Nicholas Cafardi has reviewed in Commonweal the muddled history of the canonical handling of abuse cases. He answers a few questions, but he says many more can be answered only by the Vatican, which has not learned to be transparent:
What we do know is that eventually a few curial officials came to understand the insufficiency of official responses to the scandal—and many more couldn’t or wouldn’t grasp its magnitude. Some bishops and their canonical advisers were flummoxed by the new Code; others looked the other way. The Ratzinger who in 1988 sought a speedier canonical process for handling abusive priests delayed decisions to remove them later. The same man who as a cardinal refused financial gifts from the Legion of Christ as pope allowed the order’s abusive founder Fr. Marcial Maciel to fade into a life of prayer and penance. By all accounts, Ratzinger’s awareness of the sexual-abuse crisis evolved over time, not always in a straight line, and often in conflict with other curial officials. Evidently Cardinal Angelo Sodano, John Paul’s powerful secretary of state, worked hard to frustrate investigations into the sexual abuse perpetrated by Maciel. We may never know whether or how Ratzinger fought to break Sodano’s blockade. Likewise, it seems improbable that we will ever know the full story of Ratzinger’s role in the reassignment of an abusive priest during his tenure as archbishop of Munich. The various currents of power in Rome can be overwhelming—even for a pope.
So we have to continue to try to connect the dots. The resulting picture may in fact be less flattering to the Church (e.g., malice and corruption) than the reality (e.g., dilatoriness and incompetence) – but no one knows, and no one may ever know.
Children are being abused. Parishes are being ruined. People are scandalized and losing their faith. And the Vatican is concerned about “canon law.”
Pop quiz — Can you name the group of people in the New Testament that behave this way?
“Why do your disciples eat with unwashed hands?” | Don't Convert
[…] Leon Podles links to an article about Canon Law and Sexual Abuse. […]
Pharisee’s, those who foist burden’s on others that they refuse to accept themselves?
The day we don’t pay attention to law is the day civility is lost. Everyone has rights to fairness. The focus on the Vatican is really not helpful. The farther away from the event, the less responsible the people really are. We can all throw stones at hierarchy but we are the ones “on the ground” where it happens. But we love to blame others and say that the “system” is guilty. No system is perfect and no person is perfect. The day we say laws and rights don’t matter is the day hell wins. Is that really what we want. People aren’t losing their faith over the abuse scandal. They are losing their trust in other people. Is their faith really based on faith in others? Or is it rooted in Jesus?
As a social worker of 25 years, more children are being abused in your neighborhood by your neighbors than by priests – what will you do about that? And – who is to blame for that?
That’s an odd definition of a Pharisee. Perhaps you’re thinking of Mt. 23:4, but it really doesn’t say that.
The Pharisees were very concerned about trivial aspects of the law and missed the big picture.
I haven’t read Cafardi’s article but why he thinks this is a modern problems is beyond me. All anybody has to do is Google “St. Peter Damian” and “The Book Of Gomorrah.” Neither times nor evil people change very much.
Mary, the problem is not that the Vatican cares about canon law over people. It’s that the Vatican uses canon law only when it is convenient to them, and not when it applies to the rights of the laity or wants to protect clerics. See the previous post of Podles’ blog on the victims of Maciel and the letter (in Spanish) from their canon lawyer trying to get the rightful processes going.
Mary, I also think the problem is that Church leaders who claim to possess the “fullness of the Gospel” and direct succession from the apostles act diametrically opposed to those claims, let alone to basic human morality. At some point, Catholics have to hold their leaders accountable to their own standards. But you’re right in this respect: Focusing excessively on the Church’s problems in this area deflects attention away from, say, secular school districts with this problem. In Los Angeles Unified, one principal raped two female students; he was transferred and did the same thing at his new school before being relieved.
Joseph and Mary, IMO the focus on Church crimes, both sexual and financial, has prompted everyone who will give the subject a fair amount of study the ability to see that such crimes take place in homes and other types of schools. Now people are more likely to recognize such problems wherever they occur.
Talk about the miraculous. Abused RC children grow up thinking they are the only ones abused. When they grow up, they manage to find other people who were also abused. They organize, get lawyers and become SNAP. They are unpopular, spat upon, so to speak, by the people who do not want to face reality. ( I know several devout Catholics who hold the children responsible for what happened to them! Along with the children they hold the parents responsible and say that the victims and lawyers are only interested in the money they can get from the Church.)
We now know how dangerous boarding schools can be! Read about the Canadian schools for natives, three quarters of which were run by RC religious orders.
It is also right that we hold churches to a higher standard of morality than the general public. After all, churches are the institutions that preach morality. Laws only tell us what is legal, and what is legal may not be what is moral.
We owe a great debt of gratitude to SNAP for educating us about this problem.
Perhaps someone in the Vatican can provide Wikileaks documents, letters, correspondene, etc. that will aid in connecting the dots.
What we need is a “SNAP” inside the Church, recognized and approved by Church law.
I know several devout Catholics who hold the children responsible for what happened to them! Along with the children they hold the parents responsible and say that the victims and lawyers are only interested in the money they can get from the Church.
Janice, you’re essentially describing the mentality of cult followers. That’s not to say that Catholicism *is* a cult. It is to say, however, that *any* institution — religious or secular — that demands such blind obsequiousness is dangerous.
Hans Christian Anderson put it delicately (and well) in his fable, “The Emperor’s New Clothes.”
The scandal has not caused my faith in God or the creed to change. It is not lost. It remains unchanged. But my faith in the church has changed. It is all but lost.
I met a guy who had been away from the Church for a long time, and finally came back. He still thinks the Church is way out of touch on a lot of things…but ironically he said he came back BECAUSE “the Church is so boring and ancient” – if it weren’t from God, it would have disintegrated long ago!
An iteresting take!
~Bob