SOUTH AFRICA
Daily Maverick
Pierre de Vos
20 Mar 2013 (South Africa)
The Catholic Church has rightly been criticised for its handling of the widespread sexual abuse of children by priests across the world. In order to protect the “good name” of the church, many abusers were never reported to the police but were sent for “treatment” and counselling before being “redeployed” by the church to other positions. Some of them then went on to abuse other children. Unfortunately, Cardinal Wilfred Napier, who has dealt with such cases in South Africa, seems to be unaware that if he fails to report those priests to the police he is committing a criminal offence and exposing himself to a five-year prison sentence.
In a controversial interview with a BBC radio journalist, Cardinal Napier indicated that when he dealt with cases in which priests have sexually abused children, he followed a protocol developed by the Church itself. He insisted that each case was referred to the Doctrine of the Faith office and the Pope. Cardinal Napier seems to believe that the Church is the victim of unfair publicity. In the interview he complained:
“I really would resent it if someone said to me you mishandled that case. Some of the priests went, according to the wisdom of the time, the best information that we had from psychologists, they went for treatment, came back and have been under – what we call it – personal surveillance and have functioned quite normally ever since. Others left the priesthood, they were laicised, but it depended on each case being handled differently because of the peoples conditions were different.”
Nowhere in the interview does he say that he actually reported any priests who confessed that they sexually abused children to the police. Instead, displaying an admirable understanding and compassion for abusers (an understanding and compassion not displayed towards others involved in consensual and often loving sexual behaviour), he argued that such priests act out of a defect in their own character and that they are not necessarily culpable for what they do.
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