(begin) Five years ago this month Pope Francis convened the Meeting on the Protection of Minors in the Church at the Vatican. The first-of-its-kind meeting—announced in September 2018—was an acknowledgment of the global dimension of the clerical abuse crisis, which after a year of revelations and reports was becoming a dire threat to Francis’s pontificate. There had come Australia’s Royal Commission report in December 2017, the revelation of abuses in Chile (and the resignation of one-third of that country’s bishops) in January 2018, the McCarrick scandal that summer, the Pennsylvania Grand Jury report in August 2018, and the attempt to personally connect Francis to the various scandals—and perhaps force his resignation—by former papal nuncio to the United States, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò. Clearly, something new had to be tried.
Those invited to the summit included the presidents of national bishops’ conferences, the leaders of Eastern Catholic Churches, superiors of men and women religious, and members of the Roman Curia. Most of the participants were male clergy, but there were also ten women religious, and three who would address the meeting. Moderated by former papal spokesperson Federico Lombardi, SJ, the meeting was meant to establish a common framework among Church leaders regarding responsibility, accountability, and transparency. It was also about listening to victims, some of whom came to Rome and applied pressure via public protests outside the meeting, and about reminding Church leaders of the power of the press—representatives of whom had also been invited to attend and to address the participants as part of the program.
Five years on from February 2019, where do things stand? That the website built for the meeting and to host the materials and documents produced is no longer online isn’t a good sign. But there are many other developments to consider as well…
…And yet: there remains the persistent reluctance or inability of many bishops and other Church leaders to handle contact with victims, abusers, clerics, and the media. Also unaddressed are the impacts of the crisis on the transmission of faith, the spiritual lives of Catholics, and the credibility of the Church—not just among its members, but among the non-Catholic general public and state authorities. In all of the discourse on Church reform in the preparation, celebration, and synthesis report of the Synod on Synodality, the abuse crisis plays only a marginal role (my emphasis).
This extends somewhat to academia as well. As Zollner wrote in the latest issue of the journal Concilium: “[E]ven in the academic world there is still little real sign of an awareness of or readiness for a long-term commitment. There can be no other explanation for the fact that not even in theology faculties around the world has an engagement with the specific theological questions raised by the abuse crisis led to a long-term interest that goes beyond individual initiatives.”
And even with all the new research and writing noted above, comprehensive research on abuse is complicated by ideological polarization in the United States and elsewhere, as well as by rifts within the global Church (between the West and Africa, for example, or between Western and Eastern Europe). Social-science approaches (anthropology, ethnography, cultural and gender studies) and the canonical disciplines of theology (Scripture, patristics, liturgy, sacraments, ecclesiology, systematics) have yet to find a constructive mutual engagement. There is also a tension between much-needed scholarship and much-needed activism on this issue. In this sense, the research on the abuse crisis in the Church is exemplary of the crossroads at which Catholic scholarship finds itself.
But there is something else to consider: the public-relations factor. Researching abuse requires confronting the facts of it directly, especially the toll on the victims, which doesn’t align neatly with the aims of big-donor alumni and other financial patrons whose instinct is to celebrate and protect the reputation of the Church and the orders that sponsor Catholic higher education. In a competitive educational market, and when the model of Catholic higher education, if not the idea of the university itself, is in question, it’s not good for “the brand.” Very few established Catholic theologians, and even fewer administrators of Catholic colleges, have made research on the abuse crisis an institutional and scholarly priority. Researching abuse requires looking at academic theology as an ecclesial mission, which not only challenges the way academia functions today, but would also require a conversion on the part of how Church leaders view theology’s importance in addressing the abuse crisis. (end)
I continue to suspect that the critical clerical abuse crisis has not abated. Faggioli’s coverage in Commonweal Magazine appears to make this point. Time does not and cannot heal clerical abuse damage to the Church or its victims. As noted in the article: “Researching abuse requires confronting the facts of it directly, especially the toll on the victims, which doesn’t align neatly with the aims of big-donor alumni and other financial patrons whose instinct is to celebrate and protect the reputation of the Church and the orders that sponsor Catholic higher education.” There is the shame.
Bishop Robert Barron stated in his 2019 book Letter to a Suffering Church: A Bishop Speaks on the Sexual Abuse Crisis: “It has corroded Catholic credibility so completely that the Church’s work in evangelization, catechesis, preaching, outreach to the poor, recruitment of vocations, an education has been crippled.” His conclusion cannot be overstated!
However, I disagree with his conclusion that the sexual abuse crisis is the "Devil’s Masterpiece." Barron said, “If the Church had a personal enemy – and indeed the devil is known as the enemy of the human race – it is hard to imagine that he could have come up with another plan.” A suitable defense is not the “Flip Wilson Defense” – the Devil made me do it.
Barron continued, “I am by no means implying that human beings bear no responsibility; just the contrary. The devil works typically through suggestion, insinuation, temptation, and seduction. He is essentially powerless until he finds men and woman who will cooperate with him.” Okay, but Barron still blames the devil first and labels abuse as the devil’s masterpiece.
“What evil lurks in the heats of men?” the Shadow knows. And so do we. [Note: One of the most popular radio shows in history, The Shadow went on the air in August of 1930 and ran until 1954. "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!" The opening lines of the "Detective Story" program captivated listeners and are instantly recognizable even today.]
We are not willing cooperators to do the Devil's work. We are responsible for our own evil. Evil is our work, not the devil's - a mythical character we humans and religious have concocted to find a fall guy for our own evil behavior. Satan is our ultimate scapegoat, in my opinion.
Deacon David Pierce
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