An attack by international lawyer Geoffrey Robertson on the Vatican and the Church over sex crimes committed by priests against children has drawn a strong rebuttal from the Australian Church.Bishop Julian Porteous, auxiliary Bishop of Sydney and Vicar General, said Robertson’s new book – The Case of the Pope: Vatican Accountability for Human Rights Abuse – contains many dramatic and false claims.
“For a lawyer of some standing the claims in his book exhibit many errors,” he said. “Robertson is known for his polemical style, but polemics cannot excuse inaccuracy in facts.
“Robertson’s assertion that the Church claims a right to deal with offenders internally without reporting them to the police is a distortion of reality.
“The Church deals with these crimes using its own laws and procedures, but it does not claim an exclusive jurisdiction. The Church’s purpose in its internal processes is to protect the community by removing the priest from his ministry.
“The State’s purpose is to protect the community by imposing a prison sentence.
“From the Church’s perspective both systems of law work together for the good of the community.
“Does the Church, however, protect clerics, as Robertson argues? Tragically this may have happened in individual cases in the past, but for many years the Church in countries like Australia and the US has encouraged victims of clerical abuse to go to the civil authorities for police investigation and civil court action,” Bishop Porteous said.
“In April the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, affirmed the importance of crimes being reported to the police – implementing correct procedures for the canonical judgment of the guilty and for collaborating with the civil authorities in matters concerning their judicial and penal competencies.”
“The Church also co-operates with civil law in screening anyone who may be dealing with children at a parish or school level to ensure that no one working for the Church will be a danger to children.
“Consideration is also being given to the idea that it would be in the best interests of the Church and wider community if an offending priest were not laicised, so as to maintain some minimal supervision of him not possible if he were laicised.”
The bishop said the QC’s new book was no doubt timed to coincide with the visit of Pope Benedict to England for the beatification of John Henry Newman.
He said Robertson had “joined his voice to a cacophony of shrill criticism of the Pope” which will, says well known humanist Brendan O’Neill, turn humanism, a once-principled outlook, “into little more than a requirement to hate religion”.
SIC: CTH/AUS