EDITORIAL
Vatican response to norms raises more questions
Skepticism from victims and lay
activist groups about the Vatican response to the Dallas norms on sexual abuse
is both predictable and understandable. Rome has stepped in repeatedly over the
years where it would have done better to leave well enough alone, so one can
sympathize with the hostility to Vatican intervention that has circulated in
some quarters.
In this case, however, a degree of cautious optimism may be in
order.
First, a clarification. The Oct. 14 letter from Cardinal Giovanni
Battista Re, prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, to Wilton Gregory,
president of the U.S. bishops’ conference, does not immediately amount to
a rejection of zero tolerance for priests who do sexual violence to children.
Instead, it raised some sensible zero-tolerance related issues, including
for what offense and imposed by what process.
As NCR has noted in previous editorials, the Dallas norms
were flawed in certain important respects. These include the definition of the
offense of sexual abuse, so broadly construed that, conceivably, even off-color
jokes could be swept under its standard, and the lack of due process for the
accused.
It should be noted, however, that these flaws were the inevitable
results of the stunning failures of the overwhelming majority of U.S. bishops
who for years disregarded the serious complaints of abused victims. Only, in
the face an outraged laity, did they feel compelled to act emphatically and
without exception.
Still, the clear and outrageous injustices of sexual abuse should
not be remedied with further injustices. Railroading accused priests -- either
by compromising their right to defense, or by imposing draconian penalties that
bear no rational relationship to their crime -- is simply the wrong way to
go.
It cannot be repeated enough that the bishops in Dallas dealt with
only part of the sexual abuse issue, and in the eyes of many, the lesser part:
the offending priests. The issue they never raised, and the issue that has
always been the most painful part of this endless nightmare to victims, their
families and the wider church, has been the bishops’ own culpability. With
the U.S. bishops now in a tug of war with the Vatican and their own priests,
the pressing issue of episcopal cover-up and betrayal is getting buried deeper
and deeper with each passing day.
The Vatican has announced the formation of a mixed episcopal
commission to work out differences between the U.S. bishops’ Dallas sex
abuse norms and the Vatican’s wishes on the subject. The commission is to
be composed of four Vatican representatives and four U.S. bishops. Dare one
ask: Where is the laity? Once again, it appears lay voices, which surfaced
briefly in Dallas, have been silenced. Granted that resolving the problems with
the norms requires certain canonical expertise, so, too, does it require the
expertise of mothers and fathers and victims. The symbolism of eight men in
Roman collars closing a door and making a deal does little to persuade
Catholics that a corner has been turned. Does Rome, as they say, simply not
“get it”?
As we look down the road, we get the sinking feeling that our
church has made little if any progress since last April when the U.S. cardinals
were called to Rome to meet with Vatican officials.
The Vatican has also raised the issue of the role and power of lay
review boards. These diocesan boards and their national lay board overseer were
formed to assure the laity that their bishops were taking the Dallas charter
seriously, and implementing it. Independent outsiders were to assure that this
happened. It’s simply the way responsible institutions operate. The truth
is that the bishops need the laity to restore their credibility. Sinking in the
quicksand of lost trust, they cannot pull themselves out without the help of
outsiders. Like it or not, they need outside help. They need the laity. The
wiser bishops understand this and have not chased out newly formed lay
organizations, such as Voice of the Faithful. The foolish bishops have viewed
caring and involved laity as a threat.
A wide swath of the ecclesial spectrum of U.S. Catholics has seen
the formation of diocesan lay boards as an important step forward. These
oversight boards are needed and they need to be more than symbolic concessions
to a distraught laity. The laity, after all, are the church. We might all
recall, there was a time in church history when the laity elected their bishops
and priests! Nothing in church dogma says it must be governed as an absolute
monarchy. Indeed, there are compelling reasons, including a recently educated
laity and the taking hold of democratic ideals throughout much of the world,
for the bishops to accommodate to the modern world and find ways to bring the
laity into church decision-making. By contrast, it is precisely the notion that
bishops can be viewed as accountable to the lay boards that frightens Vatican
hardliners.
Cardinal Francis George of Chicago had it just right during the
summit between the American cardinals and the Vatican last April when he said,
“Part of the problem is that we bishops have made too many of these
decisions by ourselves.”
Finally, on April 30, 2001, the Vatican issued Sacramentorum
Sanctitatis Tutela, “Defense of the Most Holy Sacraments.” It
stipulated that sex abuse cases must be reported to the Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith, which can decide to take the case or remand it to the
local level. The Vatican has refused to publish the Sacramentorum norms,
and hence we have no idea how they may affect the work of the mixed commission.
It is high time the Holy See released these secret norms.
It does not appear the now two-decade-long sex abuse crisis will
disappear any time soon. In the short term, we can hope that reason prevails
and that gospel values carry the day. Meanwhile, the sex abuse issues
increasingly draw attention to large structural challenges that face the
church, if it is to be a credible witness to the faith. We can also hope that
these challenges will not be ignored for another 20 years.
National Catholic Reporter, November 01,
2002
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