Vatican czar Mgr Scicluna gets to grips with Church’s new crisis
The “affable and polite Maltese” has the reputation of scrupulously carrying out the tasks entrusted to him “without deferring to anyone” Italian newspaper Avvenire says, as he prepares to take on the new cases rocking the Vatican
Mgr. Charles J. Scicluna, the promoter of justice of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and presently investigating allegations of sexual abuse by priests, has told Italy’s catholic newspaper l’Avvenire that the Vatican does not force bishops to report accusations of sexual abuse by priests to the police.
Scicluna has the reputation of being “tough” in his role as the Vatican’s investigator in the cases brought against sexually abusive priests and those accused of paedophilia. But the Catholic Church is systematically accused of being accommodating towards “paedophile priests,” the Catholic newspaper Avvenire says in an interview with Scicluna.
He will be grapping directly with the crisis afflicting the Catholic church, after calls for national inquiries to be held in Germany and Ireland to fully disclose the detail and extent of sexual abuse by priests. With hundreds of allegations surfacing in Europe since the start of the year, German chancellor Angela Merkel said the scandal of abuse in churches and schools posed a “major challenge” that could be resolved only through a full and frank inquiry into all cases.
In Ireland, which has already seen far-reaching investigations into the abuse, the most senior Catholic in the country, Cardinal Sean Brady, resisted pressure to resign over his part in helping cover up similar scandals. Brady admitted attending meetings where two 10-year-olds were forced to sign vows of silence over complaints against Father Brendan Smyth, who continued abusing children for a further 18 years.
Reacting to these accusations of cover-ups, Scicluna has told the New York Times that the Vatican must get its act together “and start working for more transparency in investigations and more adequate responses for the problem.”
“It may be that in the past – perhaps also out of a misdirected desire to protect the good name of the institution – some bishops were, in practice, too indulgent towards this sad phenomenon,” Scicluna told l’Avvenire.
“Secrecy during the investigative phase served to protect the good name of all the people involved; first and foremost, the victims themselves, then the accused priests who have the right – as everyone does – to the presumption of innocence until proven guilty. The Church does not like to showcase justice. Norms on sexual abuse have never been understood as a ban on denouncing the crimes to the civil authorities.”
But when priests are accused of sexual abuse crimes, bishops are first obliged to investigate the accusation, and only if the outcome of this initial investigation is consistent, does the case get referred to the Congregation. At no stage does it appear that the police authorities are summoned.
“In some English-speaking countries, but also in France, if bishops become aware of crimes committed by their priests outside the sacramental seal of Confession, they are obliged to report them to the judicial authorities,” Scicluna says. “This is an onerous duty because the bishops are forced to make a gesture comparable to that of a father denouncing his own son. Nonetheless, our guidance in these cases is to respect the law.”
However, in those countries where bishops do not have this legal obligation, Scicluna said bishops are not forced to denounce their own priests.
“We encourage them to contact the victims and invite them to denounce the priests by whom they have been abused. Furthermore, we invite the bishops to give all spiritual – and not only spiritual – assistance to those victims. In a recent case concerning a priest condemned by a civil tribunal in Italy, it was precisely this congregation that suggested to the plaintiffs, who had turned to us for a canonical trial, that they involve the civil authorities in the interests of victims and to avoid other crimes.”
Scicluna defended accusations against pontiff Joseph Ratzinger, soon to visit Malta, and previously the prefect of the Congregation, of covering up the facts in these investigations. “Only in 2001 did the crime of paedophilia become our exclusive remit. From that moment Cardinal Ratzinger displayed great wisdom and firmness in handling those cases, also demonstrating great courage in facing some of the most difficult and thorny cases… to accuse the current Pontiff of a cover-up is, I repeat, false and calumnious.”
In 2003 and 2004, a “great wave of cases flooded over our desks,” Scicluna told Avvenire, many of them from the United States. “Overall in the last nine years we have considered accusations concerning around 3,000 cases of diocesan and religious priests, which refer to crimes committed over the last 50 years…
“We can say that about 60% of the cases chiefly involved sexual attraction towards adolescents of the same sex, another 30% involved heterosexual relations, and the remaining 10% were cases of paedophilia in the true sense of the term; that is, based on sexual attraction towards prepubescent children. The cases of priests accused of paedophilia in the true sense have been about 300 in nine years.”
From these 3,000 cases, some 20% have seen a full trial, penal or administrative, taking place in the diocese of origin under the supervision of the Congregation. In 60% of cases there has been no trial, “above all because of the advanced age of the accused, but administrative and disciplinary provisions have been issued against them, such as the obligation not to celebrate Mass with the faithful, not to hear confession, and to live a retired life of prayer. It must be made absolutely clear that in these cases, some of which are particularly sensational and have caught the attention of the media, no absolution has taken place. It’s true that there has been no formal condemnation, but if a person is obliged to a life of silence and prayer, then there must be a reason.”
In the other 20% of case, half of them – “the particularly serious ones in which the proof is overwhelming” – were met with a decree of dismissal from the Church by the Pope. The other half were priests found in possession of paedophile pornographic material and arrested by the police.
In 2009 the United States “share” dropped to around 25% of the 223 cases reported from all over the world. Over recent years (2007-2009), the annual average of cases reported to the congregation from around the world has been 250.
Scicluna says that in these 20% of cases ended with “the condemnation of the accused”.
“But there have also been cases in which the priest was declared innocent, or where the accusations were not considered to have sufficient proof. In all cases, however, not only is there an examination of the guilt or innocence of the accused priest, but also a discernment as to his fitness for public ministry.”
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