is male celibates (ibid. 113). In 2019, the head of the Secretariat of the State that is prefect, is an Italian Cardinal. From the prefects of the nine congregations of the Curia one cardinal is African (congregation for the liturgy and the sacraments), one is Canadian, two are from South America and five are Europeans (four of them are Italians). The secretaries of the prefects are archbishops from Italy (four), Europe (two) and South America (one).[vi] Laity we find only as members of the pontifical councils. Prefects of congregations and presidents of councils are often former official members of other congregations and councils; the prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is a member of almost every congregation touching on doctrinal issues: Oriental Churches, Divine Worship and Sacraments, Bishops, Evangelization and Education (Reese 1996, 119).

The prefects and presidents do not use their multiple memberships for better cooperation but rather to ensure with their veto rights the influence of their own congregation or council. The higher the importance of a congregation or council the higher is the percentage of their serving individuals coming from inside the Vatican. Nevertheless, the Vatican secures at least a majority of two-thirds coming from inside (ibid.). Since the Roma Curia helps the pope screen and select candidates, “vocal critics of the Curia are not likely to be appointed” (ibid. 122). Inter-congregational and inter-dicasterial communication and coordination is poor, drafts of documents usually do not circulate. Talking to anyone outside the office is normally restricted to the prefect, secretary and undersecretary. A lower official would usually check with his superiors before sharing information with an official from another office (ibid.: 132).

“Loyalty to the pope and to church teaching is a sine qua non of working in the Vatican” (ibid. 165). Most of the secretaries, undersecretaries and lower ranks of the congregations and councils are careerists. Promotion depends on loyalty and years of service. To survive in the Roman Curia, one has to live by the five “don’ts”: “Don’t think. If you think, don’t speak. If you think, and if you speak, don’t write. If you think, and if you speak, and if you write, don’t sign your name. If you think, and if you speak, and if you write and if you sign your name, don’t be surprised” (ibid. 164). The organization and procedures of the Roman Curia centralize power in the hands of the prefects and presidents. (ibid. 136) The impact of no curial prelates and lay people in the government of the church is very limited and efforts of change and reform are also very limited.

The Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development had become effective on January 1, 2017. The Dicastery combined the work of four Pontifical Councils: Justice and Peace, Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People, Pastoral Assistance to Health Care Workers and Cor Unum. The laywoman Dr. Flaminia Giovanelli was undersecretary in the Pontifical Council for Peace and Justice since 2012 and now is undersecretary in the larger Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development (Bordoni, Linda. 2017. “Taking up the Pope’s call to Promote Integral Human Development.” Vatican News. December 23. https://www.vaticannews.va/en/vatican-city/news/2017-12/dicastery-for-promoting-integral-human-development-giovanelli.html). She has two clerics at her side as undersecretaries, and above her there are a secretary who is a priest and as president a cardinal.

In 2016, Pope Francis appointed Ms. Barbara Jatta as the first female director of the Vatican Museums. Ms. Jatta had worked for twenty years in the Vatican Library. The Vatican collections are one of the longest-standing and most important collections of art that mankind has. Ms. Jatta described her mission as to find a way for visitors to see the collections in the right conditions (Nayeri, Farah. 2017. “A Woman now leads the Vatican Museums. And she’s shaking things up.” The New York Times. December 24. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/24/arts/design/vatican-museums-jatta.html). Nayeri titles that Ms. Jatta leads the Vatican Museums and is shaking things up (ibid.). Yes, Mrs. Jatta joined the upper ranks of the Governorate of Vatican City State, but she has no effective authority to shake-up very much. She is only on the fourth level of command of the Governorate that calls the Vatican Museums the “Pope’s Museums”; one level over the Museum’s director there are the levels of the Deputy Secretary of the Governorate of Vatican City State, Secretary and the Presidency of the Governorate of Vatican City State, the reigning President being an Italian cardinal.[vii] Ms. Jatta will not be able to hire divorced women or men working in the Vatican Museums, she has to follow the instructions of the Presidency that are authorized by the pope.

In September 2016, the Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life officially began its work, replacing the former Pontifical Council for the Laity and Pontifical Council for the Family, which were dissolved. In November 2017, the Vatican announced Pope Francis’s appointment of two lay women as the first two undersecretaries of the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life. Dr. Gabriella Gambino is an expert in bioethics, Dr. Linda Ghisoni an expert in canon law. The department is responsible for projects relating to the apostolate of laity, families, and the institution of marriage, within the Church (Brockhaus, Hannah. 2017. “Pope names two laywomen to key positions in Vatican’s family office.” Crux. November 7. https://cruxnow.com/vatican/2017/11/07/pope-names-two-laywomen-key-positions-vaticans-family-office/). The secretary of the Dicastery is a religious priest and the President is a cardinal.

The structures of the Vatican do not realize the collegial character of the church (Reese 1996, 172). A church seen as a communion of churches needs a decentralized structure where greater liberty and authority are given to local churches, local bishops and episcopal conferences (ibid.: 139). The pope as absolute monarch of the Catholic Church has the agency to introduce change and institute collegial structures in the Church. Will there be a pope willing to go for this change? In 2019, there are 123 cardinals as possible electors of a new pope. Fifty-eight of them had been created by Pope Francis, forty-seven by Pope Benedict XVI and eighteen by Pope John Paul II. Of the 123 cardinals, eighteen are from Asia, three from India, one from China, nineteen from Africa, fifty from Europe (twenty-one of them from Italy), seventeen from South America and thirteen from North America, and one from Australia.[viii] European and North American Cardinals still have the majority. They will still be able to exercise a decisive influence in the election of the next pope. The pope is the absolute monarch who reigns with the help of more than five thousand bishops and over four hundred thousand priests around the world almost 1.3 billion Catholics.

Membership of the Roman Catholic Church is growing in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Membership is declining in Europe, North America, and Australia, but overall membership grows. So why changing anything in the Roman Catholic Church, if the organization as an absolute monarchy is successful? The government of the Roman Catholic Church must change because it does not correspond with the Gospel of Jesus Christ! Jesus gave his disciples the threefold commandment of love: love of Go’d, love of one’s neighbor, and love of oneself (Matthew 22, 37–40; Mark 12, 29–31; Luke 10, 25–28). Elaborating a theology for the social realization of the threefold commandment of love within the Roman Catholic Church must establish equal dignity, freedom and rights for all Christians within the Roman Catholic Church. Christian theology must be clear that the threefold commandment of love of the Lord Jesus Christ, empowers the construction of an egalitarian community of the People of Go’d and empowers the conversion from the monarchic principle of government to the government of institutions that respect the equal dignity, liberty, and rights of the faithful. Conversion needs women, men and queer to be ready for converting, for changing their mindset. I acknowledge my difficulties and weaknesses to change my own mindset. Nevertheless, I do hope, that the bishops, clergy and faithful of the Roman Catholic Church convert to the way of Jesus Christ. Conversion cannot be planned; conversion is a quality. The numbers of Catholics and their hierarchy is an empirical quantity.

On October 21, 2018, Fides News Agency, the Information service of the Pontifical Mission societies of Vatican City released the following statistics, updated to December 31, 2016. By December 31, 2016, the world population was 7,352,289,000. On the same date, Catholics in the world numbered 1,299,059,000 persons with an overall increase of 14,249,000 compared with the numbers for 2015. The increase affects all continents, except Europe. The total number of Bishops in the world increased by forty-nine persons, to 5,353. There are 4,063 Diocesan Bishops and 1,263 Religious Bishops. Diocesan Bishops increased by twenty-seven persons, Religious Bishops by twenty-two. The total number of priests in the world decreased in 2016 to 414,969 that is 687 priests less than in 2015. According to the Vatican’s presentation of the statistics, Europe was mainly to blame for the decrease in priests, because in 2016, there were 2,583 fewer priests in Europe than in the year before. The Vatican’s statistical office registered a decrease of 589 priests in America compared to 2015. There is no need to hide the decreasing numbers for North America by adding the numbers for North America to the numbers of Central America, the Caribbean and South America. The numbers for the United States are available. The total number of diocesan and religious priests in the U. S. in 1985 was about 57,000, in 2005 about 43,000 and in 2013 about 38,000.[ix] The crisis of priestly vocations is very real in the U.S. The Vatican’s office of statistics hides this reality and presents numbers for all of America. Hiding the vocational crisis of priests by presenting a construction of statistics that suggests a different reality for North America than the case is, must be called manipulation of facts or simply fake news. This kind of manipulation justifies continuing with business as usual and evades addressing the problems. It is true: increases of the number of priests were registered in Africa and Asia. There was an overall decrease in the number of religious women by 10,885 persons to 659,445 in 2016. An increase was registered in Africa (+ 943) and Asia (+ 533), a decrease in America (- 3,775), Europe (-8,370) and Oceania (-216).[x]

Why is my hope realistic, that 5000 Roman Catholic celibate men would convert to follow Jesus’ commandment of love and start embracing the conviction of the equal dignity, rights and freedom of all Catholic women, men and queer? Why should 5000 Roman Catholic bishops begin walking with Jesus Christ from Galilee up to Jerusalem following his Gospel? It is not important for the Roman Catholic Church that I am hoping the Catholic bishops would convert to assess Human Rights within the Roman Catholic Church. Hoping for the conversion of the bishops is important for me, because conversions operate unity as we read in the Bible:

Matthew 16,4 makes clear that for Matthew there is but one sign and that is the sign of Jonah that is the death and resurrection of Jesus (Luz 2007, 445). From Mathew’s confession of the death and resurrection of Jesus as “the sign of the times” Pope John XXIII takes his use of the expression “the signs of the time.” We must not forget this origin of the term ”sign of the times” in the Gospel.  The term “signs of the time” explains John XXIII’ great vision of the historic opportunity of the Second Vatican Council from the moment of convoking the Council on December 25, 1961 to his death (Komonchak, Joseph, 1995. “La lotta per il concilio durante la preparazione”. In Il cattolicesimo verso una nuova stagione. L`annuncio e la preparazione gennaio 1959 – settembre 1962. Vol. 1 of Storia del concilio Vaticano II, directed by Giuseppe Alberigo, 177–380. 177. Bologna: Società editrice il Mulino). John XXIII linked world peace and the future of humanity to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ (See my Posting “Signs of the times, Jonah, Jesus Christ and John XXIII”). Jonah did not believe in the conversion of Nineveh, yet “he set out and went to Nineveh in obedience to the word of Yahweh” (The Book of Jonah. 3, 3a. The New Jerusalem Bible). Go’d hoped and was sure of Nineveh’s conversion, not the prophet. Indeed, “more than a hundred and twenty thousand people” (ibid. 4, 11) “renounced their evil ways” and they received Go’d’s pardon (ibid. 3, 10). Go’d’s word had created unity in Nineveh, from the king and his nobles to all people. Hope is a belief in Go’d.

[i] “The Vatican’s Government,” Vatican.com, https://vatican.com/The-Vaticans-government/ (accessed Markh 7, 2019).

[ii] http://www.vaticanstate.va/content/vaticanstate/en/stato-e-governo/note-generali.html (accessed Markh 7, 2019).

[iii] Pell v The Queen [2020] HCA 12 . 7 Apr 2020. Case Number: M112/2019. PDF RTF ...

Judgment summary - High Court of Australia www.hcourt.gov.au › 2020 › hca-12-2020-04-07

[iv] “The Roman Curia,” The Holy See, http://w2.vatican.va/content/romancuria/en.html (accessed Markh 12, 2019).

[v] “The Secretariat of State,” The Holy See, http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/secretariat_state/documents/rc_seg-st_12101998_profile_en.html (Accessed Markh 12, 2019).

[vi] http://w2.vatican.va/content/romancuria/en.html (accessed Markh 12, 2019).

[vii] http://www.vaticanstate.va/content/vaticanstate/en/stato-e-governo/struttura-del-governatorato/presidenza.html (accessed Markh 9, 2019).

[viii] “Distribution of living Cardinals according to the Pontificate in which they were created,” The Holy See, http://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/documentation/cardinali---statistiche/distribuzione-per-papa.html (accessed Markh 7, 2019).

[ix] “Vocation Statistics. Labouré Society Vocations Demographics,” Labouré, https://rescuevocations.org/about/aspirant-demographics/ (accessed April 4, 2019).

[x] “Vatican – Catholic Church Statistics 2018,” agenzia fides, http://www.fides.org/en/news/64944-VATICAN_CATHOLIC_CHURCH_STATISTICS_2018 (accessed Markh 7, 2019).