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	Church Should Rethink Position Times of Malta October 2, 2011 http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20111002/editorial/Church-should-rethink-position.387275 Some on the outside delight in bashing the Church when the issue of clerical sexual abuse crops up. Conversely, some on the inside switch to siege mode and rather than address the problem before them, lash out in several directions. The media are often prime targets. While there is no doubt that some criticism is justified and some is at the very least worth discussing, it is not a helpful approach in the midst of a hot issue – when the Church should be seeing what it can do to help the victims and maintain confidence among the faithful. From start to finish (if, indeed, we can describe the latest twist as a finish) anyone who loves the Church and puts hand on heart would have to admit that it made a sticky situation worse. First, with the Response Team – tasked with investigating the allegations at St Joseph's Home in Sta Venera – coming to a few incorrect conclusions and taking many long years to reach them (granted, the courts, as they often are, were guilty of this too). Second, by the manner in which the impression was initially given that the victims – let us please leave misplaced talk of 'alleged' or 'sub judice', just because there is an appeal, behind – would receive some form of compensation and then the apparent U-turn that followed. It's true that the Archbishop never publicly said outright that financial compensation would be given to the victims, but the impression people on the outside gleaned through the Curia's statements was precisely that. The impression also exists that something happened, in the period between the opening statements and the slamming shut of the door to compensation, which changed the Church's mind. The people who form part of the Church – either through attendance or more active participation – have a right to know what that something is. The thorny issue is whether the Church was correct to take the decision it has taken on compensation (while always bearing in mind that it offered counselling). Though only more unsavoury time in court will tell, one assumes that legally there was a logical argument to support the decision. The rationale presumably being that the victims should go for those who actually committed the crime and that the Church is not vicariously liable. Yet leaving the issue there is wholly unsatisfactory. From a legal point of view, even if the victims win a case against the priests they will not recover a cent. And from a benevolent point of view, there is hardly need to make an argument to prove the decision was unwise. Only those who wish to see the Church harmed want a situation where people launch legal cases against the Church to extract money, and the Church needs to guard against that as best it can. But why has the global Church been so inconsistent? How can the Church in one country take a favourable position on compensation while the same Church in another state rules it out completely? Is it because there is more confidence in the legal outcome in one country than another? If so, this is heartless reasoning. It is a touch ironic that the Vatican's chief prosecutor, the Maltese Mgr Charles Scicluna, came up with the common sense solution: to set up a solidarity fund for victims. He stopped there, but perhaps this fund could be capped and a time limit set by which all past victims and alleged victims should apply. Money is not the best form of compensation. However, what other kind is there for abuse victims?
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