From the editor’s desk

Abuse and the Holy See

The Irish Government’s official report into the handling of child-abuse cases in the Archdiocese of Dublin has shone a shaft of light into some very dark corners. It is to the credit of the current archbishop, Diarmuid Martin, that it was only able to do so because he adopted a policy of total cooperation and transparency, searingly painful though the results have been. It is clear from the report that what motivated the actions of senior clergy over decades was the desire to protect the Church’s good name at all costs. This was a grievous and shameful miscalculation – it often left abusers free to abuse again, it put hundreds of children in harm’s way. Many of them, now adults, are psychologically scarred for life.

There is one element in the equation, however, that was beyond the report’s terms of reference, although it is alluded to. The Holy See also played a significant role, which in some ways may have compounded the problem. Were the various institutions of the Vatican inept in their handling of allegations of child abuse by clergy, not just from Ireland but elsewhere? At one point, for example, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith had such a backlog of cases that it decided to leave individual dioceses to deal with them. If it thought that meant disciplinary proceedings would be brought under canon law before diocesan tribunals, however, it was mistaken. The tribunals were not equipped to deal with them and were preoccupied with marriage annulment cases; the culture of the Church at that time favoured “pastoral solutions” to allegations of clergy misconduct rather than legal proceedings; and in a few cases where proceedings did take place, the disturbing discovery was made that paedophilia, as a mental disorder, actually constituted a defence in canon law because a paedophile’s actions could be deemed involuntary. In any event, canon law seems to have been in a state of uncertainty and confusion. One key document, Crimen Sollicitationis, issued in 1962 and covering serious canonical crimes including child abuse, was virtually unknown to archbishops and canon lawyers.

None of this inspires confidence. Having devolved its responsibility to local jurisdictions, what further steps did the Vatican then take to make sure cases were being properly dealt with? Was the anomaly pointed out to it that under canon law, the more victims a priest had, the more likely he was to be acquitted? And did it, for instance, tell bishops that the Church’s overriding responsibility must be for the welfare of victims? Judging by the Irish report, the answer appears to be negative. It is clear that under the Church’s hierarchical structure, bishops regarded themselves as accountable not downwards to their priests and people, but upwards to the Pope and the Vatican. If that supervision was deficient, some of the responsibility for what went wrong may lie in that direction.

These are issues to be investigated rather than prejudged. The Holy See ought to consider making a measured response to the Irish report. Better still, it could commission its own inquiry, perhaps by a panel of Catholic jurists of international standing, as to what lessons needed to be learned from this and other similar cases. Trust has been damaged. It needs restoring, for the good of the Church – and not least, out of respect for the victims.