Pope to Address Abuse in Letter, by Rachel Donadio, New York Times, March 17, 2010

Pope to Address Abuse in Letter

By Rachel Donadio
New York Times
March 17, 2010

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/18/world/europe/18pope.html

VATICAN CITY, ROME — As hundreds of new allegations of sexual abuse surface in the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Benedict XVI said Wednesday that he hoped a forthcoming letter dealing with one part of the scandal in Ireland would help "repentance, healing and renewal."

The pope, the former Archbishop Joseph Ratzinger, was addressing his weekly general audience at the Vatican after days of disclosures concerning the German church, where one case happened on his watch before he became pope in 2005. The pope's comments on the scandal in Ireland came a day after a top Vatican official acknowledged on Tuesday that, with only 10 people handling such cases, his office might not be adequate for the task.

Pope Benedict XVI during a meeting with Irish bishops at the Vatican in February.

But the official, Msgr. Charles J. Scicluna, who is effectively the Vatican's internal prosecutor, said the church was working to bring more "transparency" to the delicate and emotional process of settling allegations of abuse by priests, which have severely damaged the church's moral standing.

"We have to get our act together and start working for more transparency in investigations and more adequate responses for the problem," Monsignor Scicluna said, adding that this should happen "on every level of the church."

Pope Benedict XVI during his weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican on Wednesday.
Photo by Alessandro Bianchi

Speaking on Wednesday in English , the pope said he would sign a promised pastoral letter to Irish Catholics on Friday and send it out soon afterwards. He said the Irish church had been "severely shaken" and he was "deeply concerned."

Separately, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany on Wednesday called the sex abuse scandal a major challenge to German society and warned the only way to come to terms with it was "truth and clarity about everything that took place."

At the Vatican, Monsignor Scicluna's comments on Tuesday, rare for an official in the famously reticent Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, were part of a broader Vatican defense against the rising abuse scandal in Germany. Last weekend, Monsignor Scicluna told L'Avvenire, the newspaper of the Italian Bishops Conference, that his office had examined 3,000 abuse cases in the past decade, most of them from the United States.

The ratio of 10 people handling 300 cases a year did not go over well in some quarters. "It seems like an extraordinarily paltry effort, given the scope of the crisis," said David Clohessy, the national director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests.

In a rare interview, by telephone on Tuesday, Monsignor Scicluna acknowledged the concern. Asked if he wanted reinforcements, he said with a laugh: "I would hope we have less work. That's my hope. Not more people, less work."

He added that if the number of cases averaged 300 a year, "We can continue doing our job well with 10 people. The problem is: Are these numbers going to settle?"

A decade after the Roman Catholic Church in the United States was shaken by revelations of widespread sexual abuse of minors by priests, a similar phenomenon is sweeping Germany.

This week, the German church suspended a priest who had been allowed to work with children for decades after a court convicted him of molesting boys. In 1980, Archbishop Ratzinger allowed the priest to move to Munich for therapy after allegations of abuse.

Although last week the auxiliary bishop who approved the priest's return to pastoral work stepped down, some have raised questions about Benedict's responsibility in the matter.

"It depends what you mean by responsible," Monsignor Scicluna said. "If he was involved in the decision, he would be. If he was not involved, it's a responsibility that comes from his office, a 'the buck stops here' sort of thing.' But I think that the person concerned has already taken responsibility for what he did; the answer to that question has already been given."

Despite the small number of people in the Vatican working on such cases, he stressed that his office was the last step in a long process for the cases, after they have been investigated by "hundreds of canon lawyers" in dioceses worldwide.

"It's not that these people are doing every case from A to Z, otherwise we'd really be bonkers," he said.

The German Bishops Conference announced Tuesday that it would open a sexual-abuse phone line on March 30. The line would be for victims and professionals, but also for abusers.

Bishop Ludwig Schick of Bamberg told Bavarian Radio on Tuesday that he was surprised by the number of cases that had come to light, and that the matter had to be dealt with openly and directly. "It's bitter and it's hard, but it absolutely has to be worked through," he said. "This abscess must be opened and dried out so that it can heal."