Correcting the past

by Editor · May 14, 2014

The Catholic Church has made promising strides in correcting the many serious errors it committed, on various levels, in handling the incidence of sexual abuse of minors by Church personnel.

“We must also be prepared for those who have an anti-Catholic agenda using the abuse scandal as a means of attacking the Church.” (Photo: Gregory Dean)

When the scandal first broke, it didn�t help that many Church officials failed to reserve their first concern for the survivors of clerical abuse, instead blaming the media for �persecuting� the Church (even if there might have been an element of glee in press coverage).

It didn�t help either that Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston, the public face of the cover-up scandal in the United States, was given a prestigious appointment in his Vatican exile.

Even now, the Church sometimes doesn�t understand that the anger of so many people was not only with the predator priests, but also and especially with those senior Church officials whose failures made much of the abuse possible; those who cared more for the Church�s reputation than about the safety of young people or the welfare of those who had been abused.

The painful truth is that the scandal was of the Church�s own making. The vehement criticism it received was wholly merited.

The lessons of all these failures clearly have been learnt, at least by most in the hierarchy.

Pope Francis, like Pope Benedict XVI before him, has given a fervent apology for the harm caused by sexual abuse within the Church. Though both popes have neglected to fully acknowledge the scandal of the cover-ups and mishandling of allegations, their solidarity doubtless resides with the survivors of abuse.

Pope Francis has set up the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors to make sure these failures will not occur again.

Addressing the media this month, commission chairman Cardinal Sean O�Malley � Cardinal Law�s successor as archbishop of Boston � placed a special emphasis on the Church�s accountability to all its members, and on the eradication of a culture of denial which created so many of the problems in the first place.

Time will tell whether the commission�s commendable objectives will be accomplished, and whether the Church will indeed become the safest possible place for children.

Much has already been done to meet the vision of the Church as a safe place for children. Most pastoral regions, including Southern Africa, have implemented precise protocols on how to deal with allegations of abuse in harmony with the law and in the interests of justice.

All these creditable efforts notwithstanding, it will take time to regain the trust of the public, Catholic or not, especially of those who are not aware of the progress the Church has made.

We must also be prepared for those who have an anti-Catholic agenda using the abuse scandal as a means of attacking the Church.

So it proved earlier this month when a United Nations committee which monitors adherence to an international anti-torture treaty interrogated the Holy See�s representative, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, on the Church�s handling of the abuse crisis, saying that sexual abuse is a form of torture.

Sexual abuse unquestionably can be described as a torture, but clerical abuse falls outside the remit of the UN Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment, which addresses state-sponsored torture. In that context, raising the question of sexual abuse within the Church is relevant only if the Holy See is mandating or approving such abuse, which self-evidently is not the case.

Since the committee against torture also questioned the Vatican about its opposition to abortion, one may well question whether the UN committee was pursuing a particular agenda.

If so, then this would coincide with a general tendency among anti-Catholic secularists to deprive the Church of its assertion of moral authority, partly by reference to the past mishandling of abuse.

Can those who invoke the scandal in the prosecution of a secularist agenda be said to be acting from genuine concern for the survivors of abuse?

In its communication, the Church cannot do more than to follow Cardinal O�Malley�s good example: to stand on the side of the survivors of abuse, be completely forthright and contrite about past errors, and with patience and humility emphasise the Holy See�s determined efforts to correct these.