Law, politics and media make abuse scandals different in U.S. than Chile

DENVER (CO)
Crux

March 2, 2018

By Christopher White

New York – As Archbishop Charles Scicluna of Malta returns from his on-the-ground investigation of alleged sex abuse cover-up by Bishop Juan Barros of the Chilean diocese of Osorno, some American Catholics have likened this latest chapter of the Church’s clerical sex abuse scandals to post-traumatic stress disorder.

Following the Boston Globe’s Spotlight team’s devastating coverage in 2002 of years of sexual abuse and cover-up, the U.S. Catholic bishops adopted their Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People in June of that year to standardize guidelines for reporting and responding to sexual abuse allegations within the U.S. Church.

Since that time, the American Church’s “zero tolerance” policy for sexual abusers has been considered by many as the standard for other countries to model their own programs. Given the recent controversies of the Barros affair, however, more than a few Catholics have wondered how a similar situation would play out in the United States today-both within the Church and outside of it.

In essence, the answer would seem to be that speaking strictly in terms of internal ecclesiastical procedures, it’s not clear there would be a major contrast between America and anywhere else in a case in which the accusation against a bishop is not abuse itself, but cover-up.

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