Vatican and pedophilia: always together

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

The Roman Catholic Church is once again at the center of a child molestation scandal. This time, mass cases of pedophilia were revealed with the participation of bishops and other clergy in the American state. Pennsylvania … Many such "misconduct" at the same time covered by the church itself, but now she cannot ignore the problem - on the eve of the pontiff met in Ireland with victims of sexual violence. About the stories of victims of rapists in cassocks and the response of Pope Francis - in the material of the portal iz.ru.

Back blow

The Roman Catholic Church was shaken by a new scandal on a topic widely discussed in recent decades - child molestation by clerics. In mid-August, a grand jury presented a large-scale report, in which they talked about the lecherous actions at least 300 ministers of the church in six dioceses in Pennsylvania - Allentown, Erie, Greensburg, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh and Scranton. Over the course of 70 years, at least a thousand minors have become victims of lustful holy fathers, according to investigators.

As the authors of the report point out, “the actual number of children lost or scared to report (of harassment) is measured in thousands . “The priests raped little boys and girls, and the people of God who were responsible for them not only did nothing, but also hid it all,” the document says. “Over the decades, monsigners, vicars, bishops, archbishops and cardinals have been protected for the most part, with many, including those mentioned in this report, pushing for promotions.”

According to the jury, reports of child molestation by ministers of the Catholic Church appeared before, "But not of this magnitude." Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro called the document "the largest and most comprehensive report on child sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church ever produced in the United States," according to CNN.

By the statute of limitations

The authors acknowledge that the overwhelming majority of cases of violence against young believers can no longer be criminalized, since the statute of limitations in these cases has long expired. Nevertheless, against two priests - in Erie and Greensburg - criminal charges were brought. “We learned about these molesters directly from their parishes and we hope that this is a sign that the church is finally changing its approach,” the jury said. "Additional charges may be filed in the future as the investigation continues."

Among the cases listed in the report, CNN singles out the most shocking. So, in the diocese Greensburg got pregnant from the priest 17 year old young woman. He forged the pastor's signature on the marriage certificate, and a few months later filed for a divorce. He was allowed to continue his ministry, even when it was all revealed.… In the diocese Harrisburg the priest committed violent acts against five sisters, and in Pittsburgh The church stated that the 15-year-old teenager himself molested and “practically seduced” the priest, who later confessed to having contacts with several boys with BDSM elements.

Global trend

The current scandal is just one of a series of similar revelations, based on which it can be concluded that the problem of pedophile priests is relevant for the dioceses of the Roman Catholic Church on all continents … So, in 2009, information appeared about the concealment of cases of pedophilia in the diocese of the Archbishop Dublin, where child molestation was suspected of about fifty ministers of the church (of these, only a dozen were convicted). V The Netherlands in 2011, it became known that thousands of children have been victims of violence by priests in the Dutch Roman Catholic Church over a 60-year period.

One of the largest scandals broke out in 2002 in the United States: it turned out that from 1962 to 1995 the Boston priest John Geigan committed violence against at least 130 children, mostly schoolchildren. The leadership of the diocese, having learned about Geigen's actions, only sent him for treatment, but did not disgrace himand the cardinal Bernard Lowe, who received in 1984 a letter about the "exploits" of his subordinate, simply transferred him to another parish. This story was promoted by the Boston Globe, and in 2002 Lowe left the post of Archbishop of Boston, and Geigan was then found guilty of sexually abusing a boy and sentenced to 10 years in prison … In prison, however, he did not stay long - after a year and a half in prison in Massachusetts, he was strangled by another prisoner Joseph Drews … The latter was serving a life sentence for the murder of a man who, according to Drews, molested him. For the murder of a defrocked priest, Drews received a second life sentence.

Dad can

Despite the global nature of the problem, the holy throne I tried not to notice more often such inconvenient tendencies among the clergy, calling such situations "sins" and "misdeeds" of individual clergy. The Pennsylvania attorney general sent a letter to Pope Francis on July 25 urging him to instruct church leaders to stop "attempts to silence" the victims of pedophile priests. “A detailed investigation by the General Prosecutor’s Office, highlighted the widespread practice of sexual abuse of children and the system of covering up these facts by the leaders of the Catholic Church", - wrote Shapiro.

The Vatican reacted quite powerfully to the report on Pennsylvania - at least in words. Pope Francis issued a statement on August 20, in which he commented atypically harshly on the new revelations. “With shame and grief, we admit that we failed to be where we should have been, did not take timely action and did not recognize the scale and seriousness of the damage inflicted on many human lives,” said the pontiff, quoted by Vatican news, the official news agency portal of the Holy See. "We neglected the children and left them behind."

Pope Francis also found it insufficient to simply "ask for forgiveness and try to make amends": an adequate response to abuse would be "a radical cultural transformation in which the safety of children is a top priority." In response to a message from the Primate of the Church, the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors thanked the pontiff for "strong words that acknowledge the pain and suffering of people subjected to sexual harassment, abuse of power and conscience by some members of the church." Zero tolerance for such cases must be accompanied by improvements in "the means to hold accountable those who commit or cover up these crimes."

In turn, a member of the commission, specialist in canon law Miriam Waylens noted that “protecting the reputation of the church first and foremost requires the safety of children.” “The clergy can never bring about such a radical change alone,” therefore, as Pope Francis admits, one must “humbly ask and accept the help of the entire community,” emphasizes Wilens.

Only words are not enough

The pontiff met with victims of sexual violence by clerics during a visit to Ireland on August 25-26. These conversations took place behind closed doors, and the participants have not yet decided to talk about their content or not.

On the one hand, such contacts are clearly intended to emphasize the indifference of the primate of the Roman Catholic Church to the problem of sexual harassment. Nevertheless, in the associations of people affected by the actions of pedophile priests, it is believed that such events should be of a public nature. “It is necessary that the church spoke the truth and was responsible , - noted Colin O'Gorman, who headed the public association of victims of priests - child molesters in Ireland. “Such meetings look more like PR-actions and do not help much,” he said.

The Pope will meet with the victims, and "if it helps them, then this is an important reason to do so," said Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of the American organization BishopAccountability.org. “However, it would be more constructive if he met with those groups of victims of violence in Ireland who know the history of these abuses,” says Doyle, whose opinion is quoted by Reuters.

I'm not sure that after the pope's conversion, the situation will change radically, and Margaret McGuckin, spokesperson for the Survivors & Victims of Institutional Abuse, a community of victims of church violence in Northern Ireland. The pontiff's answer “came too late and it’s not enough,” BBC News quoted her as saying.

Another victim of violence, Irish Mary Collins believes that "It's time for the Vatican and the Pope to stop telling us how monstrous these atrocities are and how to bring everyone to justice." “You'd better tell us what you're doing to bring them to justice, that's what we want to hear,” she wrote on Twitter. "Working on it" - such an explanation cannot be acceptable after ten years of delays."

Collins withdrew from the Pontifical Commission on the Protection of Minors last March, pointing out that senior clergy continued to prioritize "other issues" as more important than the safety of both children and adults affected by molesters in cassocks, The Guardian wrote. Collins also noted that despite the consent of Pope Francis, in the Vatican, a special body was never created - a tribunal, which would consider reports of obscene behavior of pastors.