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Pope Creates Tribunal for Bishop Negligence in Child Sexual Abuse Cases Pope Creates Tribunal for Bishop Negligence in Child Sexual Abuse Cases
(about 4 hours later)
ROME — Roman Catholic bishops accused of covering up or failing to prevent the sexual abuse of children by priests will now be subject to judgment and discipline by a new Vatican tribunal, according to a plan approved on Wednesday by Pope Francis. ROME — Responding to years of complaints from victims of clergy sexual abuse, the Vatican announced on Wednesday that Pope Francis had approved a plan to subject Roman Catholic bishops to judgment and discipline by a new tribunal if they are accused of covering up or failing to prevent misconduct.
The decision is a measure that abuse victims have urged for years. The church has judicial procedures for judging priests accused of abuse, but until now bishops accused of negligence or cover-ups were almost never held accountable by the church itself. The tribunal is intended to address what victims’ advocacy groups say has been, at best, decades of mishandling of sexual abuse cases involving minors by clergy, and at worst, the covering up of abuses by priests. Bishops aware of complaints of misconduct frequently shifted priests from one parish to another, where patterns of sexual abuse continued.
The tribunal will also deal with the backlog of cases involving sexual abuse, “which are still very numerous,” a Vatican official said on Wednesday. Among their complaints, advocacy groups say the Vatican has refused to systematically discipline clerics who covered up pedophilia crimes. Over the years, the church has adopted a series of measures to address the abuse of children by priests, but critics say that the Vatican has persistently put its reputation over the interests of the victims by refusing to sanction church officials who did not sufficiently protect minors.
The issue of accountability has been under discussion for some time, said the Vatican’s chief spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi. “As you see, it didn’t remain on paper,” he said. Victims advocates have been pressing for years for the Vatican to hold negligent bishops accountable, but neither Pope John Paul II nor Pope Benedict moved toward instituting mechanisms to do so. Until now, bishops could only be called to account by the pope himself, and that rarely happened in any public way.
The Vatican announced on Wednesday that the pope had approved a series of proposals advanced by the committee that advises him on sexual abuse. The creation of the tribunal now marks a significant step in holding bishops accountable for the abuses of priests under their charge. Francis’s predecessor, Benedict, reorganized and streamlined the Vatican’s procedures for dealing with priests accused of abuse, but action was slow to come. The move by Francis becomes part of what has been a far more frontal, public and assertive stance in addressing an unseemly legacy for the church.
The proposals set out the procedures for examining complaints of abuse of office by bishops. The complaints will be first investigated by the congregations that the bishops belong to, and then will be judged by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which already reviews all cases of clergy accused of abusing minors. The church has procedures for judging priests accused of abuse, but until now bishops accused of negligence or cover-ups were almost never held accountable by the church itself.
A special new judicial section will be created within the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith “to judge bishops with regard to crimes of the abuse of office when connected to the abuse of minors,” a Vatican statement said. The pope will appoint a secretary to assist the prefect of the congregation with the tribunal and personnel will be hired, the Vatican said. In announcing the step, the Vatican’s chief spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, stressed that the tribunal’s responsibilities would include questions of omission. “What one should have done and didn’t do,” he said. “This is another kind of responsibility, and shortcoming, and has to be judged in an appropriate way with appropriate rules.”
The announcement was made at the end of the 10th meeting of the Council of Cardinals, the group of high prelates that Francis created two years ago to advise him on a broad range of matters. The proposals were put to the council by Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley, the current archbishop of Boston, who is part of the advisory council and president of the sexual abuse advisory commission. The advisers approved the proposals, as did the pope, who “authorized that sufficient resources will be provided for this purpose,” the Vatican said in a statement. Canon law already deals with the question of bishops’ responsibility, he noted. “The issue was whether this was exercised well or poorly. Now we have defined a procedure to determine these cases,” he said.
Father Lombardi said the tribunal would also examine some of the abuse cases perpetrated by clergy that were “still pending” at the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith. “They are still very numerous and have accumulated,” he said. The tribunal would “accelerate” matters, he said, noting that funds had been set aside to bolster the new section, including hiring new staff.
Currently, the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith deals with questions of abuse. The new tribunal, and new funding, will bolster its resources to address those cases. “It’s a way to organize work, make it more efficient, and faster,” Father Lombardi said.
The pope will pick a secretary for the tribunal to assist the prefect of the congregation, who will be involved in setting up and organizing the new tribunal.
Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley, who serves on the pope’s Council of Cardinals, a group that advises the pope on a broad range of issues, outlined the proposals on Monday, the first day the council met. The measures were approved unanimously on Tuesday. “The proposals were put in the table, the council approved them, and the pope said, ‘Let’s go forward in this direction,’ ” Father Lombardi said.
The proposals now being put into action set out the procedures for examining complaints of abuse of office by bishops. The complaints will be first investigated by the congregations that the bishops belong to, and then will be judged by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
A special new judicial section will be created within the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith “to judge bishops with regard to crimes of the abuse of office when connected to the abuse of minors,” a Vatican statement said.
The procedures were proposed by a commission that Francis appointed early in his papacy to examine “best practices” for dealing with sexual abuse and suggest reforms. The group, called the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, includes victims of abuse by priests.The procedures were proposed by a commission that Francis appointed early in his papacy to examine “best practices” for dealing with sexual abuse and suggest reforms. The group, called the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, includes victims of abuse by priests.
“This is the missing link in the church’s response to the abuse crisis,” said the Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest and editor-at-large of the Jesuit weekly America. “It is a long overdue and delayed response to this problem, but it’s an absolutely indispensible step. This is what everyone was waiting for and all were calling for in all quarters of the church.”
Father Martin suggested that action was slow to come on this front both because there was a “lingering reluctance to hold bishops accountable if they themselves had not committed the abuse” and because — after the Second Vatican Council shifted greater power from Rome to the bishops — of “the traditional authority of bishops over their dioceses.”
Barbara Blaine, president of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, a support and advocacy group for victims, said in a statement that she suspected that the new panel “won’t make a difference” because it relies on church officials to judge other church officials. She said that a more effective move would be for the church to support the reform of secular laws to strengthen the prosecution of those responsible for abuse.Barbara Blaine, president of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, a support and advocacy group for victims, said in a statement that she suspected that the new panel “won’t make a difference” because it relies on church officials to judge other church officials. She said that a more effective move would be for the church to support the reform of secular laws to strengthen the prosecution of those responsible for abuse.
“This is a promising first step, that at a stroke provides a structure, personnel, a budget and a brief for actually acting in these matters,” said Terence McKiernan, president of BishopAccountability.org, a private Boston-based group that documents cases of sexual abuse by priests. “What’s done with this will be interesting to see.” Mr. McKiernan said in a telephone interview that he was optimistic that the “church’s goal is to handle things better.”
But he also noted that the current prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, Cardinal Gerhard L. Müller, had one case in his past that he should be held accountable for. “He acted atrociously in one abuse case in Germany; he has a bad track record,” Mr. McKiernan said, citing the case of Peter Kramer, who was found guilty of abusing two boys but was later appointed a pastor, in 2004, by Cardinal Müller, who was then his bishop. The priest was later arrested and accused of abuse again.
“Müller must publicly acknowledge, which he’s never done, that he made a mistake,” Mr. McKiernan said. “It’s a very awkward cloud that needs to be dispelled.”
Some advocates for abuse victims said many questions remained open: Will the tribunal examine cases retroactively? How will bishops be denounced? Will the tribunal only act if the case is in the public eye? And some note that “fraternal corrections have never worked out. They never want to criticize each other. It’s hard to imagine that they’re the ones that are going to make the system work,” Mr. McKiernan said.
Then, too, “transparency will be even more of an issue with cases involving bishops,” he said in a statement from BishopAccountability.org. The Vatican, it said, “has traditionally been loath to offer any transparency in this area, unless a bishop is disciplined for doctrinal reasons.”