VATICAN: Zero Tolerance for Paedophile Priests

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Jorge Piña

VATICAN CITY, Apr 25 2002 (IPS) - United States cardinals decided Wednesday in the Vatican to apply a “zero tolerance” policy to eradicate sexual abuse by Roman Catholic clergy, at the first meeting ever called by a pope to tackle the problem of paedophile priests.

Twelve of the 13 cardinals of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the heads of seven of the Church’s ministries, and Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Angelo Sodano met in the papal palaces.

The landmark crisis meeting was called in response to a spate of sex abuse scandals in the United States, in which bishops have been criticised for protecting priests accused of sexually abusing teenagers and, in a small minority of cases, children.

The archbishop of the diocese of Boston, Cardinal Bernard Law, was one of the first bishops accused in the United States of shielding a priest known to have molested minors. After that, around 400 other cases surfaced around the nation, especially in Boston, New York, New Hampshire and Arizona.

In an address Tuesday, Pope John Paul II said paedophilia is a crime against society and an “appalling sin in the eyes of God,” and that “there is no place in the priesthood or religious life for those who would harm the young.”

Zero tolerance towards priests accused of sexually abusing minors will begin to be applied in practice in all U.S. dioceses.

However, a formal decision on the new policy will not be adopted until a general conference of U.S. bishops is held in June in Dallas, Texas, the archbishop of Washington Theodore McCarrick and the president of the U.S. Bishops Conference, Wilton Gregory, told a news briefing Wednesday.

McCarrick said that after everything that has happened, he does not believe it is possible for anyone in the United States to continue to shield priests guilty of sex abuse.

On his part, Gregory stressed that “there is a growing consensus, certainly among the faithful, that it is too great a risk to reassign a priest” suspected of sexually abusing minors. Nevertheless, he clarified that a formal decision would be reached in June.

The meeting proposed a special process for “the dismissal from the clerical state of a priest who has become notorious and is guilty of the serial, predatory, sexual abuse of minors,” the cardinals told the press conference, which was held at 22:00 local time (20:00 GMT), several hours after it was originally scheduled – a delay that fanned rumours of possible discrepancies.

“While recognising that the code of canon law already contains a judicial process for the dismissal of priests guilty of sexually abusing minors, we will also propose a special process for cases which are not notorious but where the diocesan bishop considers the priest a threat for the protection of children and young people,” says the final document.

Another proposal was to approve a set of national standards in sexual abuse cases that would be imposed on every bishop and diocese.

The statement also recommended a papal visit to seminaries “and religious houses of formation, giving special attention to their admission requirements and the need for them to teach Catholic moral doctrine in its integrity.”

In addition, the cardinals suggested “a day of prayer and penance” in reparation for the offences committed and “to implore reconciliation and the renewal of ecclesial life.”

Gregory said the issue of celibacy was discussed, but to strengthen the practice, rather than call it into question. “A link between celibacy and paedophilia cannot be scientifically maintained,” according to the cardinals’ final statement.

With respect to the question of homosexuality in the Catholic Church, the cardinal said that in the seminaries, it is necessary to ensure that the aspiring priests engage in neither homosexual nor heterosexual activity.

The issue of whether or not Cardinal Law will resign, as many have called for, was not discussed, said Gregory, who added that it was an issue to be resolved by Law and the pope.

The problem of paedophile priests is not limited to the United States, and similar scandals have emerged in countries like Germany, Austria, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Ireland, Mexico and even Poland, the pope’s home country.

Many priests and a few bishops have been forced to resign over the scandals, whether because they themselves were implicated in sex abuse, or because they failed to take action to eradicate the practice.

Colombian Cardinal Darío Castrillón Hoyos said in March, when the scandals became full-blown, that priests incapable of remaining celibate and of respecting the laws of human morality were “a tiny minority” in the world.

He cited a study by Professor Philip Jenkins at the University of Pennsylvania according to which just 0.3 percent of the clergy in the United States are paedophiles. The cardinal then asked what the statistics were for other social groups and professions.

Some 64 million people in the United States, nearly 27 percent of the population, define themselves as Catholic, according to Church statistics, making Roman Catholicism the single largest religion. However, the various Protestant denominations account for a combined 59 percent of the population.

The cardinals meeting in the Vatican also sent a letter to U.S. churchgoers asking for forgiveness for the sex scandals involving priests.

In his address on Tuesday, the pope said “neither should we forget the immense spiritual, human and social good that the vast majority of priests and religious in the United States have done and are still doing.

“A great work of art may be blemished, but its beauty remains; and this is a truth which any intellectually honest critic will recognise,” he added.