Pope Feels `shame" of Scandals; Vatican Grilled on Abuse

By Albert Otti And Alvise Armellini
Kansas City Star
January 16, 2014

http://www.kansascity.com/2014/01/16/4756710/pope-feels-shame-of-scandals-vatican.html

Pope Francis on Thursday railed against the scandals that have plagued the Catholic Church in recent years, while United Nations experts grilled Vatican envoys about child sexual abuse by clergy.

"There are many scandals that I do not want to mention individually, but we all know about them," Francis said while celebrating morning mass in the Santa Marta chapel, according to a transcript supplied by Vatican Radio.

Along with the revelations about pedophile priests, the Catholic Church has been rocked in recent years by allegations of infighting, mismanagement, graft and money laundering.

"The church's shame! But did we feel shame for those scandals, for those setbacks of priests, bishops, lay people?" asked the pontiff.

In Geneva, a Vatican delegation appeared before the Committee on the Rights of the Child, to face the most intense public questioning to date about the sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests and alleged coverups.

"The best interests of the child have been sacrificed, and precedence has been given to the interests of the members of the clergy," said Committee Vice Chairperson Sara De Jesus Oviedo Fierro.

In response, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi said the church had developed new policies and Catholic non-governmental groups had set up educational programs against sexual abuse.

"The results of combined efforts taken by local churches and by the Holy See presents a framework that when properly applied will help eliminate the occurrence of child sexual abuse by clergy and other church personnel," the Vatican's Geneva envoy said.

The Vatican was being questioned on account of being a signatory to U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child. It insisted that it could only apply it on Vatican soil, and crimes committed by Catholics around the globe had to be pursued by local authorities.

"The Holy See does not accede to or ratify human rights treaties on behalf of every Catholic in the world; every person must comply with the laws of the State in which they live," it said in a written submission to the panel.

"We're very saddened that such a huge and powerful church bureaucracy continues to pretend it's powerless over its own officials," Mary Caplan, a member of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, said in a statement.

Last year, 612 new sex abuse cases were brought to the attention of the Vatican, of which 418 were cases with underage victims, Tomasi said, citing previously published statistics.

More than 4,000 cases of sexual abuse of children had been reported to the Vatican in the past decade, U.S. Cardinal William Levada said in early 2012.

The U.N. committee had demanded that the Vatican provide details of all cases so far in advance of the hearing, but the information was not provided.

"Why not make an effort to be more transparent?" Oviedo asked. "The punishments that have been handed down never seem to reflect the magnitude or scope of offences," she added.

Oviedo and the 17 other members of the panel were due to publish their recommendations to the Vatican on Feb. 5.

A major scandal about pedophile priests emerged in the United States in the early 2000s, but widescale abuse also has been reported in Mexico, Canada, Australia, Ireland, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Spain and elsewhere.

Popes John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis have all condemned such acts, but critics say they have not done enough to punish those responsible.

Weeks after his election in March, Francis said the church would "act decisively" against sexual abuse. In July, he tightened penalties for such crimes while last month he announced the establishment of a panel of experts to advise him on the issue.

However, SNAP and other critics point out that the Vatican is still ducking calls to make it mandatory for bishops to report all allegations of sex abuse to the police.

"Before the cameras, the church hierarchy often denounces predators and thanks victims. But behind closed doors, the church hierarchy often protects predators and rebuffs victims (despite repeated pledges of reform)," SNAP's Caplan charged.

Maltese Bishop Charles Scicluna, formerly the Vatican's prosecutor against sex crimes, told the U.N. panel that the church was changing.

He cited guidelines issued to bishops in 2011 by the Vatican's disciplinary watchdog, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which stressed the importance of cooperating with police, but stopped short of making it a requirement in all cases.

Scicluna acknowledged that it would be better for victims and congregations if the Holy See started to publish not only the annual number of sex abuse cases, but also their outcomes.

"The Holy See gets it - let's not say too late or not - that there are certain things that need to be done differently," he said.