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	US Scandals Affect Local Views on Vatican Crisis By Dan Horn Cincinnati Enquirer April 26, 2010 http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20100426/EDIT03/4250364 The clergy abuse scandal in America eight years ago has little to do with the abuse crisis now swirling around the Vatican and Pope Benedict XVI. But it may have everything to do with how American Roman Catholics are responding to the current crisis. The troubles in Rome today are viewed by many here through the prism of a scandal that engulfed the American church for several years beginning in 2002. The financial and spiritual wounds from those years remain, and the lingering pain has influenced perceptions of the problems confronting the Vatican. Catholics who were frustrated and angry over the church's response - or lack thereof - to abusive priests in 2002 are outraged by the more recent accusations that the pope failed to punish abusers when he was a bishop and a cardinal. Those who believe the 2002 scandal was serious but resulted in years of unfair criticism of their church are skeptical of the new accusations. "Eight years isn't that long ago," said Rich Leonardi, a conservative Catholic blogger and the host of Cincinnati's "Son Rise Morning Show" on Sacred Heart Radio WNOP-AM (740). "It's created an air of suspicion. It definitely colors the way some people look at the story." Several bishops, including Cincinnati Archbishop Dennis Schnurr and Covington Bishop Roger Foys, spoke out recently in defense of the pope, suggesting he has been the victim of shoddy reporting or misunderstandings about how the Vatican hierarchy works. Although the controversy in Rome has no direct tie to Cincinnati or Northern Kentucky, both Schnurr and Foys mentioned the 2002 crisis in their comments about the pope. They wanted Catholics to know that they weren't minimizing the tragedy of the previous scandal by defending the pope in the current one. The message was clear: American Catholics can't talk about the scandal in Europe without acknowledging the damage done by the one in their own backyard. "It would be naïve to think that wouldn't affect your perceptions in some way," said Dan Andriacco, spokesman for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. "Impressions people get tend to stick." 'An institutional problem' Abuse victims, in particular, tend to see the crisis in Rome as an extension of the scandal in the United States, and as proof the church's hierarchy has not done enough to discipline bishops who protected pedophile priests. To victims, the accusations about the pope's handling of abusers in the 1980s and 1990s go to the core of their belief that the church cannot be healed until its leaders face a reckoning. The pope has accepted the resignation of three Irish bishops over the abuse scandal in that country, but victims' advocates say that's not nearly enough. "This is showing the world that it's not just an American problem or an American media problem. It's showing what has been an institutional problem in the church for centuries," said Dan Frondorf, a victim of clergy abuse who now leads the Cincinnati chapter of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. "It's a vindication of what we've been saying," he said. "It's clear now it's a problem all over the world." The latest crisis began when media reports questioned whether the pope, while he was the archbishop of Munich, ignored or delayed taking action against an abusive priest. Subsequent reports suggested he also failed to act against abusers when he was head of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The Vatican and its defenders described those reports as misinformed or as "gossip," noting discrepancies that they said cast doubt on the allegations. They say one of the biggest errors was the suggestion that the pope, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, turned a blind eye to abusers while at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The congregation was not, in fact, responsible for investigating abusive priests during the period in question, the 1980s and 1990s. The pope's defenders say letters he wrote at the time about abuse cases focused on technical issues related to defrocking priests - not about the abuse allegations - because that was his job. When he did take on the responsibility of handling abusers, they say, he was more aggressive than his predecessors and pushed for tougher measures and more oversight. He later became the first pope to meet with abuse victims and the first to dedicate a pastoral letter to the abuse crisis. "He made it a much bigger priority for the Holy See," Leonardi said. "The record of the church in recent years has been remarkable." Strong feelings remain Leonardi and others say that's especially true in the American church, where bishops have adopted a zero-tolerance policy that requires the suspension of any accused priest and where dioceses across the country have spent millions on background checks and other child-protection measures. The latest audit from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops found that the number of new credible abuse reports fell from 10 in 2008 to six last year. But some Catholics remain skeptical of the church's commitment and say the pope's actions as a bishop show that he was just as out of touch as the American bishops who tolerated abusive priests for years. The troubles in Munich relate to a known pedophile priest who was allowed to work in German parishes even after his superiors became aware of the abuse. As bishop, the pope was in charge of the diocese and responsible for dealing with abusive priests. "The person who headed the office is responsible," said Kris Ward, a Dayton Catholic and chairwoman of the National Survivor Advocates Coalition. "These are crimes. They violated children." Some Vatican watchers have said the pope may be getting a bum rap when it comes to his actions as a cardinal, but that his actions as a bishop raise serious questions. But drawing those kinds of nuanced distinctions is rare these days amid the uproar over the crisis. John Allen Jr., a Vatican expert and writer for the National Catholic Reporter, said it is a challenge for American Catholics to view the current crisis objectively. "On an issue about which people feel so passionately, and one which so easily feeds all sorts of broader agenda about the church, the papacy, the media and so on, is there actually a constituency for balance?" he wrote on his blog, All Things Catholic. "Is there room for middle ground?" He said Catholics may not learn the answer until the most recent crisis plays out. Contact: dhorn@enquirer.com
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