Church Reputation May Take Priority Over ‘Survivor Support’

VATICAN CITY (VATICAN CITY)
Newser [Chicago, Il]

October 30, 2024

By Arden Dier

1st report from Vatican commission on clerical sexual abuse criticized for lack of data

A decade after it formed, a Vatican commission on clerical sexual abuse issued its first of what is to become an annual report on Tuesday and met immediate criticism, the New York Times reports. “I understand that it won’t satisfy everybody and it won’t satisfy survivors,” said Juan Carlos Cruz, a member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors and also an abuse survivor. “It’s a start.” Commission members have described a troubling lack of data in many countries. More:

• The commission: Created in 2014, its purpose is to advise the papacy on how to protect the vulnerable from clerical sexual abuse. Last year, Pope Francis also charged the commission with ensuring countries follow a new church law about reporting and combating the problem.

• What the report says: It is “not intended as an audit of the incidence of abuse” in the church due to “time and capacity constraints” and “a lack of reliable data in some countries.” It instead focuses on safeguarding practices in 17 countries, per the Guardian. The Times calls it “a limited step in self-accounting by some bishops.”
• Challenges: Some countries demonstrate a “lack of cultural sensitization to the phenomenon of abuse,” or a “prioritization” of the church’s “reputation over survivor support,” per the report. It notes there are “cultural norms of silence, secrecy and denial” in much of Africa, while in Mexico, only 20 of 98 local churches responded to a questionnaire.
• ‘Practically no data’: The commission president, Cardinal Sean O’Malley, said the report focused on “under-resourced churches” in the global south, “where there is practically no data at all.” Commission member Maud de Boer-Buquicchio said the group will need to “significantly improve” its “data verification through cross-references with external sources,” per the Times.
• Critic: “All they’re doing is collecting information from highly prejudiced sources,” Anne Barrett Doyle, who tracks clergy abuse as co-director of BishopAccountability.org, tells the Times. Meanwhile, they’re ignoring that children continue to be abused by clergy and “that universal church law still allows these priests to be reinstated if certain conditions are met,” she tells the Guardian.

• Recommendations: The report calls for better discipline of clerics who were found guilty of abuse or a coverup, but not removed. It describes “the need for a disciplinary or administrative proceeding that provides an efficient path for resignation or removal from office,” per the Times.
• More recommendations: It also calls for better safeguarding training for those who work in seminaries and a psychological assessment for would-be priests. It also impels the Vatican office in charge of dealing with abuse to be less secretive, to work more efficiently with local authorities, and to speed up canonical trials, which “can be a source of re-traumatization” of victims, per CNN.
• Compensation: The report only vaguely refers to the “importance of compensation” for abuse survivors, referring to financial compensation but also “public apologies.” Next year’s report will “delve more deeply into the whole issue of reparation,” de Boer-Buquicchio tells the Times.

(More Vatican stories.)