UNITED STATES
Vatican Insider
A report published by the order of Capuchin Friars Minor reveals that its leaders covered up cases of child abuse committed by members of the community
VATICAN INSIDER STAFF
ROME
The leaders of the Capuchin Order in the U.S. concealed acts of sex abuse committed by members of their order, putting the protection of accused abusers above that of their victims, concludes an audit published by the religious order today. The audit raises questions about the handling of the paedohilia plague in the Catholic Church in the U.S., by communities of monastic orders not directly supervised by bishops.
The report – the first of its kind – claims that the Capuchin Order’s response to the abuse committed by twenty or so of their fellow friars was partly down to a “systemic clericalism” which put friars’ needs above those of the victims. The report also pointed to a certain fear of lawyers working on the case, who presented the accusing parties as victims in an attempt to protect the Church from costly legal action.
The report was published by the Capuchin Province of St. Joseph, which is headquartered in Detroit but oversees approximately 170 friars serving across various parts of the country and in Nicaragua and Panama. It is based on information from documents which date back to the 1930s. The report was put together after the spotlight fell on a number of sex abuse cases which took place in a Capuchin seminary in Milwaukee, Wiskonsin. “They [bishops and religious superiors] outsourced the gospel to their lawyers,” the report reads.
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