ITALY
Tradition in Action
Atila S. Guimarães
Due to a quite busy schedule, I have collected a pile of books and articles to read when spare time appears. In that mound was a long article published two years ago by the well-informed Rome bulletin Adista reporting on the pedophilia crisis in the Italian clergy. Recently I found time to read it. It was, in my opinion, very revealing of the duplicity of the Italian Episcopate, the Vatican included. They pretend that pedophilia does not exist around them: it is an American problem…
It seems useful to portray a sampling of the Italian reality for the TIA American audience. I am basing myself on the information presented in a report by Emilio Carnevali entitled “Pedophile Priests in Italy: The Hierarchy Minimizes the Problem, but It Exists – Data from the Last Years” (Adista, May 13, 2006, pp. 11-14).
We are all aware of the extreme complacency of the Vatican in dealing with the pedophilia crisis in the U.S. It has always covered for the priests and blamed the critics, as if they were trying to destroy the Church. I mention just two facts to refresh my reader’s memory.
The first was the Vatican veto of the first draft of the Dallas document (2000) drawn up by the American Bishops, which was considered excessively strong. Far from being so, it was quite weak, but still much better than the final imposed version that was approved in Washington. This veto and its consequences were duly analyzed in my book on pedophilia. (1)
1. A.S. Guimarães, Vatican II, Homosexuality & Pedophilia, Los Angeles: TIA, 2004, pp-56-78
The second was the official visit of Card. Tarcisio Bertone to the U.S in August 2007. During his stay, the Vatican Secretary of State made violent, demagogic declarations against those who had attacked the clergy and the cover-up of the Bishops.
These two important facts are characteristic of the Vatican approach to ecclesiastical pedophilia.
We know that on his U.S. visit in April 2008, Benedict XVI expressed his sorrow to the victims of clergy abuse and made some vague promises regarding punishing the guilty. But, so far, we still have not seen any concrete follow-up to those lamentations.
At any rate, the report on priestly pedophile abuse in Italy and the silence of both the Italian Episcopate and the Vatican about it may help to fill in the missing spaces in the picture.
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