UNITED STATES
BishopAccountability.org
Statement by Terence McKiernan
May 23, 2014
The Concluding Observations of the U.N. Committee against Torture bring some additional accountability to an institution that was for years a law unto itself. (See also the Holy See’s Initial Report.) This is a valuable development, somewhat too diplomatically implemented in the report released today. Significantly, the Committee insisted on a broad standard for accountability. Against the objections of the Holy See, the Concluding Observations state (para. 10) that the Holy See must be held accountable for torture committed by persons under its “effective control.” The Committee cited (para. 10) the Holy See’s own statistics, showing that 848 priests outside the Vatican City State have been removed from the priesthood in the last decade by the Holy See – surely an example of effective control — and that 2,572 priests have been disciplined by Rome.
Transparency: The Committee should have pushed more strongly for detailed disclosure of names and documents, instead of urging disclosure of “statistical data.” In the hard work of transparency, statistics are not even half a loaf. The Holy See maintains the world’s largest archive on child abuse and its mismanagement; it should have been told to release the names and detailed case files of every priest defrocked or disciplined by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), and by the other dicasteries responsible for those cases before the Holy See’s organizational consolidation in 2001. Merely counting the cases is not nearly enough, particularly since such counts cannot be verified apart from the files on which they are based.
Redress: The Committee urges the Holy See to apply the redress provision of the Convention against Torture in the case of the Magdalene laundries, so that the religious orders responsible will contribute to the compensation of their victims. Those orders, unnamed in the Concluding Observations, are the Sisters of Mercy, the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity of Refuge, the Good Shepherd Sisters, and the Sisters of Charity. Even more important, the Committee alluded to the Holy See’s acquiescence and authorization (para. 16) of the Milwaukee archdiocese’s protection of assets prior to its bankruptcy. The Committee was referring to the exchange of letters between then-Archbishop Timothy Dolan of Milwaukee and Cardinal Cláudio Hummes at the Holy See.
The Holy See’s action in Milwaukee and its inaction in Ireland are evidence of a fundamental opposition to compensating victims. This stance was articulated by Bishop Charles Scicluna during the Holy See’s testimony to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in January 2014. He said that it is the obligation of the individual abuser, not the church, to compensate victims. “We promote personal responsibility. The person causing the damage has the duty to compensate,” Scicluna said. In a 2012 interview, Scicluna called civil court rulings that the Church is liable “unfair.” We wish the Committee against Torture had challenged the Holy See more sharply on its resistance to redress.
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