Weeks before he was elected Pope in 2005, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger spoke in a Good Friday meditation of “filth in the Church”, a remark interpreted as a denunciation of those involved in clerical child sex abuse.Cardinal Ratzinger had more insight than most into the grave sins committed by priests against innocents: as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith he had read plenty of reports of sexual misconduct.
The shame of those crimes was not limited to the individual priests involved, however. All too often, in countries such as the United States, Ireland and the United Kingdom, church authorities, from parish to diocese and up the hierarchical chain, put the avoidance of scandal above the protection of the young and above justice. No wonder then that the Church remains tainted by that history.
This week, at a meeting of the United Nations human rights council in Geneva, it was accused of covering up child abuse and being in breach of several articles under the Convention of the Rights of the Child.
In response, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican’s permanent observer to the UN, issued a statement saying that only 1.5 to 5 per cent of Catholic clergy were involved in child sex abuse.
He also said that such abuse was far worse in other denominations and in Jewish communities.
This is an argument akin to a teenager caught taking drugs pointing out to his parents that the kids over the road are drunk. As Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, head of the New York Board of Rabbis, remarked: “Comparative tragedy is a dangerous path on which to travel.”
That there is child sex abuse occurring in other Churches should be noted by the Catholic Church – not as a defence of itself but as a starting point for dialogue. Best practice for dealing with the problem should be shared as well as theories about the causes of abuse.
Critics of the Catholic Church have often claimed that abuse is linked to celibacy. But if it is also occurring in denominations where no such tradition exists, then the cause must presumably lie elsewhere.
Media coverage sparked by the archbishop’s comments served to deflect attention away from the work that the Church has done in recent years in trying to ensure that abusers are weeded out before they come into contact with children through their ministry.
Those charged with priestly training try to ensure men with paedophiliac tendencies are not accepted at seminaries; child protection policies have been developed and people charged with those policies work at parish and diocesan level.
Then there are the historic cases of abuse going back many years. Where once there were cover-ups, the Church in places such as Britain has cooperated with the police to bring past child abusers to justice.
Excuses of the kind made for film director Roman Polanski this week – that he should not be extradited from Switzerland in connection with having unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl because it happened 30 years ago and he has suffered enough in his own life – might wash among the film world’s intelligentsia but not among the Catholic laity.
Rather, sorrow, humility and justice are the only responses acceptable to the abuses that moved Cardinal Ratzinger to such righteous fury.
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SIC: Tablet