BishopAccountability.org
	Above the Law The Telegram January 20, 2011 http://www.thetelegram.com/Opinion/Editorial/2011-01-20/article-2139513/Above-the-law/1 It is a discovery that should shake the Catholic Church to its very foundations. In 1997, when the Catholic Church in Ireland was dealing with the first wave of sexual abuse charges against clergy, the Irish Catholic Bishops' Advisory Committee drew up a document called "Child Sexual Abuse: Framework for a Church Response." The report included the suggestion that when senior clergy became aware of abuse allegations, they should turn that information over to the police for investigation. In other words, that there be mandatory reporting of abuse allegations. Now, a letter in response to the committee report, signed by the late Archbishop Luciano Storero, Pope John Paul II's diplomat to Ireland, has surfaced after an Irish bishop gave it to an Irish media outlet. Of special interest is the line that reads: "In particular, the situation of 'mandatory reporting' gives rise to serious reservations of both a moral and a canonical nature." Instead, the letter, dated Jan. 31, 1997 and labelled "strictly confidential," tells Irish bishops that "in the sad cases of accusations of sexual abuse by clerics," the allegations are to be handled though canon law — essentially making abuse cases in-house matters. Not only that, Storero tells bishops that the instruction to handle abuse cases through canon law "must be meticulously followed." Colm O'Gorman of the Irish wing of Amnesty International told the Associated Press, "The letter is of huge international significance, because it shows that the Vatican's intention is to prevent reporting of abuse to criminal authorities. And if that instruction applied here, it applied everywhere." Joelle Casteix of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, was more direct: "We now have evidence that the Vatican deliberately intervened to order bishops not to turn pedophile priests over to law enforcement. … And for civil lawsuits, this letter shows what victims have been saying for dozens and dozens of years: what happened to them involved a concerted coverup that went all the way to the top." The letter calls into direct question a long- standing position taken by the church — especially in U.S. abuse lawsuits — that the church had not told bishops to keep details of abuse allegations from the police. Among other things, the letter draws a line between the senior hierarchy of the church and the actions of local bishops. Past legal settlements in abuse cases have treated the issue of abuse as a diocesan one — a letter that says bishops should be aware reporting abusers to the police could be "highly embarrassing and detrimental to those same diocesan authorities" suggests the decision-making came from far higher up the church, and that could be used to bring legal action to a higher level of Catholic authority. For those who have already settled with the church in abuse cases, it may also be evidence of the church acting in bad faith. How can the abuse of minors by a priest be solely the responsibility of the diocese, when bishops are taking direct instruction not to report abuse cases from further up the line? The other thing the letter confirms, sadly, is that the church hierarchy was more concerned about image than about upholding the law. That might not be news, but it's tragic none the less.
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