UNITED STATES/LATIN AMERICA
GlobalPost
Will Carless on Sep 24, 2015
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil — Earlier this year, federal prosecutors in Manhattan made history by arresting officials at the Federation Internationale de Football Association, or FIFA, on charges of racketeering and money laundering.
The case, a groundbreaking example of US authorities policing far beyond America’s borders, raised an interesting question: If prosecutors could target FIFA — an organization headquartered outside the US — could they also take aim at the leaders of another sprawling international enterprise, say, the Roman Catholic Church?
The sex crimes that Catholic priests have committed across the globe are arguably far more harmful than anything FIFA executives are accused of. Thousands of priests been accused of destroying the innocence of society’s most vulnerable individuals: children. And in many cases, the church hierarchy has looked the other way, or worse. Yet throughout decades of abuse, the Holy See — the church’s central government, housed at the Vatican — has evaded legal consequences.
Objectively, the sex abuse crisis has been destructive for the church. Billions of dollars have been paid out to survivors of sexual abuse by clergy, leading some of the largest Catholic dioceses in the United States to declare bankruptcy. Dozens of priests have been criminally convicted and thrown in prison. But all of this has played out at the local level.
Despite aggressive efforts to put the pope and his senior leadership on trial for concealing priests’ sex crimes, to date not one Vatican official has been successfully sued or jailed, and the Vatican’s coffers have remained untouched — largely thanks to esoteric legal arguments and diplomatic immunity.
The Vatican remains a legal fortress for anyone suspected of aiding predator priests. In some cases, survivor advocates say the Rome-based enclave of Vatican City has even served as a literal sanctuary for prelates: Archbishop Josef Weselowski, for instance, was whisked off to the Vatican following allegations that he abused young boys. The move sheltered him from prosecution in the Dominican Republic.
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