News of George Pell’s conviction was a fitting end to a papal summit on child abuse which achieved nothing and began with other cardinals attributing the problem to homosexuals in the priesthood.
The reality is that priests abuse small boys not because they are gay but because they have the opportunity. Most are not even paedophiles, but rather sexually maladjusted, immature and lonely individuals unable to resist the temptation to exploit their power over children who are taught to revere them as the agents of God.
A church that has tolerated the sexual abuse of tens of thousands of children – a crime against humanity in any definition – needs to face unpalatable truths and to make drastic reforms.
Cover-ups are no longer an option. The magnitude of the crimes is well-established and the evidence of how the Vatican and its bishops hushed them up in order to protect the reputation and finances of the Catholic Church is fully proved.
By insisting upon its right to deal with allegations under medieval canon law weighted in favour of the defendant and providing no effective punishment, the church itself became complicit.
It has allowed abusive priests to confess without fear of any report to police; it has encouraged bishops to withhold information from prosecuting authorities; it has refused to allow Vatican envoys (papal nuncios) to co-operate with government inquiries on the excuse that it is a state and hence they have diplomatic immunity.
The necessary reforms must begin with recognition that child sexual abuse is a crime, not just a sin, and must be reported to and dealt with by prosecuting authorities.
Canon law, with its pathetic punishments of prayer and penitence, and its obligations to keep proceedings secret, must have no part in dealing with allegations of sex abuse.
Nor can the veil of confidentiality any longer be allowed to shroud the confessions of paedophiles, let alone the absolution of one priest by another (“Brother, can you spare a crime?”) The confessed abuser must be told to confess to the police or else be handed over to them.
Obviously, there should be zero tolerance for clerics who confess or are convicted. They must be defrocked and certainly not allowed any appeal to the Vatican, which in the past has permitted many to remain in holy orders – the sheep’s clothing in which they have often reoffended.
Even in countries where local bishops have announced that public prosecutors will be told of sex abuse allegations, there is always the qualification “only if the victim consents”.
It is all too easy for young victims and trusting parents to be counselled that their child’s best interests lie in allowing the church to deal with the matter “in its own way” without involving the police. They give in easily to pressure and persuasion that their complaints should be dealt with in secret under canon law.
Abolishing the role of canon law in dealing with sex crimes will take some papal courage, but will be relatively easy, beside the radical changes necessary to stop the abuse from happening in the first place.
The reform most often suggested is to abandon celibacy. This would not be doctrinally difficult – Christ’s disciples appear to have been married and the rule was a dogma introduced in the 11th century and almost abolished by 16th-century reformers.
But marriage does not “cure” paedophilia. Continue reading
- Geoffrey Robertson QC is a former UN Appeal Judge and author of The Case of the Pope (Penguin).
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