UNITED STATES
Crux
By John L. Allen Jr.
Associate editor
From the eruption of the sexual abuse scandals in the Catholic Church almost a decade and a half ago, one classic mode of denial in the Vatican and around the Catholic world has been to dismiss the crisis as an “American problem.”
Famously, when a senior Vatican official first faced the press in 2002 with regard to abuse cases, most questions came in English. Colombian Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos testily called that an “x-ray” of the problem – meaning, it was basically an American issue.
Both out loud and in private, some churchmen in Rome and other parts of the world often have said that while abuse of minors by priests is reprehensible, the idea of a “crisis,” and the perceived need for aggressive measures to combat it, has been driven by the sensationalistic media culture and litigious judicial system of the United States and nations most in its sphere of influence.
In a recent Crux interview, Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York confirmed that this prejudice is still alive.
“We find it very demoralizing to hear bishops in other parts of the world, even some leaders in Rome, who still feel this is an Anglo-Saxon problem,” Dolan said, adding that some of his fellow bishops see the abuse issue as restricted to “the United States, England, Ireland, and Australia.”
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