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Pope
Finally Proclaims Child Abuse A Crime, Not Just A Sin
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Pope
John Paul II decried sexual abuse both as a sin and a crime in
his address in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, April 24. |
ROME, April 24 (News Agencies) - One of the American cardinals discussing
the pedophile priests scandal at crisis talks in
Rome
says the meeting is close to consensus on a "zero tolerance"
policy, as Pope John Paul II declared that child-molesting was a
crime, not just a sin.
Asked
if the church leaders were likely to adopt the so-called "one
strike and you're out" policy for priests found to be abusing
children, Washington archbishop Cardinal Theodore McCarrick told
BBC’s online news service, "Oh yes, I think so".
He
said the cardinals, who are expected to issue a statement at the close
of their two-day meeting on Wednesday, April 24, had to work from the
Pope's strongest statement on abuse so far issued the previous day.
"People
need to know that there is no place in the priesthood and religious
life for those who would harm the young," the pontiff said on
Tuesday, April 23.
Cardinal
McCarrick said the Pope had re-affirmed his statement during a private
lunch with the
U.S.
delegation on Wednesday.
The
issue hinges on whether pedophile priests should be allowed to
continue working after repentance and therapy, or whether they should
be removed from the priesthood.
Cardinal
McCarrick said opinion was divided among the cardinals over whether
the policy should also be applied to priests known to have molested
children in the past.
The
Roman Catholic Church in the
U.S.
has been criticized for transferring priests known to have molested
children instead of suspending them and telling the police.
However,
the future of the archbishop of
Boston
- who is at the center of many of the scandals - is unlikely to be
decided at the talks.
There
have been growing calls for the resignation of Cardinal Bernard Law,
who is accused of letting sexual abuse by priests in the city go
unchecked.
However,
Cardinal McCarrick said he was unaware of a "cabal" to get
rid of Cardinal Law.
"He
made it very clear that [the scandal] happened on his watch and he
said, 'I can fix it', so give him a chance," the British daily
newspaper, The
Independent,
quoted him as saying.
The
Pope summoned the cardinals for two days of closed-door talks after it
became clear that the Church was being damaged by the scandals.
The
proposals agreed at the meeting are expected to go forward to a
meeting of all American bishops in June.
More
than 400 complaints have been lodged against priests in the
Boston
diocese alone.
One
unnamed
U.S.
cardinal told the Los Angeles
Times that he and other prelates planned to urge the
Vatican
to ask Cardinal Law to resign.
But
Cardinal Law has shown no signs of standing down and Russell Shaw, a
former press secretary to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said
he suspected there would be no pressure from the Pope.
The
Pope referred to child-molesting as a crime in itself, according to The
Independent. The distinction between sin, for which one can
be forgiven, and crime, which requires punishment, is at the center of
the moral maze. The confessional vs
the courts.
The
U.S.
cardinals are generally in favor of a "zero-tolerance"
approach that would mean expelling molesting priests and handing them
over to the police.
However,
leading figures in the
Vatican
itself are not so convinced, The
Independent reported. There is an immense cultural gulf
between the Roma curia, who have lived the pedophile psychodrama with
irritation from the safety of their
Vatican
offices, and the cardinals, bishops and ordinary priests of the
American church, who have been frontline targets of distraught victims
and the aggressive American media.
At
the Pope's side in the summit was the conservative Cardinal Angelo
Sodano, the Secretary of State, and one of the most powerful figures
in the twilight of this papacy, and seven other senior
Vatican
officials. Some of them are inherently reluctant to surrender their
"spiritual" power to the civil authorities, believing it
will undermine their autonomy and authority.
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Cardinal
Bernard Law, archbishop of
Boston
, is accused of letting sexual abuse by priests in the city go
unchecked |
The
same reluctance applies to defrocking, something that the Catholic
church, one of the least democratic institutions on earth, could
easily impose on any cleric suspected of committing or covering up for
pedophilia. Yet, that touches a deep belief that a priest is ordained
for life and that redemption is always possible.
However,
as the Catholic church in the
U.S.
faces the biggest crisis in its history, there is a public relations
component to the
Vatican
summit. For the American prelates, their credibility in shreds, facing
a crisis of faith and finances, it was an opportunity to show
themselves being summoned by the Pope and publicly flagellated. They
had, in fact, been pleading for a summit, which one Italian paper
dubbed "the dirty linen summit".
For
the
Vatican
, the
Rome
summit is a chance to show the outside world that there is a coherent
line. It has been accused by the Americans and Catholics around the
world of reacting with fatal slowness to the revelations, preferring
to see it as an American problem, the byproduct of a permissive
society – even as disturbing cases emerged in Ireland, Nigeria and
the Pope's homeland, Poland.
The
American situation is particularly problematic because of the
litigious nature of society and the vast sums of church money being
paid out in compensation. The New
York Times estimated
that the financial exposure of dioceses could go up to more than a
billion dollars. The worst affected diocese,
Boston
, has so far paid out more than $30m-$40m and it is thought total
liability may exceed $100m. And hardly a day goes by without another
victim coming forward.
Accusations
of child molestation have been made in at least 16 other
U.S.
dioceses other than
Boston
, including
Chicago
,
New York
,
Philadelphia
and
San Francisco
.
The
scandals are a huge financial burden for the Church and there is talk
that some archdioceses will be bankrupted as a result.
Although
the U.S. Church is the hardest hit by sex abuse allegations, similar
scandals have hit clergy in different countries in recent years,
including
Austria
,
Ireland
,
Poland
,
France
and
Mexico
.
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