The Catholic Church & child sex abuse

“From today, the church’s aim will thus be to hear, watch over, protect and care for abused, exploited and forgotten children, wherever they are.”

As church leaders, Francis said, “we need to recognise with humility and courage that we stand face to face with the mystery of evil, which strikes most violently against the most vulnerable, for they are an image of Jesus.”

For this reason, he said, “the church has become increasingly aware of the need not only to curb the gravest cases of abuse by disciplinary measures and civil and canonical processes but also to decisively confront the phenomenon both inside and outside the church.”

Francis said the church “feels called to combat this evil that strikes at the very heart of her mission, which is to preach the Gospel to the little ones and to protect them from ravenous wolves.”

He made unequivocally clear, however, that “if in the church there should emerge even a single case of abuse—which already in itself represents an atrocity—that case will be faced with the utmost seriousness.” He did not use the expression “zero tolerance” as he has done before and as victims had hoped he would, but he left no doubt that decisive action would be taken on every case of abuse.

Francis urged all Catholics to help the church be liberated “from the plague of clericalism, which is the fertile ground for all these disgraces.”

Francis said that “in people’s justified anger, the church sees the reflection of the wrath of God, betrayed and insulted by these deceitful consecrated persons.” Moreover, he said, “the silent cry of the little ones who, instead of finding in them fathers and spiritual guides encountered tormentors, will shake hearts dulled by hypocrisy and by power.”

Summing up the summit’s discussion, Pope Francis said that “from today, the church’s aim will thus be to hear, watch over, protect and care for abused, exploited and forgotten children, wherever they are.” But “to achieve that goal, the church must rise above the ideological disputes and journalistic practices that often exploit, for various interests, the very tragedy experienced by the little ones.”

Francis said that “the time has come to work together to eradicate this evil from the body of our humanity by adopting every necessary measure already in force on the international level and ecclesial levels.”

In this context, he said, it is necessary “to find a correct equilibrium of all values in play” and “to provide uniform directives for the church, avoiding the two extremes of a ‘justicialism’ provoked by guilt for past errors and media pressure”—perhaps referring to a kind of lynch-mob reaction—“and a defensiveness that fails to confront the causes and effects of these grave crimes,” referring to those who have not yet grasped the gravity of the situation.

The pope sought to locate the abuse of minors by clergy in the wider reality by showing that the sexual abuse of minors is widespread in the world. “It is difficult to grasp the phenomenon of the sexual abuse of minors without considering power,” he said, “since it is always the result of an abuse of power, an exploitation of the inferiority and vulnerability of the abused, which makes possible the manipulation of their conscience and of their psychological and physical weakness.”

He urged all Catholics to help the church be liberated “from the plague of clericalism, which is the fertile ground for all these disgraces.”

“I make a heartfelt appeal for an all-out battle against the abuse of minors both sexually and in other areas, on the part of all authorities and individuals, for we are dealing with abominable crimes that must be erased from the face of the earth,” the pope said.

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Gerard O’Connell is America’s Vatican correspondent.

Source: America Magazine