Brazil: Flight Ended for Pedophile Priest

By Giacomo Galeazzi
Vatican Insider
January 2, 2012

vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/homepage/world-news/detail/articolo/brasile-brasil-11278/

The paedophilia scandal

His flight lasted eight years. The "Kennedy case" has long created confusion in public opinion, already shaken by what government reports have gradually revealed about paedophilia among Irish clergy. To evade justice, 72-year-old Fr. Peter Kennedy (accused of sexually abusing 55 children in Ireland) had escaped to Brazil. Now the Brazilian authorities have ordered the extradition of the priest who was fired in 2003, in the midst of one of the major scandals involving the Irish clergy. At 11 p.m. the evening of the notification of extradition, Fr. Kennedy was on a plane to London, where Irish officials were waiting for him. Eight years ago, one of his victims was granted compensation of €300,000 by the court. The boy had reported being raped by the priest when he was 13, after his family had moved to a home in County Sligo due to his father's death from cancer.

Fr. Kennedy disappeared a few weeks after the trial ended, after which an additional 18 victims came forward, accusing him of various abuses dating back to 1980. Gradually, the police found more and more victims, and his position soon became very serious. At that time it was already believed that the priest had fled to Brazil and, in 2004, according to the Daily Mail, Interpol issued a "blue notice" against him, formally asking for his arrest and expatriation. Investigations revealed that Fr. Kennedy used a British passport to travel from London to Brazil, settling in Osasco, on the outskirts of Sao Paulo, where he earned a living teaching English.

Only now has the Catholic priest - a fugitive for eight years and accused of sex crimes in Ireland - been expelled from Brazil. The Irish Church is still marked by scandals often dealt with by a tardy and inadequate national ecclesiastical hierarchy. Three months ago, the Irish government thanked the Vatican for its response to the Cloyne Report, while maintaining its criticisms of the letter of 1997 in which the Holy See "gave a pretext for priests to cover up allegations of sexual abuse." The Cloyne Report (400 pages of shocking documents) was published last July. It states, among other things, that Bishop John Magee, former secretary to three popes and then bishop in his own country (who submitted his resignation in 2010) ignored the guidelines for the protection of children in 1996, established by the Irish Conference of Bishops, and did not report to the police at least 9 of the 15 cases of sexual abuse that occurred in that period.

The report also claims that the "Vatican's reaction" to the efforts of the Irish bishops to respond to allegations of sexual abuse "did not help any bishop to implement the procedures established." The dossier quotes the letter of 1997 to the Irish Conference of Bishops by the then-Nuncio Mgr. Luciano Storero (1926-2000), who claimed that the Congregation for the Clergy believed the guidelines for the protection of children highlighted in "Sexual abuse of children: context for an ecclesial response" to be a mere "study document" containing "procedures and rules," i.e., mandatory reporting, which "seemed contrary to canonical rules."

The Holy See has responded that the letter offered advice on the development of a document and that the Church had a long history in which it had reiterated many times the importance of reporting cases of sexual abuse to authorities. "Having carefully considered the Cloyne Report and the response of the Holy See," the statement said, "the Irish Government maintains the view that the contents of the confidential letter of 1997 have provided a pretext for some members of the clergy to evade full cooperation with the civil authorities in Ireland with regard to child abuse. It is a matter of great concern to the Irish government." The hope of the Government of Ireland is that, "despite our great differences, they have learned the lessons of past mistakes," the text continues. "In this regard, the Government welcomes the commitment, expressed by the response of the Holy See in its final observations, to a constructive dialogue and cooperation with the government." Expressing thanks for this commitment, the government "expects full cooperation with the Holy See, the Catholic Church in Ireland and other relevant agencies to ensure that Ireland has a wholly safe society for children and minors, and that all persons who have responsibility for the welfare and care of children in this country are entirely subject to Irish laws and procedures."

January 2012 represents a historic date in its own way for the Catholic Church. Exactly ten years ago, in fact, in January of 2002, a newspaper broke the news for the first time of a pedophilia scandal in the clergy. The Boston Globe reported the story of Fr. John Geoghan, the priest who subsequently forced Cardinal Bernard Law, Archbishop of Boston, to resign. The priest accused of abusing more than 130 children over three decades of his career was killed in prison in August 2003. A decade later, the Geoghan case is still for many a symbol of the terrible failure of the church: moved from parish to parish despite his crimes, claiming victims with no one having done anything to stop him. After Geoghan, there was Fr. Kevin Reynolds. A priest in County Galway, Western Ireland, he became the symbol of the failures of the church in his country, an example to be cited when talking about the scourge of paedophilia in the clergy, an enormous wound on the record considering that it was only to the Irish faithful, and not those of other churches, which Benedict XVI had to write a letter essentially of apology and repentance. Now it has been found that Fr. Reynolds was innocent - he never abused children. He is not a paedophile. But the wound is still very extensive, and the extradition of Fr. Kennedy is an encouraging sign of the will to "purification" that characterizes the new Ratzinger course.