There have been fewer children abused by clergy in recent decades because of changes the Church has made in how to deal with the problem, Pope Francis told reporters on Tuesday during an in-flight press conference.
After discussing his visit to the Baltics (which was the press conference’s primary purpose), Francis turned to questions about abuse.
Citing the Pennsylvania grand jury report released in August, and other similar studies, he said it is clear that the majority of cases occurred decades ago “because the church realised that it had to battle it in a different way.”
“In olden times these things were covered up — but they were covered up also in families, when an uncle abused his niece, or a father raped his child; it was covered up because it was a very great shame,” Pope Francis said. “That was how people thought in the last century.”
While he wasn’t excusing the church’s cover-up, which he said was evidence of scandalous corruption, he also pointed out the unfairness of judging the cover-up with today’s standards.
In the same way, it’s unfair to judge the forced conversion of indigenous peoples during the colonial era or even the past use of the death penalty. He said sex abuse was also covered up at home and elsewhere in society.
Once the church recognised and came to understand the “monstrous” problem, it has “spared no effort” to protect children, he said.
To understand what happened in the past, he added, one must remember how abuse was handled then.
This means it’s important to evaluate history using a hermeneutic, or way of interpretation, that accounts for how people considered issues at the time they occurred.
“An historic fact is interpreted with the hermeneutic of the time in which it took place, not by the hermeneutic of today.”
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