UNITED STATES
GlobalPost
Jason Berry
Leading voices around the world try to push the Catholic Church further toward justice.
The Vatican’s protection of bishops complicit in recycling clergy sex abusers is a front-burner issue for Alberto Athié, one of Mexico’s most respected public figures.
Last July, when Pope Francis met with abuse survivors in Rome, Athié posted an open letter asking the pope to dismiss Mexico City Cardinal Norberto Rivera for his defense over many years of the long-accused pedophile and founder of the Legion of Christ religious order Father Marcial Maciel.
Athié’s manifesto, signed by 128 abuse survivors, lawyers and supportive groups, called for reforms in the way church leadership handles abuse cases — and the loophole that gives bishops full discretion and has kept Pope Francis from making significant progress in his efforts to create a “zero tolerance” policy.
“They know that such behavior existed within the institution, and the [internal] mechanism is precisely what prolonged the abuse,” Athié told GroundTruth in an email this week. “The damage caused by bishops, cardinals and the Holy See for years of protecting abusers must be confronted.”
Athié argues that Rivera bears responsibility beyond the Maciel case, which stained the tenures of Pope John Paul II and his successor Pope Benedict.
“Cardinal Norberto Rivera,” Athié recently told a prominent journalist, Carmen Aristegui, “has systematically hidden pederasts and more so, deceived the victims.” …
Father Bruce Teague of the Springfield, Mass. diocese, was abused as a boy by a pastor in Dorchester. After dealing with his trauma over many years he forged ties with other survivors, speaking out against bishops. As a priest, he stood at the grave of his perpetrator, offering forgiveness.
Teague is prominent in the small society of church whistleblowers.
“A priest would get up in the morning, go down and say Mass, molest a child, come up and have breakfast. How could that be? I still can’t understand it at all, but that’s what happened, over and over again.”
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