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	Why Exceptions Make Bad Rules: SNAP Midwest Statement on " New" Vatican Guidelines By Peter Isely SNAP - Wisconsin May 16, 2011 http://mnsnap.wordpress.com/snap-wisconsin/ It is the most basic rule of all governance: "Exceptions make bad rules." But not, apparently, with the Vatican. The Vatican preaches the proper rules of justice to the governments of the world and then makes itself the exception to the very rules they preach. This is why the world's largest human rights organization, Amnesty International, named the Vatican last Friday for failing to protect children from abuse and not complying with international mandates to protect children in its 2011 Annual Report. (link to Vatican page of the report: http://www..amnesty.org/en/region/vatican/report-2011) Isn't the most fundamental lesson learned from the priest sex abuse and cover up scandal is that bishops and religious order provincials must report clergy with credible reports of molesting children to civil authorities? Yet, today, we have one more iteration of so-called "reform" from the Vatican with the announcement of "new" guidelines for bishops around the world to apply in cases of clerics who commit child sex crimes. They are, however, not new at all. Incredulously, after decades of revelations around the globe of crimes and cover-up, the Vatican can still only "suggest"—and not enforce by church law with penalties for non-compliance—that bishops report priests who have committed these crimes to civil authorities. Of course, that's because priests are exceptions. Civil authorities, the Vatican says, in some unnamed country unfriendly to the catholic church may use the occasion of arresting a priest child molester to physically harm the cleric. This clearly does not pertain to the vast majority of countries with child protection laws. Why should it be left to the discretion of bishops, who have historically been shown to cover up these crimes, to make decisions in these jurisdictions, especially in the United States, and countries in Europe and most others elsewhere? And, if you listen to the heated up rhetoric of American bishops and Vatican favorites like Timothy Dolan of New York, the "exception" could very well include countries like the United States, where, according to Dolan, there is a "wave" of anti-Catholicism. The theoretical possibility exists, of course, that an offender priest might be at risk, although the Vatican has documented no such cases while thousands of documented and irrefutable cases of cover up by bishops and the Vatican has been proven. The solution: make the rule of civil reporting by all bishops church law and if a particular bishop is concerned for the safety of clerics, apply for an exemption from the reporting rule, produce the evidence as to why the diocese should be exempt, detail what alternatives to civil justice will be undertaken, and then make public the country of exemption. After all, if the bishop should not report the crime, should he then pressure the child victim and his or her family not to report to the police, in effect, deploying the child to protect the offender priest from justice? The Vatican guidelines also offer no disciplinary actions or measures that will be taken against bishops who fail in their most fundamental pastoral and governing duties and have been shown to shield and transfer molester priests. Even in the extraordinarily rare circumstance when bishops have been held to account for failing to protect children, such as when the Archbishop of Dublin relieved two auxiliary bishops from their posts in Dublin last year, Pope Benedict reversed his decision and ordered them reinstated. And, if there is any doubt about how quickly the Vatican can act against bishops who they perceive as a real threat to Catholic children and families, just last month, Bishop William Morris, was fired for suggesting that his diocese discuss lifting the ordination ban on married men and women. But, even as a "suggestion"–weak and ineffective as that "guideline" is–the Vatican's announcement today means nothing if the Vatican itself does not practice what it preaches and immediately turns over to civil authorities around the world the reported 4,000 plus priest offender files now in their possession. The Vatican has publicly announced they have at least this number of cases sent to them from bishops around the world since Pope Benedict, when head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, ordered bishops around the world to send these cases and the evidence of child sex crimes, directly to Rome. Surely, the majority of these cases fall within the countries with acceptable criminal justice procedures. It is virtually guaranteed that no such criminal evidence in the Vatican's possession will be turned over today to any law enforcement officials anywhere in the world. The Vatican, you see, is not only the exception, but the exception to the exception.
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