BishopAccountability.org
	Priests and Abuse – Which Way Forward for the Catholic Church By Peter Stanford Telegraph March 21, 2010 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/vaticancityandholysee/7489220/Priests-and-abuse-which-way-forward-for-the-Catholic-Church.html UNITED KINGDOM -- The Pope's apology to victims of sex abuse at the hands of priests in Ireland is to be welcomed. But there is more work to be done to restore faith in the Church, says Peter Stanford. There is an evident sincerity in the Pope's letter of apology to the victims of paedophile priests in Ireland. "You have suffered grievously and I am truly sorry," he writes. What is new in this is the form – a pastoral letter to be read in all Irish churches – and the tone, finally acknowledging unambiguously that lives have been ruined and that it is the Church's fault. But Benedict has said very public sorries before. In 2008, for example, he apologised to American and Australian victims of abusive priests. Indeed, in his short reign he has distinguished himself by saying sorry more often than any modern pope, and about recent events. Usually any apology has had to wait 1000 years before being muttered through gritted teeth. To be accepted, however, "sorry" needs to be backed up by a credible promise to change, and it is here that Benedict still lacks credibility. Everything he suggests in today's letter has been offered before – better vetting of candidates for the priesthood, better training in seminaries for those who are accepted, no more imagining that priests are above the law, and an end to the "misplaced concern for the reputation of the Church" that led for so long to such a widespread cover-up by bishops. To be fair, in the countries where such measures have been adopted – including Britain – they have been judged by outside experts to be working well. The cases now emerging in Austria and Germany, like those that have shocked the American, Canadian, Irish and Australian churches, all date back 20, 30 and even 50 years. If there remain grounds for concern, it is that the Vatican continues to allow much local autonomy to bishops in individual countries in this matter (a curious omission given its centralising attitude on everything else from Episcopal appointments to doctrine to who is suitable to teach theology). In some places – notably in Latin America – the new structures and checks now commonplace in Europe do not yet exist. So is this a scandal about what happened in the past and so will fade with time? Benedict appears to think not, to judge from his pastoral letter. The harm done to the victims will be with them for their lifetimes, he acknowledges. "I know that nothing can undo the wrong you have endured." And the damage done to the Church's moral reputation – in Ireland specifically, but by implication elsewhere – will, he suggests, be very hard indeed to repair. Prescribing more prayer as the solution therefore seems inadequate, though what else should a Christian leader advocate? Well, there are several possibilities if the Pope is to be as good as his word. It would have been reassuring to hear him admit the Vatican's mistakes in the handling of the crisis – for example John Paul II's decision to give sanctuary to Father Marcial Maciel, founder of the Legion of Christ who stood accused in several countries of sexual abuse. Maciel died in 2008 without ever facing his accusers in court because of the Vatican's protection, but Cardinal Bernard Law, who presided over the cover-up of paedophile priests in Boston and was forced from office in 2002, has subsequently been given a number of senior roles in Rome, including running the church of St Mary Major. There is equally still a reluctance to resign by those who were not abusers but who covered up. Can Cardinal Sean Brady, Primate of All Ireland, really lead the renewal the Pope so fervently wants, now it has emerged that he was privy to two young boys being silenced over a priest who abused them? Brady says he was only a young priest at the time, but what precisely was it about a grown man having sex with small children that didn't compel him there and then to call in the civil authorities? Finally there remains a refusal in the upper echelons of the Catholic Church to grapple with why – as American studies suggest – there was a higher percentage of paedophiles in the priesthood than in the male population as a whole? There are now a few dissenting voices on this. Cardinal Christoph Schonborn of Vienna has suggested the celibacy rule for priests needs looking at. (If only it were that simple. Married men are just as likely to abuse.) Even the Vatican's official newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, has been floating the theory that the scandal wouldn't have happened if there were more women in positions of power. Amen to that. But these are piecemeal. What is needed is a wholesale and honest re-evaluation of Catholic teaching on sexuality. Surely the fact that such appalling sexual abuse happened in an institution that distrusts and often demonises human sexuality is not a coincidence. That, at least, is what many Catholics are asking. Until the Vatican shows it is at least willing to consider the matter, then the Pope's efforts to reclaim the moral high ground for the Church, however humble and genuine, will not bring the healing he so desires.
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.