From the editor’s desk

Abuse questions remain for CDF

Qui custodiet ipsos custodes? Pope Benedict went further than expected in the way he dealt with the issue of sexual abuse of minors by Catholic priests in America, and earned much praise for it. Not only did he condemn it in the strongest terms several times, but he met victims of the abuse in person, an occasion of high emotion which appeared to have been cathartic. And when Cardinal Francis George of Chicago admitted that the issue had "sometimes been very badly handled" by the bishops, the Pope repeated those words, although he went on to applaud the work that they were now doing to heal the wounds.

But this does not mean that the sky is now entirely cloudless. Questions remain, some of which touch on the Pope's own role in the Church's response to the scandal, not only in the United States but elsewhere. Whatever happened, it happened on his watch when he was head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF). Was it "sometimes very badly handled" by the CDF too? Unfortunately the real issue has been obscured by some tendentious claims relating to two obscure Vatican documents. They were said to show that Pope Benedict had authorised an official cover-up, first by not withdrawing the document "Crimen Sollicitationis" which had been in force since 1962, and then by issuing "De Delictis Gravioribus" in 2001, which updated it. Both dealt with the procedures to be followed in the case of a priest using the confessional to solicit sexual favours, and imposed confidentiality on the parties.

This was said - by, among others, a notorious BBC Panorama television programme in 2006 - to mean that bishops dealing with complaints against priests were obliged to cover them up and not report them to the police. But that is not how the documents were interpreted in practice, and there is no evidence that any bishop used these documents as an excuse for not doing what he ought to have done. In any event, if these documents said what the BBC said they said, the Nolan guidelines on child protection in the Catholic Church in England and Wales would have been impossible. The explanation for the veil of secrecy that surrounded cases of sexual abuse lies  in a culture that gave greater weight to the prevention of scandal than to the protection of vulnerable minors.

The real outstanding questions are about policies and procedures inside the Vatican. Like many local hierarchies, CDF officials may not at first have fully grasped the nature of paedophilia as an inclination. Local churches have woken up, and adjusted their response accordingly. Has the CDF done likewise? And why did it not give a clear lead? It could have held consultations, issued guidance as to best practice, offered training, even sponsored research. Instead, it is alleged that complaints were sometimes not even acknowledged. There are grounds for thinking that Pope John Paul II may have discouraged the CDF from being more active. Under him, the Vatican liked to give the impression that the Church was the target of malicious sensationalism. What the Church needs is an assurance that the CDF knows what went wrong in its own area of responsibility, and has put matters right.