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April 12, 2010 in Nation/World
Vatican to bishops: follow law, report sex abuse
VATICAN CITY — The Vatican on Monday made clear for the first time that bishops and other church officials should report clerical sex abuse to police if required by law. But the policy failed to satisfy victims who charge that the church deliberately hid abuse for decades.
Victims, government inquiries and grand juries have all charged that the Catholic Church created what amounted to a conspiracy to cover up abuse by keeping allegations that priests raped and molested children secret and not reporting them to civil authorities.
The Vatican has insisted that it has long been the Catholic Church’s policy for bishops, like all Christians, to obey civil reporting laws. In a new guide for lay readers posted on its Web site, the Vatican explicitly spells out such a policy.
“Civil law concerning reporting of crimes to the appropriate authorities should always be followed,” the Vatican guidelines said.
That phrase was not included in a draft of the guidelines obtained Friday. The rest of the guidelines follow previously known and public procedures for handling canonical investigations and trials of priests suspected of abuse.
The Vatican offered no explanation for the addition.
Victims were not impressed.
“Let’s keep this in perspective: it’s one sentence and it’s virtually nothing unless and until we see tangible signs that bishops are responding,” said Joelle Casteix, western regional director for SNAP, the Survivors Network for Those Abused by Priests, the main victims’ group in the U.S. “One sentence can’t immediately reverse centuries of self-serving secrecy.”
She said if the Vatican truly wanted to change course “it would be far more effective to fire or demote bishops who have clearly endangered kids and enabled abuse and hid crimes, than to add one sentence to a policy that is rarely followed with consistency.”
None of the core public Vatican documents to be applied in cases of abuse direct bishops to report cases to police. Nor does canon law make such an explicit requirement.
Jeffrey Lena, the Vatican’s U.S. lawyer, said a 1965 document from the Second Vatican Council, Gaudium et Spes, contained an implicit understanding of the need to follow civil laws that are just.
The vague citation, however, is not nearly as explicit as what is contained in the lay guide.
“It’s beyond dispute that the canon law does not mandate non-reporting,” Lena said. “These guidelines may help clarify that point for people who are less familiar with canon law.”
“The statement confirms what has been long known, that where the civil state creates an obligation to report, bishops like anyone else are required to examine the law and determine what they have to do to obey it,” Lena told the AP.
In 2002, after the clerical abuse scandal erupted in the United States, American bishops enacted reforms, which the Vatican made church law for the U.S., that do not specifically order all bishops to notify civil authorities of new claims. Instead, the U.S. policy instructs bishops to comply with state laws for reporting abuse, and to cooperate with authorities. All U.S. dioceses were also instructed to advise victims of their right to contact authorities themselves.
The Rev. Davide Cito, a canon lawyer at Rome’s Santa Croce University, called the publication of the universal church policy in the lay guidelines “an important development.”
“I’m very pleased,” he said. “A Christian also has to follow civil laws. It’s a Christian duty.”
A Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Ciro Benedettini, said the reporting requirement had been the internal policy of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith since 2003. The Vatican in 2001 shifted its policy on dealing with abuse cases, ordering bishops around the world to refer all cases to the Congregation, which then decides how to proceed. Previously, diocese themselves dealt with most of the cases on their own.
Asked how bishops were supposed to know of this internal policy on reporting to police, Benedettini declined to comment.
Pope Benedict XVI had told Irish bishops last month that they should cooperate with civil authorities in investigating abuse. But the guidelines mark the first time that such procedures for the church at large, in which bishops are explicitly told they should follow civil reporting laws, have been laid out publicly.
© Copyright 2010 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Obama honors Medal of Freedom recipients as heroes 
smarg on April 12 at 10:42 a.m.
It’s a shame that nearly all of the Catholic tithing money goes to paying settlements for child rape.
PhiltheBibliophil on April 12 at 12:31 p.m.
This “new policy” is about 1500 years to late!
shanusmaximus on April 12 at 12:43 p.m.
“The Vatican on Monday made clear for the first time that bishops and other church officials should report clerical sex abuse to police if required by law.”
People needed the pope to say this???? If required by law? WHERE THE HELL IS IT NOT THE LAW…..besides the Vatican??
spokanada on April 12 at 1:55 p.m.
It seems like the pope and the congregation are enablers.
spunky12 on April 12 at 3:15 p.m.
While a positive step there is a long ways to go.
The next major hurdle? What happens in the investigation process after the abuse report is made.
Given the Church’s track record of stonewalling this issue for decades, who will monitor and determine the quality and extent of the Church’s level of cooperation with an investigation? What will be the Church’s level of support for victims vs. subjecting victims to revictimization from the Church via their attack dog legal teams.
In our case, as a fourth grader, our daughter was sexually abused in a Catholic grade school in Spokane. We reported the abuse to the Spokane Police and subsequently to Bishop Skylstad as well. The SPD detective on the case told us the very first day we met “I really don’t want to take on the Catholic Church”. When we went to the Bishop seeking support he gave us the “My hands are tied” argument blaming his legal team. He told us “I can’t get involved until the police complete their investigaion”.
With the languid level of cooperation in the investigation on the part of both the Spokane Police Dept. and the Catholic Church, the “investigation” was a hoax and the “alledged” perpetrator went scott free.
Today, he is out in society in a supervisory role of grade school children.
shanusmaximus on April 12 at 5:47 p.m.
@thomas marsh
“In our case, as a fourth grader, our daughter was sexually abused in a Catholic grade school in Spokane. We reported the abuse to the Spokane Police and subsequently to Bishop Skylstad as well. The SPD detective on the case told us the very first day we met “I really don’t want to take on the Catholic Church”. When we went to the Bishop seeking support he gave us the “My hands are tied” argument blaming his legal team. He told us “I can’t get involved until the police complete their investigaion”.”
Wow. Just wow. I am so terribly sorry to hear that and it ENRAGES me those are the answers you received. I wonder if you had gone to the Sheriffs or State Patrol if you would have gotten the same answers? I would hope they would be more bullish about it….I know I would be.
spunky12 on April 13 at 10:45 a.m.
To Shanusmaimus,
The way the goverment criminal system works is that where the crime occurs dictates which agency does the investigation. We had no other choice than the SPD.
From there our story gets sadder. During the “investigation” our child became deathly ill as a direct result of the sexual abuse (post tramatic stress). She spent approximately 4 weeks in the hospital where she died. The SPD detective called me about a week before her death informing me that the prosecutor had told him that they should not pursue the case any further. This was the end point for us regarding pursuing legal action in criminal court.
The civil court system (think OJ Simpson) could have been our next avenue to pursue, however our attorney’s advised us that without a victim (our daughter was no longer in the eyes of the law considered to be a victim of sexual abuse) the defendant would not be able to cross examine her and thus we would not have a viable case.
As the saying goes, “Life is not fair.”