Bishops' prosecutions may point to new phase in church's sex abuse crisis
ROME
National Catholic Reporter
June 6, 2018
By Joshua J. McElwee
Pope Francis has been dealing over recent months with what has seemed like an unending saga of the Catholic clergy sexual abuse crisis in Chile.
After being criticized for saying abuse victims had committed "calumny" during his January visit to the country, the pope has since admitted making "serious mistakes," met with Chilean victims in Rome, and received offers of resignation from most of the country's bishops after a three-day group encounter at the Vatican.
But if Francis' response to clergy abuse in Chile has appeared unending, recent developments across the world indicate that an examination into how the global Catholic Church has handled — or, mishandled — sexual abuse is just beginning to ramp up.
These developments include: Two church officials being prosecuted in Australia, a local cardinal and the Vatican's doctrinal chief being ordered to stand trial in French court, a police raid on a Michigan diocese's chancery, a grand jury report on six dioceses in Pennsylvania, and nationwide inquiries in Australia, Scotland and England.
The litany of events has led some who have closely followed the church's response to abuse to speculate that we may be entering a new phase in the decadeslong crisis — one where local and national authorities in countries the world over are showing less hesitancy in holding church leaders to account.
"The prosecutions of members of the hierarchy that would not have happened even a decade ago indicate that we are in a new era," said Marci Hamilton, a noted lawyer and children's rights advocate.
"Before the scandal became public, prosecutors often assumed that it would not be in their interests or anybody else's interests to prosecute even priests or hierarchy," said Hamilton, CEO of the think tank CHILD USA. "But the more facts that have come out ... prosecutors are changing their calculus."
Marie Collins, an Irish abuse survivor who resigned from Francis's papal abuse commission in 2017 over frustration with Vatican officials, said simply: "We are at a new point."
"The more it is seen that the church is refusing to hold accountable its bishops, the more secular powers will move in and see it is done," she said.
National Catholic Reporter
June 6, 2018
By Joshua J. McElwee
Pope Francis has been dealing over recent months with what has seemed like an unending saga of the Catholic clergy sexual abuse crisis in Chile.
After being criticized for saying abuse victims had committed "calumny" during his January visit to the country, the pope has since admitted making "serious mistakes," met with Chilean victims in Rome, and received offers of resignation from most of the country's bishops after a three-day group encounter at the Vatican.
But if Francis' response to clergy abuse in Chile has appeared unending, recent developments across the world indicate that an examination into how the global Catholic Church has handled — or, mishandled — sexual abuse is just beginning to ramp up.
These developments include: Two church officials being prosecuted in Australia, a local cardinal and the Vatican's doctrinal chief being ordered to stand trial in French court, a police raid on a Michigan diocese's chancery, a grand jury report on six dioceses in Pennsylvania, and nationwide inquiries in Australia, Scotland and England.
The litany of events has led some who have closely followed the church's response to abuse to speculate that we may be entering a new phase in the decadeslong crisis — one where local and national authorities in countries the world over are showing less hesitancy in holding church leaders to account.
"The prosecutions of members of the hierarchy that would not have happened even a decade ago indicate that we are in a new era," said Marci Hamilton, a noted lawyer and children's rights advocate.
"Before the scandal became public, prosecutors often assumed that it would not be in their interests or anybody else's interests to prosecute even priests or hierarchy," said Hamilton, CEO of the think tank CHILD USA. "But the more facts that have come out ... prosecutors are changing their calculus."
Marie Collins, an Irish abuse survivor who resigned from Francis's papal abuse commission in 2017 over frustration with Vatican officials, said simply: "We are at a new point."
"The more it is seen that the church is refusing to hold accountable its bishops, the more secular powers will move in and see it is done," she said.
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