UNITED STATES
First Things
December 8, 2017
By Thomas G. Guarino
Recently, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos made significant changes to the way universities are to handle complaints of sexual assault. DeVos made clear that in no way will such assaults be tolerated, for “one rape is one too many.” But she also accented the rights of the accused, insisting that “one person denied due process is one too many.”
DeVos’s policy changes make sense: Both the accused and the accuser must enjoy clearly defined rights—rights that must be equitably balanced so that the truth of an accusation may be determined and justice served. This procedure has been at the heart of American jurisprudence for centuries.
I invoke DeVos’s astute and courageous changes because similar adjustments are necessary in the Charter for the Protection of Young People (commonly called the Dallas Charter) enacted by the American bishops in 2002 in the wake of the sex-abuse crisis in the Catholic Church. The Charter has caused serious problems—of theology, justice, and morale—which continue to bedevil and undermine the Catholic priesthood in the United States.
Under the Dallas Charter, when an accusation of priestly abuse is made, the priest is immediately suspended from public ministry, regardless of the accusation’s merit. Some will reply that the claim of “immediate suspension” is inaccurate; a review board must first determine an accusation’s “credibility.” But author after author, from Avery Cardinal Dulles (in First Things and America) to David Pierre (in Catholic Priests Falsely Accused), has shown that “credibility” is a laughably low standard. Evidence is barely required. Indeed, almost every accusation is deemed “credible” unless the accused can prove that thirty years ago (and most accusations are from decades long past) he was on a different continent when the alleged abuse occurred. In other words, “credible” has come to mean “not entirely impossible.” With such a standard, accused priests are placed in an untenable situation.
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