Sex Abuse Victims 'Upset' by Mgr Scicluna's Compensation Stand

By Christian Peregin
Times of Malta
October 15, 2012

http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20121015/local/Sex-abuse-victims-upset-by-Mgr-Scicluna-s-compensation-stand.441109


Maltese victims of clerical sex abuse have criticised new Auxiliary Bishop Charles Scicluna for saying compensation should be paid to them by the priests who committed the abuse, not the Maltese Church.

"He is too soft to penetrate the Maltese Curia," said Lawrence Grech, the spokesman of the group of Maltese abuse victims seeking compensation. "We are upset because he had promised to help us," he added.

"I expected this to happen, because when you deal with the Maltese Curia, you always have to wait. He joined the Maltese Curia and he is now using their words."

He said the Church should be held responsible because it had ways of knowing about the abuse and took no action to stop it when one of the priests returned from Canada, amid headlines.

"The Church is responsible so it should take responsibility. It cannot shrug things off."

Mr Grech, who together with other victims spent years seeking justice and compensation, also took Mgr Scicluna to task for saying that the victims were still part of the Church's flock.

"We are not. We were, but not anymore. The Church is our enemy now, because the State trusted the Church to take care of us but instead we were sexually and mentally abused."

However, Mr Grech said the victims were willing to speak to the Church and receive counselling, even though none had been provided in the past 10 years.

In an interview with The Sunday Times yesterday, Mgr Scicluna said he hoped the victims would receive compensation but added this was the "personal responsibility" of those who caused the damage.

"It's up to the courts to decide whether there's going to be monetary compensation… The people responsible for that need to pay for their sins and for their crimes and they need to pay compensation whereas the Church needs to take care of the victims."

However, he said it was "unfair" to make the Church vicariously liable because the offences were committed by individual priests, not the community.

"We ordain a priest to be a good shepherd and never to harm his flock," he said.

Mgr Scicluna added that he supported the stand of the Maltese bishops in offering the victims pastoral psychological counselling.

In August 2011, Mgr Scicluna had said the victims should demand compensation in the civil courts but that the Church should also be "proactive to help them psychologically, and if need be financially".

The Curia would do well to create a Victim Solidarity Fund that could go beyond the strict demands of damages law, both in civil and canon law, he had told The Sunday Times.