Bishop Accountability

The Record
June 11, 2015

http://www.northjersey.com/opinion/opinion-editorials/bishop-accountability-1.1353911

Pope Francis

POPE FRANCIS took another important step toward making the Catholic Church fully accountable for its role in allowing priests to sexually abuse children for decades. The pontiff approved a plan to create a Vatican tribunal that would hold bishops accountable for how they dealt with sexual abuse cases in their respective dioceses.

The priest sexual abuse scandals that have rocked the foundation of the church revealed an institution more obsessed with self-preservation than with child protection. U.S. bishops, for example, have endorsed their own national charter that created a protocol for responding to sexual abuse allegations, but bishops are held accountable by the Vatican, not by other bishops. While it is unclear how much teeth this tribunal will have, it is a very promising development.

But it does not take the place of civil law enforcement's ability to fully investigate any allegations of sexual abuse by priests. For the church to fully address this widespread problem it has to ensure that every bishop, every pastor, every priest knows that his first priority is to protect children from predators. Police must be contacted immediately, and dioceses must fully cooperate with them.

Last week, prosecutors filed criminal charges against the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis for its mishandling of alleged cases of sexual abuse of minors by a priest. The charges are misdemeanors and the maximum fines are small, but this was still a big deal. Holding an archdiocese criminally responsible for letting a predator priest have contact with children is another step in ending this sad chapter in the church's history.

For too long, bishops have feared neither the arm of the law nor the wrath of the Vatican. The law's reach may not go far enough to truly impair the career of a bishop. Although Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston was ousted because of the clergy sex scandal in his archdiocese, even he landed softly in a cushy post in Rome. It was just another example of the Vatican taking care of its own.

Pope Francis appears to be turning the great ship slowly. How he deals with cardinals like Law, or archbishops like Newark's John Myers, remains to be seen. Myers failed to properly supervise Michael Fugee, then a Catholic priest, who attended several youth retreats in violation of an agreement intended to spare him from prosecution that he and a Myers representative had signed with prosecutors.

Critics of the church's handling of past sexual abuse cases condemn not just the priests who committed grievous acts, but the bishops who protected them. Both need to be held accountable — by the judicial system and by the Vatican.