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	Pope Offers Apology, Not Penalty, for Sex Abuse Scandal By Rachel Donadio and Alan Cowell The New York Times March 20, 2010 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/21/world/europe/21pope.html VATICAN CITY — Confronting a sex abuse scandal spreading across Europe, Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday apologized directly to victims and their families in Ireland, expressing “shame and remorse” and saying “your trust had been betrayed and your dignity has been violated.” His message, in a long-awaited, eight-page pastoral letter to Irish Catholics, seemed couched in strong and passionate language. But it did not refer directly to immediate disciplinary action beyond sending a special apostolic delegation to investigate unspecified dioceses and religious congregations in Ireland. Moreover, it was, as the Vatican said it would be, focused particularly on the situation in Ireland, even as the crisis has widened among Catholics in Austria, the Netherlands and in the pope’s native Germany. “You have suffered grievously and I am truly sorry. I know that nothing can undo the wrong you have endured. Your trust has been betrayed and your dignity has been violated,” the pope told Irish victims and their families. “Many of you found that, when you were courageous enough to speak of what happened to you, no one would listen. Those of you who were abused in residential institutions must have felt that there was no escape for your sufferings,” he continued. “It is understandable that you find it hard to forgive or be reconciled with the Church,” Benedict continued. “In her name, I openly express the shame and remorse that we all feel.” Nowhere in the letter did Benedict address the responsibility of the Vatican itself. Many victims’ groups have criticized the Vatican for not recognizing the depth and scope of the abuse crisis sooner. Nor did he use the term punishment, or spell out any consequences for clergy or bishops who had not upheld canon or civil law. Indeed, he laid blame firmly with Irish Catholic leaders. “I can only share in the dismay and the sense of betrayal that so many of you have experienced on learning of these sinful and criminal acts and the way church authorities in Ireland dealt with them,” he said. Addressing a section of his letter to abusers, the pope said they must “answer for it before Almighty God and before properly constituted tribunals” urging them to pray for forgiveness, “submit yourselves to the demands of justice, but do not despair of God’s mercy.” He did not specify the nature of the tribunals. He said those who had committed abuse had “betrayed the trust” of “innocent young people and their parents” and “forfeited the esteem of the people of Ireland and brought shame and dishonor among your confreres.” For many Catholics, the letter offered a critical test of whether the pope can stem a widening crisis that has shaken the credibility and authority of the Roman Catholic church in other parts of the world, challenging the Vatican to end a culture of secrecy and cover-up permeating its cloistered hierarchy. Colm O’Gorman, the co-founder of a victims’ group called One in Four, who is now currently the head of Amnesty International in Ireland, was one victim of sexual abuse by a priest when he was a young teenager between 1981 and 1983 in the south-east of Ireland. After reading the pope’s letter on Saturday, he said he was “concerned that there is still no full acknowledgment of the systematic institutional cover-up which is not restricted only to Ireland.” “Clearly the pope is trying to restrict it to the Irish church and they are speaking only to the Irish church. I find that deceitful because we know that this is a global and systemic problem in the global church. It’s all about protecting the institution and, above all, its wealth,” he said in a telephone interview. Some campaigners had anyhow low expectations of the pope’s words. Before the letter was published, Peter Isely, the director of a group called the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, said it “may make a few adults temporarily feel better. But it won’t make any kids safer. It won’t shed light on hidden truths. It won’t discipline wrong-doers. It won’t deter more wrong-doing. That requires courageous action, not a papal letter.” The letter, which Benedict signed on Friday, is to be read out in churches across Ireland on Sunday. Since last year, the Irish church has been shaken to the core by two damning reports by the Irish government. One revealed decades of systematic abuse of children in religious institutions, another showed an apparent cover-up in the diocese of Dublin of priests who had abused children being allowed to continue in pastoral care. In neither case did the church routinely inform civil authorities about priests who had committed felonies. Four Irish bishops offered their resignation in the wake of the publication of the so-called Murphy report in November, but the pope has accepted only one. In his letter, Benedict spoke of “a well-intentioned but misguided tendency to avoid penal approaches to canonically irregular situations,” adding that “it is in this overall context that we must try to understand the disturbing problem of child sexual abuse.” The pope attributed the problem in part to “a misplaced concern for the reputation of the church and the avoidance of scandal, resulting in failure to apply existing canonical penalties and to safeguard the dignity of every person.” He also cited “inadequate procedures” for determining the suitability of candidates for the priesthood and the religious life and “insufficient human, moral, intellectual and spiritual formation” in seminaries. Benedict also directly addressed the bishops on whose watch the systematic abuse took place. “It cannot be denied that some of you and your predecessors failed, at times grievously, to apply the long-established norms of canon law to the crime of child abuse,” Benedict wrote. “Serious mistakes were made in responding to allegations.” “I recognize how difficult it was to grasp the extent and the complexity of the problem, to obtain reliable information and to make the right decisions in the light of conflicting expert advice,” he said, adding that besides “fully implementing the norms of canon law in addressing cases of child abuse,” bishops should also “continue to cooperate with the civil authorities in their area of competence.” The pope also proposed a “nationwide mission” for all bishops, priests and religious to strengthen their vocations. And he urged Irish dioceses to devote chapels for intense prayer “to make reparation for the sins of abuse that have done so much harm.” Earlier this week, Cardinal Sean Brady, the primate of Ireland, said that he was “ashamed” of the situation and of his own actions in compelling two youths to sign secrecy agreements not to report abuse in the 1970s. There had been speculation that he might be planning to resign — a step he said he would only take if the pope ordered him to. In a homily Saturday after reading the letter, however, Cardinal Brady made no reference to his personal position. “Let us pray that the Holy Father’s Pastoral Letter will be the beginning of a great season of rebirth and hope in the Irish Church,” he told worshippers at a morning mass in St. Patrick’s cathedral in Armagh, Northern Ireland. In Germany the scandal has raised questions about the pope’s own past. This week the German church suspended a priest who had been permitted to work with children for decades after a court convicted him of molesting boys. In 1980, Benedict, then Archbishop Joseph Ratzinger, allowed the priest to move to Munich for therapy after allegations of abuse. The priest returned to pastoral work, but last week another church official took responsibility for allowing that move. As reports of abuse cases spread many questions have been raised about the collision of Vatican secrecy and civil judicial process. Some Irish church officials have said the problem has been deepened by confusion over the interpretation of a 2001 directive by Benedict, then a cardinal, reiterating a strict requirement for secrecy in handling abuse cases. The directive also gave the authority in handling such cases to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith; Benedict was prefect of the congregation from 1982 until becoming pope in 2005. In his letter, the pope referred only briefly and obliquely to the idea that, as he put it, “the problem of child abuse is peculiar neither to Ireland nor to the Church.” Christian Weisner, a spokesman for the reform group “We Are Church” in Munich, which had urged the pope to apologize to victims of sexual abuse, said the letter fell short of what was needed to address the widespread and international nature of the scandal. “The pope would be better advised not to comment on each individual country,” Mr. Weisner said. “It’s a global problem and a global answer is needed.”
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