A top Vatican official is blasting bishops for their “deadly culture of silence” in dealing with the church's child sex abuse scandal.
Monsignor Charles Scicluna spoke Wednesday at a closed-door, church sponsored symposium in Vatican City designed to help the church learn from the crisis that has shaken the faith of many followers.
Scicluna told Catholic bishops from more than 100 countries and representatives of more than 30 religious orders that no strategy to prevent child abuse would work “without commitment and accountability.”
“We have the duty to cooperate with civil authorities in a common fight against crime.”
Scicluna is the promoter of justice for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith – essentially the church's top sex crimes prosecutor. He warned bishops they can and should be removed from office if they fail to follow church guidelines on reporting abuse allegations.
“So there is already provision in canon law, it is a crime in canon law to show malicious or fraudulent negligence in the exercise of one's duty.”
Many victims' groups have long been critical of the Catholic Church and its bishops for shielding priests accused of sexually abusing children, often by moving pedophile priests from parish to parish instead of turning them over to civil authorities. Those same groups have also been critical of the symposium, dismissing it as a public relations maneuver.
Marie Collins, The only abuse victim taking part in the symposium, said Wednesday she was pleased by what she had been hearing.
“He was very clear about how bishops should handle abuse cases and about there having to be transparency and there has to be none of this protecting of abusers. And that's music to my ears, to hear that.”
Collins was assaulted by a hospital chaplain in Ireland when she was 13 years old. She says when she told her story to Dublin's then archbishop, he refused to believe her and told her the incident was her fault.
“The bottom line for me is that children have to be protected. We can't do anything about those like myself, who were abused in the past, but by putting in proper protection for the future, we can save children in the future from being abused.”
Pope Benedict has expressed shame and sorrow over abuse allegations that have rocked the church in the past decade. He has called on bishops to come up with common guidelines against pedophiles by May of this year.
Earlier this week, the church said it has received more than 4,000 child sex abuse cases over the past decade.
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SOUNDBITES:
1. (English) Monsignor Charles Scicluna, Promoter of Justice for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (Vatican's sex crimes prosecutor):
“So there is already provision in canon law, it is a crime in canon law to show malicious or fraudulent negligence in the exercise of one's duty.”
2. (English) Monsignor Charles Scicluna, Promoter of Justice for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (Vatican's sex crimes prosecutor):
“We have the duty to cooperate with civil authorities in a common fight against crime. And I was moved to say after hearing the extraordinary and courageous witness of Mary Collins from yesterday, that when I say cooperation I mean full cooperation.”
3. (English) Marie Collins, Clerical abuse survivor:
“The bottom line for me is that children have to be protected. We can't do anything about those like myself, who were abused in the past, but by putting in proper protection for the future, we can save children in the future from being abused. So that's really why I took part.”
4. (English) Marie Collins, Clerical abuse survivor:
“I heard Monsignor Scicluna speak this morning and he was very clear about how bishops should handle abuse cases and about there having to be transparency and there has to be none of this protecting of abusers. And that's music to my ears, to hear that.”
