ZAGREB (CROATIA)
Nacional News [Zagreb, Croatia]
August 12, 2024
By Orhidea Gaura Hodak and Berislav Jelinić
The Archbishop of Zagreb violated the provisions of the Pope’s document “Vos estis lux mundi” and the HBK guidelines “for handling cases of pedophilia by clerics”
Instead of suspending them, the Archbishop of Zagreb, Msgr. Dražen Kutleša transferred the priests accused of pedophilia and enabled them to continue to perform their duties and to be in contact with the faithful and ministers. Therefore, it can be argued that Kutleša, then still the archbishop of Split, failed to act in accordance with the document “Vos estis lux mundi” in January 2023 , which was issued by Pope Francis in 2019 in order to establish a system for reporting abuse and dealing with such cases within of the Catholic Church, and he did not follow all the “Guidelines for handling cases of sexual abuse of minors by clerics” of the Croatian Bishops’ Conference, adopted in 2006 and updated on several occasions, which emphasize the need for immediate action in the event of a report of abuse.
This was revealed to Nacional by a church source who is intimately familiar with the cases that came to the center of attention during the past week after the Split DORH filed an indictment against the now 72-year-old priest due to well-founded suspicion that he raped a child in the period from 2002 to 2007. and a disabled person . The same source revealed to Nacional the identities of two more of the four priests who he claims were reported to the police last year for pedophile crimes.
This source states that Kutleš, at the very least, betrayed the trust of the victims of systemic sexual abuse who, with faith in him and his integrity, in January 2023 reported four priests in the area of the Split-Makar Archdiocese for pedophilia, rape and other types of violence. It was in January 2023, at the time when Kutleša held the office of Archbishop of Split-Makar, right before he was promoted to Archbishop of Zagreb in mid-February of the same year .
The document “Vos estis lux mundi” mandates specific procedures that must be followed by bishops and senior religious leaders in case of reports of sexual abuse . Canon law of the Church in such cases foresees the possibility of preventive suspension as a measure of protection. According to these guidelines, the bishop should conduct a preliminary investigation as soon as he learns about the accusation, and based on the results of that investigation, he can take measures that include the preventive suspension of the cleric . Kutleša failed to preemptively suspend the mentioned priests. Moreover, it can be argued that he did what he could to make the most of the presumption of innocence in order to protect them….