In Brazil Catholic Church Sees Few Scandals, by Philip de Wit, NRC Handelsblad, March 31, 2010

In Brazil, Catholic Church Sees Few Scandals

By Philip de Wit
NRC Handelsblad
March 31, 2010

http://www.nrc.nl/international/article2514916.ece/In_Brazil,_Catholic_Church_sees_few_scandals

BRAZIL -- Brazil is the biggest Catholic country in the world, but accusations of sexual abuse by its clergy are few and don't get much attention.

In Arapiraca, a town in the Brazilian state of Alagoas, an unlikely DVD was a bestseller this month: a sex tape showing a 82-year-old priest, Luiz Marques Barbosa, in bed with a 19-year-old altar boy. The images are hard to bear for the people of Arapiraca, who worshiped the priest and even named a school after him.

Rio de Janeiro with the statue of Christ the Redeemer in the foreground.

On March 11, Brazilian TV first aired the sordid pictures of Barbosa. On the programme, former altar boys accused him and two other priests from Arapiraca of sexually abusing them from age 12 onward. Other altar boys from the same parish soon came forward with similar accusations.

The incident has led to great indignation in Arapiraca, where the suspected priests were known as extremely conservative and puritan. Congregants wept openly on TV. The local police has even put a special team on the case. But, contrary to many European countries, the revelations have not led to a stream of complaints over paedophilia within the Catholic Church.

A powerful church

The Catholic Church's dominance is uncontested in Brazil. Of the 200 million Brazilians, 73 percent are Catholic. Even so, the number of abuse cases that came to light has remained limited in recent years. This does not mean abuse that doesn't exist however.

"Relatively few cases of abuse have been uncovered," said Luís Lima, a theologian at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro. "It is unclear what the exact reason is."

In Europe, most of the abuse now in the news occurred decades ago, at a time when the Church still held significant sway over much of the continent. From that perspective, one would expect more cases in Latin America, where the Church remains very powerful today.

Lima, himself a priest, does research into sexual diversity and religion. He did not dare answer the question whether victims were perhaps too afraid or ashamed to come forward, but he also saw the TV-programme about father Barbosa and his colleagues.

The programme revealed how the priests' lawyer tried to push the boys into dropping their charges by offering them money. One of the boys was wearing a wire at the time, which made the TV audience privy to the lawyer's threats warning the boy the affair could have consequences for him.

In interviews, the boys said that the priests had threatened them as long as they could remember. If they talked, they would be excommunicated, something which would cause their families great loss of face. The 82-year-old Barbosa had arranged a place at a good school for one of his victims. The boys were afraid to tell their story for years.

Afraid to speak up

Sociologist Luiz Alberto de Souza said he understood their reaction. Fear for social repercussions and shame played an important part in the relative absence of accusations levelled at the Brazilian priesthood, he claimed. "The Church is very dominant in this country and a priest often occupies a key position in smaller communities. One does not easily press charges against him," said De Souza, who specialises in religion.

He recently studied priests and their affective relationships with female parishioners. He found that more than 40 percent of all priests in Brazil maintained or had maintained an affectionate relationship with a woman. He did not study the level of intimacy of these relationships. "But it says plenty. Priests are only human and mandatory celibacy doesn't work. Paedophilia is a possible result of suppressed feelings," De Souza said.

The way the Catholic Church has dealt with the scandals has drawn criticism. The bishop responsible for Barbosa's parish, Valério Breda, first tried to wash his hands of the entire matter. He had known the priests' lawyer had tried to buy the boys' silence. Only after the story had been aired on TV was he pressed into action. Barbosa will now have to answer for his crimes in court. The two other priests have been suspended and will be questioned internally.

Solving problems within its own ranks is an old habit of the Catholic Church, theologian Luís Lima said. Sometimes suspected priests are subjected to special therapies in an attempt to "cure" them. Or they are simply sent to another parish. "But his only moves the problem, rather than solving solves it," Lima said. "In serious cases, the public prosecutor is the right place to turn to."