[Grem] Ezernél több gyereket molesztáltak pennsylvaniai papok az elmúlt 70 évben

[Emoke Greschik]

 <http://catholicherald.co.uk/section/commentandblogs/>
Upholding mercy without justice paved the way for the abuse crisis
by *Ed Condon <http://catholicherald.co.uk/author/edward-condon/>*
posted Thursday, 28 Jan 2016
http://catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2016/01/28/
upholding-mercy-without-justice-paved-the-way-for-the-abuse-crisis/
The cast of Spotlight, which has received rave reviews

*In the post-Vatican II Church notions of crime and justice had no place
and abusers were labelled as victims*

The film Spotlight, which opens in the UK this week, tells the story of the
Boston Globe’s work in uncovering the child sex abuse scandal in that city.
It has received, both here and in the United States, rave reviews and will,
rightly, bring with it a revisiting of the terrible crimes which were
committed, and covered up, in Boston, but also in many other dioceses.

For Catholics, this can be an occasion for mixed emotions: on the one hand,
everyone shares the rage and revulsion which is the only possible response
to the horrific pattern of abuse and denial which played out in so many
places. On the other, there is a certain tribal resistance which many of us
feel at the wider media broad-brush painting of the Church we love, and of
which we have a totally different experience, as a monolithic embodiment of
hypocrisy and evil. Neither feeling is unreasonable, nor are they mutually
contradictory.

My own attempts to reconcile the two, in part, steered me towards *my study
of canon law, and penal law in particular.* What I expected to learn was
that canon law was part of the problem, that it was the mechanism which
allowed for the crimes of child abusers to be ignored, excused, and covered
up.* It was a great relief discovering that *the opposite was true;* the
pattern of abuse and cover up, so especially seen in Boston and Los
Angeles,* *was not **a product of **canon law*, nor even its abuse, but of
its flagrant violation. Changes and updates were needed, but, broadly
speaking, *the law itself was sound and, had it been followed*, *we would
not have seen the pattern of tragedy which we did in many places.** But
when a law can be ignored with impunity,* however internally sound it may
be, it cries out for reform.

*Pope Benedict XVI made a number of canonical reforms in the light of **
the child sex abuse scandals*, and these were badly needed. In addition to
updating the Church’s criminal code to account for modern realities, like
internet pornography, *the general thrust of the Benedictine reforms was to
further centralise the mechanism by which the Church dealt with* * the most
serious crimes, including sexual abuse*. Cases which might have previously
been for the local diocese to initially investigate were now to be
transmitted to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith immediately,
and they would determine what kind of process would be initiated, and who
would carry it out. This was a necessary and direct response to the simple
failure of some dioceses to act when allegations were made.

In the United States, the Dallas Charter was adopted by the bishops, as
well as a set of complementary canonical norms, which, along with other
provisions, established diocesan review boards to provide a measure of
oversight and independence in the process. More recently, *the Pontifical
Commission for the Protection of Minors was founded to continue the process
of reform and self-examination at the universal level.* Yet, for all the
real efforts to learn and reform and prevent any chance of a recurrence, it
is clear that *the work is far from over. *

In a recent interview, Marie Collins, a member of the Pontifical Commission
for the Protection of Minors, and herself a past victim, called the ongoing
efforts to put in place better safeguards and procedures across the Church
“frustratingly slow”, and conceded that achieving measurable progress
through Vatican bureaucracy was a difficult business. This is easy to
believe, but the barriers to progress are likely to be more cultural and
personal than they are to be structural. I remember attending a canonical
conference in 2014; at one point during proceedings I heard a curial
cardinal refer to the issue of clerical sex abuse as “an Anglo-Saxon
obsession”, and I expect this cultural deafness, if not outright hostility,
to the abiding urgency and seriousness of the subject is of the same sort
that Cardinal Pell is encountering in other areas of curial reform.

Meanwhile, at the local level, the diocesan review boards, which were
intended to ensure that bishops dealt with cases according to the law,
have, in some places (regrettably but perhaps predictably in those dioceses
worst affected by abuse scandals), morphed into ecclesiastical
star-chambers where innocent priests are summarily removed from ministry,
and their names publicly ruined, at even the slightest allegation of
wrong-doing, however fanciful or malicious.

The bitter irony is that at both the universal and local level, *there
remains a common failure **to understand the need for justice,* or
appreciate the risks of removing it as a guiding principle in the life of
the Church.

*Justice in an important part of Catholic theology and ecclesiology. It* *is
often, wrongly, defined in the popular consciousness as the opposite of
mercy. *In fact,* in the mind of the Church they are inseparable; Thomas
Aquinas defined the relationship by saying that justice without mercy is
cruelty, but mercy without justice is the mother of dissolution. *

*The clerical sex abuse scandal was made possible because of a prevailing
mentality, especially in the 1970s and 80s, that notions of crime and
justice had no place in the post-Vatican II Church. **The crimes of
clerical abuse were labelled as “struggles with chastity” and “mental
issues” and there was an entire cottage industry of therapy centres and
clinics which would helpfully label the abusers as victims of their own
traumas,** often blaming it on the wicked institution of clerical
celibacy,* *and
then “rehabilitate” abusive priests and send them back, certified as ready
for ministry.* This approach, which was consciously identified as a
“merciful” way of handling matters, caused a chilling illustration o*f what
a mockery of itself mercy can become when it is uncoupled from justice.*

We are unlikely to see Pope Francis ever proclaim a Year of Justice, but,
as we consider the Year of Mercy, we should do so mindful of the reverse of
the coin. The film Spotlight is a powerful reminder to us that when justice
is removed from the mind of the Church, what remains is abuse: of the weak,
of the faith, and of mercy.
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