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Pope Benedict XVI is scheduled to make his first visit to the United States as head of the Catholic Church on April 15. During his visit he will visit Washington, D.C. and New York City. He will celebrate mass at two baseball stadiums, say prayers at Ground Zero, meet President George W Bush at the White House and address the United Nations. Unfortunately, he has declined to speak with sexual abuse victims and attorneys or address the priest abuse scandal at all during the trip. In fact, he declined to visit Boston, the archdiocese at the epicenter of the sexual abuse scandal since its inception in 2002. This in spite of the fact that Boston’s archbishop, Sean Cardinal O’Malley lobbied hard for Benedict to visit the archdiocese.
In spite of assurances of transparency from the Vatican as well as the US Bishops in their Dallas Charter, church officials continue to downplay the impact of the sexual abuse and pedophile priest scandal as well as the fact that it isn’t over. Here’s a sampling of the “pearls of wisdom” uttered by those close to Benedict XVI regarding the priest abuse scandal:
Monsignor Pietro Sambi, the papal ambassador to the US who was in charge of planning the trip, said the Pope would turn 81 in America, and did not have the strength to visit Boston. "He just can't go everywhere," he said.
Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Pope's second-in-command, said the church had already "responded with great dignity" to the situation, and added that the "clamour created in the US around this scandal is really unbearable".
Cardinal Claudio Hummes, the prefect for the Congregation for the Clergy, said the media had "exaggerated" the issue of pedophile priests and clergy sex abuse
It’s hard to understand the church’s protestation of transparency in light of these comments as well as the Pope’s refusal to address the scandal or meet with the victims or their lawyers. I would like to objectively examine what the United States bishops proposed to accomplish in establishing the Dallas Charter in 2002.
FACT: Transparency as stated goal-The entire stated purpose of the Dallas Charter concerns the restoration of public trust. The authors of the Charter, namely the US bishops, understand that this is not possible without transparency. That’s why Article 3 of the Charter repudiates the use of confidentiality clauses in any settlement agreements unless specifically requested by the survivor of abuse. The National Lay Review Board, established by the Dallas Charter, states in its preamble, “In drawing this blueprint, we first resolved that in order to establish credibility for our actions we had to operate with independence and transparency.”
FACT: Transparency not the reality-Within a year of assuming the chairmanship of the National Review Board, Governor Frank Keating quit in protest. In his resignation letter to Bishop Wilton Gregory, who, at that time was President of the Confernece of Bishops, Keating reiterated the reasons for his resignation: “As I have recently said, and have repeated on several occasions, our Church is a Faith institution. A home to Christ's people. It is not a criminal enterprise. It does not condone and cover up criminal activity. It does not follow a code of silence. My remarks, which some bishops found offensive, were deadly accurate. I make no apology. To resist grand jury subpoenas, to suppress the names of offending clerics, to deny, to obfuscate, to explain away; that is the model of a criminal organization, not my church.” Keating’s comparison of the church to la cosa nostra was condemned by no less than Roger Cardinal Mahony of Los Angeles.
Once again, the church hierarchy proved to be overly sensitive to criticism. The Rev. Thomas Reese, S.J. of America magazine, a New York-based Jesuit weekly, said Keating's departure is "a setback for the bishops" and "another stumble on the way to cleaning up the bishops' reputation." Keating's resignation "basically sends the message that if you're too much of a straight shooter you're going to get pressure to resign," said Deal Hudson, editor of Crisis, a conservative Catholic magazine in Washington, D.C. Reese and Hudson are hardly radical in their views of the church yet even they recognize the church’s basic failure at transparency.
Another important aspect of the transparency issue concerns the church abuse documents which chronicle the sexual abuse scandal. These documents are absolutely crucial to the church at large as well as the general public and priest sex abuse lawyer Joseph Saunders (myself) if an understanding of the root causes of the crisis is ever to be achieved. The only way to prevent sexual abuse in the future is to understand how it was allowed to happen in the past.
An example of the church’s transparency failure relating to the publication of internal church documents can be found in many of the civil lawsuits pending around the country. For example, in a lawsuit in which I am representing a survivor of abuse against the Dioceses of Orlando and Gary we have been fighting in court for over a year now to obtain internal church documents.
These documents relate to church disciplinary proceedings against the former Fr. Richard Emerson. Emerson has been credibly accused of sex abuse by two survivors. He’s been subsequently laicized which means removed from the priesthood.
Yet, the Diocese of Gary has fought our legal efforts for an entire year. Fortunately, the judge in the priest sex abuse case ruled in our favor. In her order she wrote, “The Court has now reviewed all of the above-mentioned documents in camera and finds that none constitute attorney-client communications, or violate any appropriate or necessary instructions or inquiry into ecclesiastical matters, nor are discernably work product privileged.”
We’re still waiting to obtain these documents which the Judge has ordered released to us. Interestingly, some are from the former Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, who was involved in reviewing Emerson’s disciplinary case at the Vatican. Perhaps an invitation to appear in court in the U.S. while he is here through service of a subpoena would help us get the documents that the judge ordered produced.
Attorney Joseph Saunders is a leading priest sex abuse lawyer and can be reached via this website, email or telephone. 100% Confidential
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