The Synod and safeguarding – a flawed reform?
The synodal process holds the promise of reform and renewal of the Church’s mission. But many victims and survivors are concerned that it may not root out the culture that led to clerical sex abuse.
No global institution has lost trust and credibility with such spectacular speed and efficiency as the Roman Catholic Church. It has achieved this over three decades by simultaneously preaching a message of special care for the poor, the marginalised, the excluded, the weak and the most vulnerable while at the same time mercilessly covering up crimes of abuse committed by priests against children: precisely those most weak and vulnerable.
While abusive priests were left in office with all their privileges intact, lay Catholics living in relationships deemed to be “irregular” suffered severe sanctions. The consequences of these failures of leadership from the popes down have often been lifelong and devastating for the victims and survivors of abuse. The consequences for the Church itself may be irrecoverable. In many countries, disillusioned and angry people are leaving the Church in droves. They want nothing more to do with it. Politicians are questioning existing relationships between Church and state. Law enforcement agencies are watching it closely. Privileges are slipping away, and power and moral authority have been extinguished. Bishops and other church leaders outdo each other in expressions of shame and regret for the way the Church ignored or silenced the voices of victims and survivors and attempted to deny and then obscure the crimes of abusive priests. They commission investigations into what happened, which invariably reveal shocking statistics and go on to identify the same causes. Jobs are created for specialists to develop and implement preventative measures. Dioceses and religious orders are obliged to draw up safeguarding protocols, and employees and volunteers are schooled in the principles and practices of safeguarding.
But what is the point of all this if bishops and other church representatives do not draw any tangible personal consequences from their failures? What good does all this serve if the systemic causes of abuse are not really addressed? What good is it if the prevention of abuse is professionalised, but a culture of safeguarding does not become embedded in the day-to-day life of the Church? What good is it if training courses are attended but personal attitudes and approaches to the needs of safeguarding remain superficial? Ultimately, nothing. Safeguarding procedures simply become an annoying extra task to be added to the so-called “normal” work in parishes, educational and care facilities, hospitals, and so forth.
What tends to prevail is the hope that the situation will calm down again after the abuse scandal and that “normal” life will return, the sooner the better. But if safeguarding is regarded as merely an episode in crisis management to be wheeled out after a public relations disaster, the catastrophic loss of trust in the Church that is crippling its mission will be accelerated and reinforced. “Fake safeguarding” will be exposed as the continuation of a duplicity where the Church is trying to “look good” without having made the fundamental changes essential if the Church is to be made safe for children.
During the Synod of Bishops in Rome in October, safeguarding and related concerns were raised several times, as they have been at parish, diocese, national and international level in every continent throughout the synodal process. The issue is explicitly addressed in the Instrumentum Laboris that guided the work of the Synod and in the synthesis report released on the final day. But how can we be sure that this is not more window dressing? After all, in safeguarding, transparency is of paramount importance. How can an assembly ensure transparency if it acts itself in a non-transparent manner? That was the impression given by the media blackout called for by the Pope at the beginning of the Synod. Another reservation about the Synod is that it was repeatedly emphasised how important it was to listen and to hear the voices of all the baptised. Why did this not apply to those affected by abuse? No formal representatives of survivors’ or victims’ groups were invited to the gathering in Rome. And when several groups arrived in Rome to publicly air their concerns, no one considered it worth sending an official representative of the Synod to speak to them or to acknowledge their protest.
Against this backdrop, what is the commitment to “listen” worth? We often heard from the Synod that in order for the “conversations in the Spirit” to flow freely there could be no lobbying by special interest groups. What effect might such declarations have had on those who have so often run into dead ends when they have struggled for their rights? It was easy for those sitting around the tables in the Synod hall to rejoice in their beautiful togetherness, while others – who had already been hurt by the Church and had then been left outside the room – continued to suffer from their wounds. There is still no clear understanding of what “synodality” actually means. In the Church in Germany, for example, most people understand it to mean not only that “everyone has a say” but that “everyone chooses” and “everyone decides”. In Rome (and not only there), synodality means “all have their say” (the so-called “People of God”), “some choose” (the bishops) and “one decides” (the Pope). This means the Synod might come up with all sorts of good ideas and proposals, but ultimately these could be overruled by the Pope, or simply ignored.
Safeguarding may have been talked up because of the abuse issue, but that’s no guarantee that anything will change. These well-grounded doubts do not necessarily mean that things will turn out as many survivors’ groups and others fear. An optimist could look more closely at the Synod and conclude that what it is saying about safeguarding is not window dressing, and that behind the words lie solid foundations on which a transformation of the Church’s attitude and approach to abuse could be built. It is significant that Pope Francis sat as a participant at one of the round tables in the Synod. He is aware of all the points brought up and he has endorsed the final document. And he seems to have already adopted some of what was said at the assembly, as his address to safeguarding teams from Italian dioceses on 18 November shows.
The intertwining of “all”, “some” and the “one” that is emerging in the synodal process suggests that the substance of the final synthesis will steer the Church’s policies into the future. The parts of the synthesis report on transparency and accountability, as well as the demands it contains for new canonical regulations regarding the position and exercise of authority by bishops, take up the demands of the 2019 Child Protection Summit in Rome. The continuation of the official actions of the Roman Curia and the Holy See that can be seen here gives hope that the path taken will be pursued in the future. The synodal assembly was only the first part of a larger whole. In October next year, what was started this year – by then further developed, consolidated and clarified – will be brought to a conclusion. The Synod established clear priorities. It recognised that the road to justice and reconciliation is a long one and that safeguarding requires not only personal conversion, but also structural changes.
The synthesis report names different forms of abuse – not only sexual but physical, psychological and spiritual – and breaks a taboo by recognising that “cases of abuse of various kinds against consecrated persons and members of lay associations, particularly women, signal a problem in the exercise of authority and require decisive and appropriate actions”. In the synthesis report, safeguarding is discussed in the context of the future self- understanding of the Church. Tackling abuse isn’t an optional extra. It is no longer just a task for the “morally depraved” and “decadent” West. It is now recognised as an essential, distinguishing feature of the universal Church. The positive signals sent out by the Synod are important, above all, for those who are in danger of being abused. They will also strengthen those who are committed to safeguarding despite resistance in some parts of the Church. The Synod’s synthesis report puts forward three areas that need to be studied and developed further by those active in safeguarding. First, the Synod repeatedly emphasised the richness and diversity of the Church. The universal Church must celebrate the reality of the multitude of cultures in which it proclaims the Word of God, serves those in need, and lives and prays in community. There cannot be a “one-size-fits-all” concept of safeguarding to be imposed on every local church.
This leads to further questions such as: what are generally binding standards in the creation of safeguarding concepts and how do these standards relate to the plurality of safeguarding? How can this plurality be defined in concrete terms? What suggestions can church safeguarding take from the academic field of intercultural communication? Second, the term “digital” appears again and again in the synthesis report, and in different contexts. The Synod recognised that the Church’s safeguarding work must address the serious threats to child safety in the digital sphere. And, third, the Synod participants found the “conversations in the Spirit” used in the round table meetings a valuable tool for authentic listening and recognising what the Holy Spirit was saying to them. It went beyond mere dialogue, harmoniously interweaving thinking and feeling, creating a shared environment. Could “conversations in the spirit” play a role in the relationship between those affected by abuse and church representatives? Might they enable those affected by abuse to feel more than before that they are understood, perceived and accepted? There is much to consider and clarify, and time is running out fast.
The Synod seems to have grasped that the success of the Church’s mission is linked to it becoming trusted as a safe place for children and vulnerable adults. It has a lot of work to do – but it does at least seem to have drawn up the questions it has to answer if it is to restore its credibility.
Hans Zollner SJ is founder and director of the Institute of Anthropology Interdisciplinary Studies on Human Dignity and Care (IADC) at the Pontifical Gregorian University. He is a psychologist and licensed psychotherapist. Mgr Peter Beer, who served from 2010 to 2020 as vicar general of the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising, is the head of research and development at IADC.
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