Can Ireland’s sex-abuse crisis teach us anything?
Nicholas Cafardi, who served on the USCCB’s National Review Board for the Protection of Children and Youth and wrote a book, Before Dallas, about the sex-abuse crisis in the Catholic church, reports on Ireland’s scandal in the latest Commonweal. Cafardi finds plenty of similarities between the handling of abuse in Dublin, as detailed in the Murphy Report, and what was uncovered in the United States back in 2002. But the fallout has not been identical, and Cafardi suggests that the details are significant.
…there is one critical difference in the treatment bishops received on opposite sides of the Atlantic. In the Boston shipwreck, only one bishop resigned, Cardinal Bernard Law, and the notion that he has been punished seems dubious. Within months, he was in Rome, sheltered by friends, resident in the Apostolic Palace, and finally, in May 2004, appointed by Pope John Paul II to be archpriest and canon of the Basilica of St. Mary Major—where he still resides, in a grand apartment adjoining the Basilica, with a chauffeured Vatican limousine, living on income from the Basilica’s endowment, and serving as a member of the powerful Congregation for Bishops, which recommends episcopal appointments. Hardly a penitential retirement, in other words. In contrast, in Ireland, four of the five bishops named in the Murphy Report have tendered their resignations. Only Bishop Drennan, currently of Galway, has not—and he is under severe pressure to do so. (So far, Rome has accepted only one of the resignations.)
What accounts for this difference? Why did the Irish bishops who gave solace to pedophile priests step down, while the American bishops who did the same went on happily with their episcopal careers? The answer, in a phrase, is “fraternal correction.”
Read the whole thing for his take on what’s happened so far, and how we could act on what we’ve learned.
on March 12th, 2010 at 7:30 pm
It looks like the Germans have learned from our sad experience. It’s now being reported that the first investigations into accusations there were initiated by two Jesuit priests, and the German bishops are asking those abused to come forward.
on March 12th, 2010 at 10:41 pm
From the front page of the New York Times . . . .
on March 13th, 2010 at 8:01 am
WHERE DOES THE BUCK STOP?
In a March 9, 2010 press release “concerning cases of the sexual abuse of minors in ecclesiastical institutions,” Fr. Federico Lombardi SJ parrots out the Holy See’s predictable responses to the church’s ever widening problem of sexual abuse, particularly that of minor children.
http://212.77.1.245/news_services/press/vis/dinamiche/a0_en.htm
The institutional Roman Catholic church has reacted to the continuing sexual abuse debacle neither rapidly nor decisively, contrary to what Lombardi states. The Vatican has attempted to distance itself from what has happened in country after country, first categorizing it as an “American problem,” then as a “homosexual problem.” Boston’s Cardinal Bernard Law even went so far as to blame the Boston Globe, publicly calling down the wrath of God on the newspaper.
What was done by church leadership in the United States, for example, it was forced to do by the pressure of public opinion after records, files and correspondence were forced into the public venue in 2002 by Judge Constance M. Sweeney, a very brave, grounded and principled Catholic woman in Boston, Massachusetts.
The church’s response continues to be re-active rather than pro-active while minimizing the systemic and endemic abuse of power and authority which has enabled and exacerbated it on the one hand while covering it up whenever and wherever possible on the other.
The “wide-ranging context” is that in countries from the United States, Canada, Australia and Ireland to Austria, the Netherlands and Germany church authorities have repeatedly and consistently disregarded its own moral and Canon laws as well as the existing laws of the countries’ in which these horrific crimes against humanity occurred.
Lombardi does not mention nor does he admit to the well documented widespread cover-up of the sexual abuse of children by bishops and other church officials in many countries like the United States, that makes the church’s sexual abuse problems particularly egregious. If church authorities had done the morally right thing initially how many children would have escaped being sexually abused by a particular priest?
When are people of good will going to say, enough!
When are state legislators going to change the laws so that justice can be pursued for the thousands upon thousands of victims of childhood sexual abuse who have been unable to access let alone obtain justice?
In most states and probably in most countries existing criminal as well as civil laws give more protection to sexual predators and their enablers then they do to victims of childhood sexual abuse – by anyone. This is deplorable and should not be.
The removal of all statutes of limitation in regard to the sexual abuse of children is the single, most effective way to hold predators and enabling institutions accountable before the law.
The state of Delaware in the United States is one of a very few states in the U.S. which has removed all criminal and civil statutes of limitation in regard to the sexual abuse of children – by anyone. It also legislated a two year civil window for previously time barred cases, again, by anyone. That window closed in July of 2009.
In a civil suit, unlike a criminal suit, the burden of proof that any sexual abuse took place is on the plaintiff. The burden is not on the accused individual or institution to prove innocence, at least not in the United States.
Every victim of childhood sexual abuse should have a right to the pursuit of justice at the very least!
If Delaware can do it other states and other countries should be able to do it and hold sexual predators and any enabling institutions responsible, especially those institutions which chose to ignore their own internal laws.
I was privileged to testify before the Senate and House Judiciary Committees in support of the 2007 Child Victims Law in Delaware.
No rules and no laws of any religious organization or denomination should be allowed to trump the laws of a civilized society where the protection of children is concerned.
The Roman Catholic Church should be held to the highest standard as a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, a Convention that by any objective standard it has grossly violated for decades.
Isn’t it time to formalize those violations as the crimes against humanity they truly are?
Sister Maureen Paul Turlish
Victims’ Advocate
New Castle, Delaware, USA
maureenpaulturlish@yahoo.com
on March 13th, 2010 at 10:51 am
Those of us who work among parish priest are well aware of the “Code of Silence” that exists among American priests. If anything is going amiss—no matter what—the word is “Silence”
Some (not all) of the Bishops, keep to themselves—don’t really mingle or communicate with their priests (except when the Bishops want money). And the priests in these dioceses do not trust the bishops (and I stated that this is the situation is SOME dioceses).
But the concept of Fraternal Correction, I’m afraid, drove away in the days of the Nash Rambler, and hasn’t been seen since.
on March 13th, 2010 at 11:04 am
It’s called ‘CYA’.
The flip side is called ‘Enabling’.
Key ingredients (along with authoritarianism) of a sick, dysfunctional, clerical church culture.
on March 13th, 2010 at 11:06 am
The Cafardi article is excellent and underscores the problem of loyalty to Rome/Romanita.
It really deals with the Boston aftermath.
There’s been much more since including Grand Jury Reports, the Chicago mess with McCormick, the issues in los angeles , then ireland, Austria and Germany.
There is, i submit, a deep systemic problem in the clericalism driven Romanita culture.
When the front page of Osservatorio Romano mentions omerta in conjunction with the Vatican, I think of oshades of Frank Keating here.
Folks with strong justice backgrounds not only like cafardi but Justice Anne Busrke saw the awful roots of the issue but basically what we get is lots of PR on bishops accountability.
And now, the Vatican too is feeling the issue pressed on them and will spin out damage control.
on March 14th, 2010 at 8:09 am
Why does Cafardi pounce on the blameless Bp Drennan?
on March 16th, 2010 at 10:18 am
A further lesson -look at last night’s CNN report on Chicgao and whether the Church really opens up to civil authorities about molesters.
on March 18th, 2010 at 1:31 pm
See also NYT’s 3/17 blog on the situation