While much ink has been spilled on the tragedy of childhood sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, the majority of the Catholic hierarchy including archbishops, bishops, and even popes have largely been shielded from accountability.
Certainly, grand jury reports have decried the actions of bishops but none have faced criminal penalties for allowing such criminal behavior against children. Even when the evidence has been overwhelming such as in the case of Cardinal Bernard Law formerly of Boston and Cardinal Roger Mahony formerly of Los Angeles, these clerics never faced criminal charges for their complicity in the abuse of children. In one egregious instance, the former bishop of Manchester New Hampshire agreed to destroy the psychological records of an abusive priest but never faced obstruction of justice charges in spite of the state’s Attorney General initiation of a formal criminal inquiry into diocesan criminal misconduct. Cardinal Mahony is known to have covered up for abusive priests not only in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles but in his previous diocese of Stockton. In spite of this, Mahony was allowed to retire in comfort, free from criminal prosecution.
This isn’t isolated to the few I’ve mentioned in this report. There are archbishops and bishops across the country who have acted in a similar fashion. The current Archbishop of San Francisco continues to stubbornly refuse to release the names of priests accused of sexual misconduct within the Archdiocese. Now that San Francisco is in bankruptcy proceedings, it is highly unlikely that any such list will ever be made public.
The problem is not limited to the United States either. Bishops in Ireland, France, Germany, Spain, Central and South America have acted in corresponding fashion without any real concrete consequences. This includes former and present popes who have been accused of covering up for abusive priests prior to ascending to the papal throne. Pope Benedict was accused of quietly transferring an abusive priest while he was an archbishop in Germany. Pope Francis continued to shield a fellow Jesuit from sexual abuse allegations. This case involving Fr. Marko Rupnik deserves further exploration because it demonstrates a pattern of cover-up which goes all the way to the Vatican.
Rupnik was initially excommunicated for absolving a penitent with whom he had had sexual relations-however, the excommunication was later lifted. In the end, Rupnik never faced any criminal or church consequences for his supposedly numerous crimes against women.
Even the present Pope has faced criticism for his handling of a sexual abuse case while he was a bishop in Peru and the fact that he allowed a priest of his religious order to live in a rectory close to a children’s school in Chicago. Because the top officials in the Catholic Church hierarchy have never faced criminal charges or censure from the church, they are free to act with impunity and the problem of sexual abuse remains unabated. As the church is clearly incapable of self reform and many dioceses and archdioceses declare bankruptcy rather than face a jury in civil court, crisis of abuse continues and children continue to suffer.
