BishopAccountability.org
	SNAP Ups the Ante National Survivor Advocates Coalition September 14, 2011 http://nationalsurvivoradvocatescoalition.wordpress.com/editorials/ In movements, there are milestone days. September 13, 2011 is one indeed in the clergy (and nuns) sexual abuse crisis in the Roman Catholic Church. In a bold move, the Survivor Network for Those Abused by Priests (SNAP), took the case of its 9,000 members and that of a growing number of survivors rising up around the globe to the International Criminal Court in the Hague. SNAP, represented by the New York based Center for Constitutional Rights is seeking an investigation of Pope Benedict XVI, the current and former Vatican Secretaries of State, Cardinals Tarcisco Bertone and Angelo Sodano and the current head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal William Levada, (previously of California) who succeeded Pope Benedict as the chief at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the office where sexual abuse cases are handled, for possible crimes against humanity. Crimes against humanity – the phrase is stunning, jaw dropping, breath drawing, –and now said aloud in the same sentence as the Vatican. We know the sheer startling aspect of the phrase will bring some Catholics to frozen positions of defense of the Pope Benedict and Vatican officials. We call upon them to resist this reflexive action and honestly and sincerely pursue the facts and educate themselves. The knowledge is as close as survivors and they are legion. Before yesterday the phrase “crimes against humanity — was a phrase that brought Rwanda, Bosnia, Darfur and the defendants of the Nuremberg Trials to mind. Yet it is the reaction of the Vatican that is most telling. Jeffrey Lena, the Vatican’s US lawyer labeled the action “a ludicrous publicity stunt.” Whether Mr. Lena ran this comment up the Vatican flagpole to get the nod from the man who sits on St. Peter’s Throne we cannot say but we can say neither Pope Benedict nor anyone else at the Vatican has disavowed this comment. And therein lies the rub. Mr. Lena’s client, the Church, continuously argues that clergy sexual abuse is a relic of the past. That plank in the Church’s argument alone should have worked like duct tape for Mr. Lena: the International Criminal Court works on cases with victims parallel with and moving forward from its inception date, 2002. One needs to look no further than the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, Missouri for a pushback on the “sins of the past” argument. If love in its highest form seeking the good of the beloved without thought to the cost of the lover was not to be the response then surely the Vatican could have reached for mediocre middle ground of silence, review of the documents, etc. But instead came the undignified hurling of an insult seeking to belittle: a verbal javelin cast from underlying fear. For it is Mr. Lena who is most familiar with the oft put down case in the US District Court that was also viewed a losing proposition but which unlocked Fortress Vatican in an historic court ordered release of documents for the discovery phase of trial. A milestone day indeed. — Kristine Ward, NSAC Chair, KristineWard@hotmail.com 937-272-0308
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