VATICAN CITY (VATICAN CITY)
La Croix International [France]
March 9, 2022
By Loup Besmond de Senneville
In a lengthy article in “La Civiltà Cattolica”, former Vatican spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi SJ says bishops showed “great courage” in commissioning independent report
Father Federico Lombardi, the Jesuit priest who served as Vatican spokesman under the last two popes, has praised the Catholic bishops of France for their courageous decision to entrust an independent commission with investigating Church-related sex abuse in their county.
Lombardi, writing in the latest issue of La Civiltà Cattolica (LCC), gave an extensive evaluation of the report that the commission – known as the Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Church (CIASE) – issued last October.
LCC is a Jesuit journal whose articles are approved by the Holy See’s Secretariat of State, and the former spokesman’s 13-page evaluation is the first study published by a periodical institutionally linked to the Vatican.
Instrumental figure in Vatican’s response to abuse
Lombardi, now 79, has been instrumental in helping the Holy See intensify its efforts to comprehensively confront the clergy sex abuse crisis over the past decade or more.
He was one of the main organizers of a pilot Vatican-sponsored meeting on abuse that was held February 2012 at the Gregorian University. And he then helped put together a major international summit on sexual abuse in 2019 that was led by Pope Francis.
In his new article, Father Lombardi offers a very careful reading of the CIASE report, which was commissioned by the French Bishops’ Conference and the Conference of Men and Women Religious of France.
He says the Catholic leaders in France “showed great courage in creating this commission, in opening their archives to it and in taking note of its work”.
According to the article, dated February 19, the CIASE report is “a wealth of data, information, analyses, interpretations, evaluations and responses”.
Father Lombardi points at length to the process by which the report was commissioned and emphasizes that it placed the word of the victims at the center.
“A dramatic story”
“The result is a dramatic story of terrible suffering, which marks many lives and for which the Church has long shown an almost total unawareness, a very serious disregard and even a desire not to listen and to hide,” he notes.
He also looks at the delicate question of the number of victims since the 1950s, whose estimate of 330,000 (216,000 of them by priests) has been particularly criticized by many in the Vatican.
The figures come from a statistical study carried out by a team of researchers led by Nathalie Bajos, a CIASE member who works at France’s National Institute of Health and Medical Research (INSERM).
“Possibilities for error”
“This survey method is used by competent people, but it is necessary to be aware of the possibilities for error that it includes,” Lombardi emphasizes.
He notes that Bajos estimates that the margin of error for the method used is 5%, and therefore the victims of priests can range from 165,000 to 270,000.
He therefore distances himself from this numerical method, but clearly sees it as a sign of a reality that has been underestimated until now.
“The reality of abuse, both in the Church and in society, is much larger than what is normally revealed in denunciations and even than what can be imagined, and efforts still need to be made to bring it to light,” insists Father Lombardi.
“However, we must be aware of the limitations and uncertainties associated with some of the numbers, obtained through Internet surveys, multiple samples and significant extrapolations,” he cautions.
Restorative justice and secrecy of the confessional
He also comments on CIASE’s recommendations.
“Just as it is right to take all recommendations seriously, it is also right to evaluate them, not to apply them indiscriminately, especially those that, by their nature, more directly concern the more specific competence of the Church,” Lombardi writes.
He applauds the recommendation to establish a mechanism that will bring restorative justice for victims of sexual violence, regardless of the statute of limitations or the death of the alleged perpetrator.
The former Vatican spokesman also commends CIASE’s call for the creation of the Independent National Authority for Recognition and Reparation or a national canonical court.
On the other hand, he is – not surprisingly – more critical of the CIASE report’s recommendation that an exception should be made to the secrecy of the confessional when either a perpetrator or victim reveal an act of sexual abuse.
“The absolute secrecy of the confessional ensures that people feel free to say things that they would not say anywhere else. And sometimes that’s why they resort to it,” Father Lombardi insists.
Observers in the Vatican have described the LCC article as “balanced”.
While some in the Roman Curia have been extremely critical of the CIASE study, Lombardi writes that these types of independent reports are “very useful”.
“They contribute to the knowledge of data and their objective evaluation, to the broadening of perspective and thus to the credibility of the Church in the fight against abuse,” he says.
But he acknowledges that such studies can also involve “risks and difficulties” for the bishops who commission them.
Furthermore, Lombardi emphasizes that these types of studies need to be carried out for all of society, and not just within the Catholic Church.
And he suggests that the bishops critically evaluate the recommendations that such independent commissions make.
That’s a message that is also intended for the bishops in his native Italy, who have been reluctant to set up a similar independent commission on Church-related sexual abuse in their country.