BishopAccountability.org
	Church Admits It Erred Windsor Star July 22, 2011 http://www.windsorstar.com/news/Church+admits+erred/5141834/story.html The London diocese admits it didn't properly deal with pedophile priests in the past, but defends the previous practice of shipping accused and convicted clergy to new churches without warning parishioners. Vicar-General Rev. John Sharp said moving a priest to a new church, which often happened when victims or others complained, was seen as a "new opportunity" for them. "You don't necessarily want your past to be a block for you," said Sharp. "That's not an excuse but that's the reality of it with anything. "Any of us at any work or field we might do, we might realize we have made poor choices and mistakes. We acknowledge that, we would hope the next place we would go to would take a different attitude, and we would not want to see our pasts come along with us." The diocese has been criticized in recent years after revelations that officials and other priests were aware of abusive priests but didn't remove them from ministry. Victims of several priests have launched about 150 lawsuits against the diocese. Bishop Ronald Fabbro said he knows officials didn't properly deal with abuser priests in the past, and some victims were disregarded when they asked for help. "The way we have to stop this from happening is for victims to know that they can come forward and that they are going to be believed, which was a problem in the past," said Fabbro. He said he's made public apologies and is trying to be more transparent in the church's handling of sex abuse allegations. "We issue a public statement when this happens now." Fabbro said he now also immediately removes a priest's faculties. A priest is granted faculties after being ordained that allow him to do things such as minister the sacraments, celebrate mass, hear confessions and do baptisms. Fabbro said he could remove any or all of them. Sharp, now tasked with overseeing disposition of the lawsuits, said the church handled abuse differently in the past because it didn't fully understand the problem. "It was the appreciation and value and understanding of the whole question of this kind of conduct," said Sharp. He said it was believed a perpetrator could get treatment and return to ministry. "We understand all of this now to not have been correct," said Sharp. "But it wasn't in isolation." But even after priests abused children, were moved to other churches and abused again, Sharp said the church still didn't understand what it was dealing with. "I really think that the people at that time made decisions in the light which they truly believed to be the good." 'BE CLOSE TO VICTIMS' Catholic bishops must meet child abuse victims in person in order to fully understand their suffering, says the Vatican's main investigator into pedophilia scandals. "If you don't do this you will never really understand the drama of these terrible sins," Charles Scicluna, the Canon Law prosecutor of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, told the Vatican Insider website earlier this month. Such meetings will be "a traumatizing, life-changing experience as it was for me," he told the website. He added the church should "be close to the victims, who have been considered for too long as 'enemies' of the Church's good reputation."
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.