UNITED STATES
USA Today
Emma Beck, Eliza Collins and Cathy Lynn Grossman, USA TODAY
Pope Benedict XVI’s efforts to address sexual abuse issues within the Catholic Church have drawn mixed reviews.
In 2001, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, his name before he became pope in 2005, urged Pope John Paul II to create a central system to further the Vatican’s investigations of sexual abuse under priests. He shifted control of the disposition of the cases from the Congregation for the Clergy where little action had been taken, to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which Ratzinger then headed.
And every week he examined the grueling cases coming, chiefly from the USA.
“He used to call that weekly meeting reviewing the cases that he used to call his penance,” said Greg Erlandson, co-author of Pope Benedict XVI and the Sexual Abuse Crisis: Working for Reform and Renewal. Erlandson and church historian Matthew Bunson say in their book that Pope Benedict XVI “arguably was probably the most knowledgeable man on the abuse crisis.” …
“When forced to, he talks about the crimes but ignores the cover-ups, uses the past tense as if to suggest it’s not still happening,” said David Clohessy, the executive director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests. “He has vast powers and he’s done very little to make a difference.”
In the USA alone, the abuse scandal offers horrifying statistics. According to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Office of Child and Youth Protection and independent studies commissioned by the bishops there have been:
— More than 6,100 accused priests since 1950.
— More than 16,000 victims identified to date although there is no national database.
— $2.5 billion in settlements and therapy bills for victims, attorneys fees and costs to care for priests pulled out of ministry from 2004 to 2011. …
His meetings with victims are viewed by some as “merely public relations. These gestures were cynical and, in a way, cruel, because they gave survivors and Catholics the illusion that he was a reformer,” said Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of BishopAccountability.org.
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