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Does Pope Francis Cry for the Victims of His Church?

GMA News
January 18, 2016

http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/551724/opinion/does-pope-francis-cry-for-the-victims-of-his-church

When Pope Francis visited the Philippines last year, the most difficult questions he had to answer did not come from reporters. The questions came from a poor little girl.

“Marami na po ang mga batang pinabayaan ng kanilang mga magulang,” said Glyzelle Iris Palomar, 12. (Many children have been neglected by their parents.)

“Marami sa kanila ang naging biktima at masama ang nangyari, tulad ng droga o prostitusyon.” (Many of them have become victims, involved in bad circumstances such as drugs and prostitution.)

“Bakit po pumapayag ang Diyos na may ganitong nangyayari?” (Why does God allow these things to happen?)

She cried, and then continued: “At bakit kaunti lang ang tumutulong sa amin?” (And why are there only few who help us?)

Pope Francis repeated the girl’s question and then answered: “When the heart is unable to answer itself and cry, then we can understand.”

He asked the audience: “Have I learned to weep for someone who has a drug problem? Have I learned to weep for someone who suffered abuse?”

A year after I first heard this story, I can’t help wishing someone had asked Pope Francis: “Have you?”

One of the reasons Pope Francis is considered revolutionary is his promise of zero tolerance on child abuse. In a 2012 interview as Cardinal Bergoglio, he said that the way to deal with child abuse is to “take away the priests' licenses, not to allow them to exercise the priesthood any more, and to begin a canonical trial in that diocese’s court.”

What he said runs contrary to the Catholic Church’s practice, which instead of solving it perpetuates the problem. Instead of firing abusive priests, they are often shuffled between dioceses, making it hard for authorities to investigate allegations. Worse, it puts a new batch of potential victims at risk.

When priests do get caught, cases are often settled out of court. The Catholic Church has spent around $3 billion on out-of-court settlements in the US alone.

Consider what Pope Francis said about beginning “a canonical trial in that diocese’s court.” He had the opportunity to ensure this happened in the case of Jozef Wesolowski.

A year ago, I wrote about a poor Dominican boy who was not much older than Palomar:

A poor 13-year-old Dominican boy needed epilepsy medicine, so an archbishop gave it to him in exchange for sexual acts. The archbishop would go on to abuse the boy for four more years.

In 2013, minors interviewed by the police admitted to masturbating and having oral sex with the same archbishop as he filmed them. Such footage was later found in the suspect’s laptop, which contained over 100,000 files of child pornography, digitally archived in category-specific folders.

What did Pope Francis when he found out about the allegations against Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski as early as August 2013? Did the Pope begin a canonical trial in the Dominican Republic? No.

On August 21, 2013, Wesolowski was recalled to Rome in secret, a month before an investigative report was broadcast, alerting the general public of the scandal. Before Wesolowski could be investigated by Dominican authorities he was already under the Pope’s protection.

On September 23, 2014 — more than a year after the Pope knew about the allegations — the Vatican arrested Wesolowski. Instead of extraditing him, they decided to try him in Rome, the first time a high-ranking official would face child abuse charges in court.

His trial was set on July 11, 2015, but was postponed due to health reasons.

On August 27, 2015, he was found dead in his Vatican residence. An autopsy revealed he had died of heart problems.

Although the victims of Wesolowski’s abuse could not get the justice they deserved, the situation is far worse for most victims. In most cases, the child abuse isn’t even brought to light.

In 2002, the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) apologized for sexual abuses by at least 200 priests over 20 years. Of these 200 priests, how many have been prosecuted? Zero.

According to a missionary priest who’s been working with poor and prostituted children for more than 40 years, this is because of the CBCP’s cover-up of “rampant sexual abuse.”

“We have these bishops who have been covering up so much of this abuse, and we know that it is still going on,” Fr. Shay Cullen said.

It’s 2016 and there’s no reason to believe things will get better. A week after Pope Francis visit, Anne Doyle of BishopAccountability.org sent a letter to Patricia B. Luna, OIC-Executive Director of the Council for the Welfare of Children.

The letter drew attention to 12 priests in the Philippines, most still active in ministry, several having “worked at some point in the United States but were banned from U.S. dioceses following serious allegations of child rape and molestation.”

In another letter sent the following month, Doyle explained that “Filipino bishops know of the serious allegations against these priests but are keeping them in ministry.”

Those bishops are just following protocol. The CBCP policy on child abuse betrays the fact that Pope Francis has not fulfilled his promise of zero tolerance. Philippine Bishops are not required to report abusive priests to authorities or even to remove them from active ministry.

Doyle explained that the reason there seems to be “zero tolerance” in the US is because of the public outrage in 2002, which prompted the US bishops to ask for special measures — measures that are much stricter than the official Vatican policy enforced in other countries.

The most progressive thing Pope Francis has done about clerical child abuse is admit the cover-ups. After meeting with abuse victims, Pope Francis told reporters that “those who have covered up these things are also guilty… Even some bishops [who] have covered [this] up. It is a very bad thing.”

Does the Pope weep for the victims of child abuse? I would like to think so. But seeing how he’s handled cases like Wesolowski’s and how he’s kept the defective policy on abuse, I hope he does more than just cry.

Red Tani is the president of Filipino Freethinkers, an organization of atheists and free thinkers in the Philippines working for a secular Filipino society by promoting reason and science.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of this website.

 

 

 

 

 




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