AP:
The Vatican on Monday responded to allegations it long concealed clerical sex abuse by making it clear for the first time that bishops and clerics worldwide should report such crimes to police if they are required to by law.
Emphasis added. Further comment would be superfluous.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Mark A.R. Kleiman. Mark A.R. Kleiman said: RBC: Quote (mostly) without comment http://bit.ly/9ap8IT [...]
Well, one comment that could be made here is that the sentence isn’t true. The Church has taught that all people have an obligation to obey legitimate political authorities for centuries. Gaudium et Spes, to pick one important Church document, makes this explicit and unambiguous. The fact that various Bishops have failed to act in accordance with this teaching is indeed wrong, but its not for lack of clear teaching.
The phrase “making it clear for the first time” is an editorial comment.
The fact that various bishops failed to act in accordance with this (alleged) teaching and that there were no consequences for them is rather the point. Especially as these failures seem quite common.
Quite common, done in many countries, done over many decades, and with the knowledge of the highest Church authorities. That’s not a failure of teachings, it’s an organization where the teachings for the masses are not considered to apply to the elites (which is not unique to the Church).
Sully seems fixated nowadays on the idea that the Pope has been so tarnished by this scandal that he must resign. I don’t understand why. These problems were rampant long before he came to power, and will clearly remain so long after he has gone. The problem is the Church itself.
To paraphrase Thoreau: The rich man is sold to the institution that makes him rich.
Ratzi, the boy Nazi, got to be the top dog in his organization by preserving its power at every instant.
In Tucson AZ, for example, the local church was being sued by various pederast victims.
What did the Ratzi’s church in Rome do?
Why they hired lawyers who argued that monetary damages should come from the local branch only.
And they won…
Which is all to say: the pope is just another cutthroat, meat-eating, CEO in gold trim.
And Monday’s statement is just more corporate damage control….
Sorry sd, that lesson was for the laity not the Church itself.
Seems to me everyone is missing the point. What about when reporting to the authorities is *not* required by law? Is it then OK to send a child molester back out into the world to do it again, without blowing the whistle?
After the morass of the First Thirty Years’ War (1618-48) and the dubious chains of authority in the Second (1914-45), perhaps there’s a simpler solution.
The Catholic Church gets to make this choice. Once. And never revisit it:
Religion or state.
If it chooses religion, it must relinquish all of its state-like apparatus in return for “freedom of religion,” including such niceties as ambassadorial status, a seat at the UN, treatment of cardinals as the protocol equivalent of princes, etc.
If it chooses state, it must relinquish all pretence that it is a purely moral force and follow all of the rules applicable to states, such as registering its agents with host-nation governments, formal designations for diplomatic immunity, and so on… and, too, it may no longer claim that personal attacks upon government officials in host nations are protected by any “freedom of religion” principles.
It seems to me that this entire argument, and the passage quoted by Professor Kleiman, arises from a centuries-long refusal to make the Catholic Church choose the kind of actor it is going to be.
Mark,
No, in general terms its not OK. But you have to realize that the Catholic Church is a global organization with dioceses in the vast majority of nations. Many of those nations have criminal justice systems that, to say the least, don’t safeguard the due process rights of the accused or provide for punishments for crimes that are proportional by Western standards. There are countries where reporting allegations of sexual abuse to secular authorities could result in lifetime imprisonment, torture or even execution of the accused priest, in many cases without a fair trial.
That’s one reason why Church governance is mostly decentralized. There are legitimate questions of prudential judgment regarding how the Church should interact with secular governments. It has been a core doctrine of Christianity since the time of the Apostle Paul that Christians are to respect secular governments in so far as those governments exercise their authority justly. A law requiring citizens to report sexual abuse is clearly a just and valid law. The state has a legitimate interest in punishing abusers. Thus the Church can clarify, as it did with the most recent document, that where such laws are in place it is a duty of Christians, including Church authorities, to obey them (And I stress the word “clarify” as the recent document did not say anything new, but simply re-stated that Christians are to obey legitimate laws, as they have always been commanded to do.).
But where no such law is in place, then its a legitimate question of whether turning accused abusers in to the police serves the common good. I think we can all agree that in the U.S. in 2010, it does. But in China? The Sudan? I’m not so sure. I don’t want to get into a point-by-point defence of Pope John Paul II, who in my opinion handled many aspects of the issue very badly. But he spent most of his career as a priest and bishop in cold war era Poland, where the communist government routinely fabricated charges of sexual abuse against Catholic priests who were suspected of having political views opposed to the state. One can imagine that 20 or 30 years of seeing these scenarios play out might make a man skeptical of these allegations.
Now, have local Church policies been as clear and aggressive on this issue as they should be? No. Canada’s bishops’ conference adopting mandated reporting rules in the 1980s, and the USCCB did here in 2002. And the Vatican has been pressuring the bishops’ conferences in many countries to adopt policies like those put in place in the U.S. in 2002 for the past few years. More should have been done sooner, and more should be done now in those countries that enjoy fair judicial systems but where local Church rules do not require reporting of abuse. But if the Vatican issued a directive that every allegation of abuse be forwarded to the police in every country around the world then the result would be the wrongful punishment of many innocent priests. The Church simply doesn’t have the luxury of pretending that every government it deals with respects due process.
So, “explicit & unambiguous” notwithstanding, we’re back to privilegium fori. To leave anything up to the forgiving “prudential judgment” of this collection of mutts, without highly constraining guidelines, is an open invitation to continue the bacchanalia. If lifetime imprisonment’s a deal-breaker, what else? Do you, as it seems, imply that until Kennedy v. Louisiana (2008), there were states in the US where the bishops shouldn’t report child rape? Are there still? For that matter, what other crimes shouldn’t priests be reported for?
God save the Church from its defenders.
When the Iran-contra scandal broke, Mark Russell joked that after years of President Reagan claiming to be in charge when his critics accused him of being out of touch, Reagan’s critics suddenly accused him of being in charge and Reagan defended himself by saying he was out of touch.
These apologia for Church policy remind me of that joke. One of the distinguishing features of John Paul II’s term as Pope was centralization, as the Vatican reined in priests and institutions that the Pope considered doctrincally suspect. But now that diocese after diocese has been found complicit in… shall we say… morally dicey behavior, and it becomes clear that the Vatican knew about much of this activity and took no disciplinary action, we hear about how “Church governance is mostly decentralized”.
Yeah, Mark, that’s pretty crazy all by itself. The same thought occurred to me when I heard the statement on the news yesterday. “Whaaa? They haven’t previously considered themselves subject to the law?” … and … “This is considered a big new development?” Sheesh.
” … if they are required to by law.”
What do you you expect from an organization that prides itself on being the guardian of morals? That they have some themselves?.
Seconding Seth here. sd: “That’s one reason why Church governance is mostly decentralized.” Church governance was only decentralized when, where and as the Vatican wished it to; anybody who stepped out of doctrinal line was slapped down hard. Harder and faster than they seem to think possible for other, um, ‘less sensitive’ behaviors.
sd: “Mark,
No, in general terms its not OK. But you have to realize that the Catholic Church is a global organization with dioceses in the vast majority of nations. Many of those nations have criminal justice systems that, to say the least, don’t safeguard the due process rights of the accused or provide for punishments for crimes that are proportional by Western standards. There are countries where reporting allegations of sexual abuse to secular authorities could result in lifetime imprisonment, torture or even execution of the accused priest, in many cases without a fair trial.”
That’s true. On the other hand, many countries have far, far better systems of criminal justice, especially for people who have the backing of powerful, respected institutions.
But the Church followed the same policies.
It ain’t the local legal systems, sd.