The Jesuit, psychologist and theologian, Hans Zollner, speaking to journalists said the Gregorian’s approach “begins from the experience of victims” and makes sure they are heard. “Only someone who has listened to a victim can truly understand the implications and the need to listen with the heart, not just what the law requires,” he said.

Church Expert: #Metoo,
Chile Bishop Scandal a Wake-up Call

An Article from ‘CRUX’ by Nicole Winfield & Associated Press References

The #MeToo movement and the controversy over a Chilean bishop show the need for a broader response to “the abuse of power and conscience,” the head of the Catholic Church’s leading center on preventing priestly sexual abuse said Friday. Jesuit Father Hans Zollner spoke at the graduation ceremony for students who have completed a course in safeguarding people from abuse held at the Jesuit-run Pontifical Gregorian University.

In addition to his role at the Gregorian, Zollner is also one of the founding members of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, Pope Francis’s hand-picked group of experts on sexual abuse.

Francis’s strong defense of Chilean Bishop Juan Barros has sparked outrage recently, compounded by revelations by The Associated Press that he received a hand-delivered letter from an abuse victim in 2015 saying that Barros had witnessed his abuse and denied anything had happened. The Vatican’s sex crimes investigator is planning to interview the victim next week after Francis said he had never heard from any victims.

Zollner referred to the Barros scandal in his congratulation speech to the graduates, saying the #MeToo revelations “as well as the recent controversy surrounding Bishop Barros in Chile have shown that the area of sexual abuse of minors and the abuse of power and conscience still require greater understanding and a broader range of responses.” He said the graduates would be able to help the church find those responses in the coming years. The Gregorian’s Center for Child Protection is the church’s leading safeguarding institute. In October it will begin offering a two-year, multidisciplinary licensing program that will enable graduates to teach safeguarding in Catholic seminaries and universities around the world.

Speaking to journalists afterward, Zollner said the Gregorian’s approach “begins from the experience of victims” and makes sure they are heard. “Only someone who has listened to a victim can truly understand the implications and the need to listen with the heart, not just what the law requires,” he said.

Is the Pot Calling the Kettle ‘Black’?

By Brian Mark Hennessy of the Comboni Survivor Group

My Mother was a wise, intelligent woman who read more books in a week than I ever read in a year – as well as completing the Guardian crossword puzzle, doing the housework, incessantly knitting pullovers, darning socks and preparing dinner for a family of ten who would descend upon the house from all directions at differing times in the evening. Her conversations were rich in memorable guidance in the form of sayings which still crop up in my mind today when the occasion demands a moral decision. I was reminded in the last few weeks of some of them because they cropped up in various forms as I was blogging or tweeting: “It’s not what you say, it’s what you do” – “It’s not your beliefs, it’s your behaviour that defines you” and “Don’t hold on to a mistake just because you spent a long time fashioning it”! Then of course, straight out of olden days when cooking was done on a wooden fire and when one of us was being critical of another, mother would quote “the sooty pot shouldn’t call the kettle black”!

Today, I belatedly read in ‘L’Osservatore Romano’ the text of an address made by Pope Francis on the occasion of the World Congress: ‘Child Dignity in the Digital World’ – on the 6th October 2017. He said “A society can be judged by the way it treats children”. I have no “beef” with that whatsoever. He went on to say something else – with which I am in full accord also – “Every child’s life is unique, meaningful and precious and every child has a right to dignity and safety. Yet today, global society is failing its children. Millions of children are being abused and exploited in tragic and unspeakable ways, and on an unprecedented scale all over the world”.

And the Pope continued, “While undoubtedly the Internet creates numerous benefits and opportunities in terms of social inclusion and educational attainment, today, content that is increasingly extreme and dehumanizing is available literally at children’s fingertips. The proliferation of social media means insidious acts, such as cyberbullying, harassment and sextortion, are becoming commonplace. Specifically, the range and scope of child sexual abuse and exploitation online is shocking. Vast numbers of sexual abuse images of children and youth are available online and continue to grow unabated”.

That all needed to be said, and the Pope, considered to be one of the prominent moral leaders in the world, is of the right stature to endorse it for other leaders to adopt. Or, is he? Is not the ‘pot calling the kettle black’ in this instance. Day by day we hear meaningful words from clerics relating to child sexual abuse that are not supported by action. The Vatican has many Canons regarding crimes of sexual abuse by clerics:
The Canons allow for clerics who have sexually abused children to be handed over to the civil authorities for investigation. Few Bishops and even fewer Religious leaders do so. The Canons demand that all offences by clerics against the sixth Commandment are to be reported to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), but compliance with the Canon is regarded as optional by many. If a cleric admits to the sexual abuse of a child, the Canons require that again that the offence is to be reported to CDF and, following validation of the allegation, a recommendation should then be made for the dismissal of the cleric by a Papal Decree. It is also stated in the Canons that after such an admission, if retained within the Church (because of age or infirmity etc) the cleric, if a priest, should never celebrate Mass in public again, but that is ignored by some hierarchs. It is pretty obvious too, that a cleric who has abused a child should no longer be in a position to abuse another. Bishops and Religious leaders ignore that as well.

For example, in the case of priests of the Comboni Missionary Order, I know of one priest who was incardinated into an Italian parish, one who was sent to Uganda to manage the Catholic Boy Scouts, another who was sent to a parish in Uganda where he established a school. I know of yet another placed in a similar situation in another African State. All of these priests were given further access to children. Indeed, following the recall of one priest from Africa to answer allegations of child sexual abuse and his admission of the facts, it was intended by the Comboni Missionary Order to dispatch him back to his African parish whence he came. It was only following the insistence of the Victim that the Order had second thoughts and restrained him in their Verona Mother House. (Well not altogether it so happens, but that is another story).

In a nutshell, from the dioceses to the Religious houses to the Vatican there is a lot of bluster about child sexual abuse and how clerics should be managed – and how victims of clerical sexual abuse should be treated, but in the vast majority of cases it is just “bluster”. Bishops, Religious Superiors, Vatican officiados from the Prefects of Congregations down to their junior clerics just carry on as normal. Indeed, many of them, regrettably, are ‘mavericks’. Sadly too, Pope Francis, is shielded from reality by Papal courtiers by the dozen and he appears to be very much a puppet with no independent voice of his own. He responds to the tug on his strings that are pulled by others in his Court.

The moral voice of the Papacy needs to be heard in this world, but it must put its own house in good order before the world will listen. For the moment the world has stopped listening and so has the worldwide flock who are deserting Catholicism in droves. In a crisis of failed moral authenticity – such as that which the Roman Catholic Church faces in respect to the demonstrable mismanagement of issues relating to child sexual abuse – you either repair the leak in the dyke or you will be drowned by the wave of the inevitable tsunami.

COMBONI MISSIONARY ORDER: HOW COULD HE DO IT? – HOW DO THEY (THE CLERICS OF THE COMBONI ORDER) SLEEP AT NIGHT?

I was working yesterday with a thirteen year old vulnerable and frightened child.

When I was with this child, I could not help but ask myself: “how could he do it?”
How could Comboni, Father Romano Nardo, plan and groom and use deceit on me – a vulnerable and frightened fourteen year old child – for his own sexual gratification?

Driving back home, I could not escape from this thought: ‘how could he do it?’ In my mind I looked at the child I had just spent time with, and felt total disgust and despair about what had happened to me and my fellow seminarians at Mirfield.

What disturbs and upsets me more than anything in this whole sordid affair is the thought that our perpetrators’ actions were based around how best to sexually abuse children – and they planned it in detail.

Father Romano Nardo planned his abuse on me; gradually grooming and working on me, and using me and abusing me; getting to know my family and also abusing them and their hospitality.

That is why, when I asked Father Nardo: “can I wash you Father?” his answer – and it is as clear now, as it was then – was: “I was waiting for you to ask that.” Yes, Nardo planned his abuse, and he groomed me well.

What is the response and action of the Comboni Order towards the Comboni Survivor Group? Their response, as it always has been, is: “Discredit the survivors’ testimony, support the prelate in question, and bank on public attention moving on to something else.”

I ask the Combonis this question – the very question that I asked the Vice Superior of the Comboni Mother House in Verona in April 2015: “How do you sleep at night?”

I know the Vice Superior’s answer – it was: “I sleep very well,” – I do not know the answer of other Combonis. I suspect, though, that a lot of them will answer: “I sleep very well,”

Mark Murray – a Member of the Comboni Survivor Group.

In January 2014 I telephoned Bishop Scicluna in Malta, and spoke about the sexual abuse I had suffered, and the sexual abuse that other children had suffered, by the Comboni Missionary Order of Verona at their junior seminary in Mirfield, England.

I told Bishop Scicluna that i had written a letter to the Pope about the Mirfield abuse. Bishop Scicluna informed me that he was meeting Pope Francis the following week, and he asked me to email him the letter so that he could deliver it to Pope Francis.

Bishop Scicluna said he would also talk with Pope Francis about the abuse of other chidren at the Comboni Missionary Junior Seminary at Mirfield.

The letter I emailed Bishop Scicluna is written below.

From: Mark Murray
To: “bp.scicluna ………..
Sent: Monday, 27 January 2014, 14:50
Subject: Father Romano Nardo (Comboniani Missionary) and historical abuse.

Dear Pope Francis,

I have been striving for justice and inner peace because of the abuse i suffered at the hands of the Comboni Fathers (Verona Fathers).

The abuse happened at their junior seminary in Mirfield, Yorkshire, England.

The Vatican says it is changing how the victims of abuse are treated – that is not the case with me. I have lost a large part of my life because of the abuse. I have for many years lived with the abuse, believing that because I was abused, i too, would go on and abuse. When my children were born, i was, because of the abuse that Fr.Romano Nardo put me through, living in fear that i, too, would begin to abuse my children.

I have been in Psychiatric units because of my suicide ideation, i have lost my job because of my depression, anxiety and PTSD. My relationship with my wife has been massively effected and consequently this has had an effect on my children.

I have written lots of letters to the Comboni Fathers, both to Italy and to the UK. All replies indicate or have the same theme,that,”we are sorry you feel this way.” I have asked to be allowed to go to Verona and meet the priest as a way of asking – why did you do this? I, also felt it would be a way of finding inner peace and promoting change within the Comboni Fathers.Their response “Fr.Nardo’s Psychiatrist does not think it would be in the best interest of Fr. Nardo.” What about my best interest, the victim? How do you think i feel? Do they have any idea? They did not then, and they do not now.I have all the correspondence between The Comboni Fathers and myself and if you wish you can see it.I have been to the police in the UK. Three months ago, they asked Fr. Nardo to return to the UK for questioning. The Comboni’s said he was too ill – even though he was a priest and working in the Comboni Hospital in their Mother House in Verona.
They moved him, more or less immediately to a psychiatric clinic where he cannot be contacted, questioned or extradited. I have been told that he feels suicidal.

They choose once again to protect him, their order and their church at the expense of my suffering and the suffering of many others. I have felt suicidal for many years and have been placed in units for my own safety.

The Combonis promised me that Nardo would never be working around children – he would only ever work around the ill and the infirmed in the Comboni Hospital and would take no part in priestly duties.How do you think i felt when I saw This?

https://t.co/Mx3tHhEvv8?amp=1

In 2011, I believed i was the only person that was abused at the Junior Seminary. I set up a blog to see if anyone else would come forward – many have. Have a look at veronafathersmirfield.com

Their aim, the VF’s aim, the Comboni Father’s aim, since 1997, when I first brought it to their attention that Nardo was an abuser and had abused me, has always been to protect Nardo.

Is there anything you can suggest?

Best wishes Pope Francis,

Have a long, happy and fruitful Pontificate

Mark Murray

Foundation of Francis’ Papacy Could Crumble

With Scicluna Investigating Chile’s Barros,
Trust Hangs In The Balance.

A National Catholic Reporter Article by Ken Briggs

The Maltese archbishop has been sent on a mission that could make or break the legacy of the pope.

Archbishop Charles Scicluna bears the heavy burden of deciding whether the pope correctly proclaimed a Chilean bishop innocent of covering up a convicted priest’s sex abuses or obstructed justice by shunning evidence of the bishop’s guilt. What pope other than Francis could we imagine assigning his own special prosecutor to investigate his own words and actions? Accordingly, it wouldn’t be so surprising if Francis’ innovative and humble character accepted a censorious verdict and abjectly apologized for his errors. But that possibility lies ahead. For the moment, Francis is at the center of a controversy that raises strange and intriguing questions. The deck has been scrambled.

Francis has evoked enormous adulation on the strength of his reputation for honesty and openness. His authority stems from those qualities embodied in a gregarious, self-effacing style that preaches mercy. It rests on the integrity of his word. If it is shown to have been compromised in a major case involving clergy sex abuse, the most destructive scandal in centuries for the church, the foundation of Francis’ papacy could crumble.

Friction first emerged as the pope visited Chile in January and was petitioned by those who accuse Bishop Juan Barros of keeping silent about sex abuse crimes committed by Fr. Fernando Karadima, who was found guilty both by Chilean courts and the Vatican. The pope took umbrage at the claim by victims of Karadima that they could prove Barros had shielded the priest. He verbally swatted away their pleas to meet with him, calling their charges “slander” and “calumny,” declaring stridently that he had found the bishop blameless.

Case closed? Not as it turned out. On the flight back to Rome, Francis allowed that his categorical denial of any wrongdoing by the bishops’ might have offended victims of Karadima, though he virtually denied any damaging evidence existed. In effect, he put his reputation on the line by implying that he had arrived at an incontrovertible conclusion. With impassioned victims shouting objections to being left out of the investigation and vowing to produce proof if given the opportunity, Francis, a notable “man of the people,” left doubts behind. The kind of doubts that can come back to haunt, big time. Now all of a sudden, Scicluna is dispatched to uncover something. Were creditable witnesses against Barros ready to go public, threatening to undermine the pope’s firm judgment? Did the pope have a crisis of conscience, aware that he might have succumbed to the human temptation to do favors for friends and associates? A string of such cover-ups had wreaked havoc at the highest levels of the church. When Benedict XVI suddenly vacated the papacy five years ago, his growing despondency over handling such scandals was widely believed to be a major cause. He turned over a papacy still in the throes of the huge crisis.

Francis’ appeal was largely that he had the fullness of character and tactical skills to tackle the threats and place the church on a more even keel, even as he projected a message of hope and joy. It’s Catholicism’s tallest order and, left unfixed, can continue to empty pews and raise suspicions. At this point, his ardent supporters haven’t seen much progress but are alert to incidents which indicate his intentions. The anguish in Chile has provided that. Its implications have been magnified by the delay and the unsettling behavior of a pope who has never before lashed out at ordinary Catholics with grievances over which he has some control. As others have said, the Maltese archbishop is in a dicey spot. If he turns in strong testimony that implicates Barros, it can weaken the pope’s credibility and portray him as a pope just as prone to protect clergy as other high-ranking church officials have been. If the archbishop exonerates Barros, Francis can gain stature as a pope who stands by innocent people without counting the cost. Barros’ accusers stand on highly visible, precedent-setting ground. If their word and witness is admitted, it could offer promise to lay people who feel demeaned by the clerical class. If valid evidence is ignored, however, it will almost surely be seen as clericalism as usual.
The archbishop’s rigorous venture is an awkward trial of its own, the pope having been pressured to be second guessed and the Vatican’s special council poised between speaking truth and pleasing the boss. Everyone stands to gain or lose something significant. For the pope, trust hangs in the balance.

Victim Groups Criticize Pope Francis
Over Abuse Letter
An Associated Press Article

A lay Catholic group in southern Chile that has opposed a bishop accused of sex abuse cover-up says revelations by The Associated Press that Pope Francis heard directly from a victim about the problem “brings an end to his ‘zero tolerance’ rhetoric.” Juan Carlos Claret, a spokesman for Laicos de Osorno, said Monday that the pope and his subordinates must now answer the question of “who decided to constantly discredit the testimony of the victims.” “It’s not possible to maintain, as some do, that the pope didn’t know and that he had slanted information,” Claret said. “Instead, we’re in the presence of a pope who had full knowledge of it all, and still decides to submit a community to unspeakable suffering.”

The AP reported on Monday that Pope Francis received a victim’s letter in 2015 that graphically detailed his sexual abuse and a cover-up by Chilean church authorities – contradicting the pope’s insistence that no victims had come forward. AP obtained the letter from Chilean survivor Juan Carlos Cruz. Members of the pope’s sex-abuse advisory commission say they flew to Rome in 2015 specifically to hand-deliver the letter to a top papal adviser, Cardinal Sean O’Malley. Cruz and commission members say O’Malley assured them he had delivered it to the pope.

Francis recently sparked an outcry by vigorously defending Bishop Juan Barros, who was a protege of Father Fernando Karadima, a charismatic priest who was sanctioned by the Vatican in 2011 for sexually abusing minors. Some of the victims allege that Barros witnessed the abuse, placing him at the scene when Karadima kissed and fondled minors.
Barros has denied knowing of the abuse or covering up for Karadima.

On the flight back from his recent visit to Chile and Peru, Francis said he had never heard from victims about Barros’s behavior. “This is why I was shocked when I heard the Pope had said on the plane the Karadima victims had not come to him and he would listen if they did. I knew they had contacted him directly with this letter three years ago!” Marie Collins said in a Tweet. Collins is an abuse survivor who resigned her position on the pope’s Commission for the Protection of Minors on March 1, 2017, citing a lack of cooperation from other Vatican offices.

The head of a U.S.-based group that has compiled a clergy abuse database said the revelations point to “inexcusable dysfunction at best and willful deception at worst.” Anne Barrett Doyle is co-director of BishopAccountability.org. She said the “distressing and more likely explanation is that the pope lied.”

Pope Francis Received Sex Abuse Victim’s Letter,
Contradicting Denial

National Catholic Reporter Article by Nicole Winfield, Eva Veraga,
In co-operation with Religion News Service,The Associated Press
[Eva Vergara reported from Santiago, Chile. Yvonne Lee in Philadelphia and Jeffrey Schaeffer in Paris contributed.]

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis received a victim’s letter in 2015 that graphically detailed how a priest sexually abused him and how other Chilean clergy ignored it, contradicting the pope’s recent insistence that no victims had come forward to denounce the cover-up, the letter’s author and members of Francis’ own sex-abuse commission have told the Associated Press. The fact that Francis received the eight-page letter, obtained by the AP, challenges his insistence that he has “zero tolerance” for sex abuse and cover-ups. It also calls into question his stated empathy with abuse survivors, compounding the most serious crisis of his five-year papacy.

The scandal exploded last month when Francis’ trip to South America was marred by protests over his vigorous defense of Bishop Juan Barros, who is accused by victims of covering up the abuse by Fr. Fernando Karadima. During the trip, Francis callously dismissed accusations against Barros as “slander,” seemingly unaware that victims had placed him at the scene of Karadima’s crimes. On the plane home, confronted by an AP reporter, the pope said: “You, in all good will, tell me that there are victims, but I haven’t seen any, because they haven’t come forward.” But members of the pope’s Commission for the Protection of Minors say that in April 2015, they sent a delegation to Rome specifically to hand-deliver a letter to the pope about Barros. The letter from Juan Carlos Cruz detailed the abuse, kissing and fondling he says he suffered at Karadima’s hands, which he said Barros and others witnessed and ignored.

Four members of the commission met with Francis’ top abuse adviser, Cardinal Sean O’Malley, explained their objections to Francis’ recent appointment of Barros as a bishop in southern Chile, and gave him the letter to deliver to Francis. “When we gave him [O’Malley] the letter for the pope, he assured us he would give it to the pope and speak of the concerns,” then-commission member Marie Collins told the AP. “And at a later date, he assured us that that had been done.” Cruz, who now lives and works in Philadelphia, heard the same later that year. “Cardinal O’Malley called me after the pope’s visit here in Philadelphia and he told me, among other things, that he had given the letter to the pope — in his hands,” he said in an interview at his home Sunday. Neither the Vatican nor O’Malley responded to multiple requests for comment. While the 2015 summit of Francis’ commission was known and publicized at the time, the contents of Cruz’s letter — and a photograph of Collins handing it to O’Malley — were not disclosed by members. Cruz provided the letter, and Collins provided the photo, after reading an AP story that reported Francis had claimed to have never heard from any Karadima victims about Barros’ behavior.

The Barros affair first caused shockwaves in January 2015 when Francis appointed him bishop of Osorno, Chile, over the objections of the leadership of Chile’s bishops’ conference and many local priests and laity. They accepted as credible the testimony against Karadima, a prominent Chilean cleric who was sanctioned by the Vatican in 2011 for abusing minors. Barros was a Karadima protege, and according to Cruz and other victims, he witnessed the abuse and did nothing. “Holy Father, I write you this letter because I’m tired of fighting, of crying and suffering,” Cruz wrote in Francis’ native Spanish. “Our story is well known and there’s no need to repeat it, except to tell you of the horror of having lived this abuse and how I wanted to kill myself.” Cruz and other survivors had for years denounced the cover-up of Karadima’s crimes, but were dismissed as liars by the Chilean church hierarchy and the Vatican’s own ambassador in Santiago, who refused their repeated requests to meet before and after Barros was appointed.

After Francis’ comments backing the Chilean hierarchy caused such an outcry in Chile, he was forced last week to do an about-face: The Vatican announced it was sending in its most respected sex-crimes investigator to take testimony from Cruz and others about Barros. In the letter to the pope, Cruz begs for Francis to listen to him and make good on his pledge of “zero tolerance.” “Holy Father, it’s bad enough that we suffered such tremendous pain and anguish from the sexual and psychological abuse, but the terrible mistreatment we received from our pastors is almost worse,” he wrote. Cruz goes on to detail in explicit terms the homo-eroticized nature of the circle of priests and young boys around Karadima, the charismatic preacher whose El Bosque community in the well-to-do Santiago neighborhood of Providencia produced dozens of priestly vocations and five bishops, including Barros.He described how Karadima would kiss Barros and fondle his genitals, and do the same with younger priests and teens, and how young priests and seminarians would fight to sit next to Karadima at the table to receive his affections. “More difficult and tough was when we were in Karadima’s room and Juan Barros — if he wasn’t kissing Karadima — would watch when Karadima would touch us — the minors — and make us kiss him, saying: ‘Put your mouth near mine and stick out your tongue.’ He would stick his out and kiss us with his tongue,” Cruz told the pope. “Juan Barros was a witness to all this innumerable times, not just with me but with others as well.” “Juan Barros covered up everything that I have told you,” he added. Barros has repeatedly denied witnessing any abuse or covering it up. “I never knew anything about, nor ever imagined, the serious abuses which that priest committed against the victims,” he told the AP recently. “I have never approved of nor participated in such serious, dishonest acts, and I have never been convicted by any tribunal of such things.”

For the Osorno faithful who have opposed Barros as their bishop, the issue isn’t so much a legal matter requiring proof or evidence, as Barros was a young priest at the time and not in a position of authority over Karadima. It’s more that if Barros didn’t “see” what was happening around him and doesn’t find it problematic for a priest to kiss and fondle young boys, he shouldn’t be in charge of a diocese where he is responsible for detecting inappropriate sexual behavior, reporting it to police and protecting children from pedophiles like his mentor. Cruz had arrived at Karadima’s community in 1980 as a vulnerable teenager, distraught after the recent death of his father. He has said Karadima told him he would be like a spiritual father to him, but instead sexually abused him. Based on testimony from Cruz and other former members of the parish, the Vatican in 2011 removed Karadima from ministry and sentenced him to a lifetime of “penance and prayer” for his crimes. Now 87, he lives in a home for elderly priests in Santiago; he hasn’t commented on the scandal and the home has declined to accept calls or visits from the news media.The victims also testified to Chilean prosecutors, who opened an investigation into Karadima after they went public with their accusations in 2010. Chilean prosecutors had to drop charges because too much time had passed, but the judge running the case stressed that it wasn’t for lack of proof.While the victims’ testimony was deemed credible by both Vatican and Chilean prosecutors, the local church hierarchy clearly didn’t believe them, which might have influenced Francis’ view. Cardinal Francisco Javier Errazuriz has acknowledged he didn’t believe the victims initially and shelved an investigation. He was forced to reopen it after the victims went public. He is now one of the Argentine pope’s key cardinal advisers. By the time he finally got his letter into the pope’s hands in 2015, Cruz had already sent versions to many other people, and had tried for months to get an appointment with the Vatican ambassador. The embassy’s Dec. 15, 2014, email to Cruz — a month before Barros was appointed — was short and to the point:
“The apostolic nunciature has received the message you emailed Dec. 7 to the apostolic nuncio,” it read, “and at the same time communicates that your request has been met with an unfavorable response.” One could argue that Francis didn’t pay attention to Cruz’s letter, since he receives thousands of letters every day from faithful around the world. He can’t possibly read them all, much less remember the contents years later. He might have been tired and confused after a weeklong trip to South America when he told an airborne press conference that victims never came forward to accuse Barros of cover-up.But this was not an ordinary letter, nor were the circumstances under which it arrived in the Vatican.

Francis had named O’Malley, the archbishop of Boston, to head his Commission for the Protection of Minors based on his credibility in having helped clean up the mess in Boston after the U.S. sex abuse scandal exploded there in 2002. The commission gathered outside experts to advise the church on protecting children from pedophiles and educating church personnel about preventing abuse and cover-ups.The four commission members who were on a special subcommittee dedicated to survivors had flown to Rome specifically to speak with O’Malley about the Barros appointment and to deliver Cruz’s letter. A press release issued after the April 12, 2015, meeting read: “Cardinal O’Malley agreed to present the concerns of the subcommittee to the Holy Father.” Commission member Catherine Bonnet, a French child psychiatrist who took the photo of Collins handing the letter to O’Malley, said the commission members had decided to descend on Rome specifically when O’Malley and other members of the pope’s group of nine cardinal advisers were meeting, so that O’Malley could put it directly into the pope’s hands. “Cardinal O’Malley promised us when Marie gave to him the letter of Juan Carlos that he will give to Pope Francis,” she said. O’Malley’s spokesman in Boston referred requests for comment to the Vatican. Neither the Vatican press office, nor officials at the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, responded to calls and emails seeking comment.
But O’Malley’s remarkable response to Francis’ defense of Barros and to his dismissal of the victims while he was in Chile, is perhaps now better understood. In a rare rebuke of a pope by a cardinal, O’Malley issued a statement Jan. 20 in which he said the pope’s words were “a source of great pain for survivors of sexual abuse,” and that such expressions had the effect of abandoning victims and relegating them to “discredited exile.”A day later, Francis apologized for having demanded “proof” of wrongdoing by Barros, saying he meant merely that he wanted to see “evidence.” But he continued to describe the accusations against Barros as “calumny” and insisted he had never heard from any victims. Even when told in his airborne press conference Jan. 21 that Karadima’s victims had indeed placed Barros at the scene of Karadima’s abuse, Francis said: “No one has come forward. They haven’t provided any evidence for a judgment. This is all a bit vague. It’s something that can’t be accepted.”He stood by Barros, saying: “I’m certain he’s innocent,” even while saying that he considered the testimony of victims to be “evidence” in a cover-up investigation. “If anyone can give me evidence, I’ll be the first to listen,” he said.
Cruz said he felt like he had been slapped when he heard those words. “I was upset,” he said, “and at the same time I couldn’t believe that someone so high up like the pope himself could lie about this.”

Despite Denial,
Pope Francis Got Chilean Abuse Victim’s Letter
A‘CRUX’ Article by Nicole Winfield and Eva Vergara
Vergara reported from Santiago, Chile. Yvonne Lee in Philadelphia and Jeffrey

Marie Collins, a member of the pope’s sex-abuse commission, handed a letter to Cardinal Sean O’Malley detailing the abuse of Juan Carlos Cruz and a cover-up by Chilean church authorities, at the Domus Santa Marta on April 12, 2015. Commission members and Cruz say O’Malley later confirmed he gave the letter to Pope Francis, contradicting the pope’s recent insistence that no victims had come forward. Pope Francis received a victim’s letter in 2015 that graphically detailed how a priest sexually abused him and how other Chilean clergy ignored it, contradicting the pope’s recent insistence that no victims had come forward to denounce the cover-up, the letter’s author and members of Francis’s own sex- abuse commission have told The Associated Press.

The fact that Francis received the eight-page letter, obtained by The Associated Press, challenges his insistence that he has “zero tolerance” for sex abuse and cover-ups. It also calls into question his stated empathy with abuse survivors, compounding the most serious crisis of his five-year papacy. The scandal exploded last month when Francis’s trip to South America was marred by protests over his vigorous defense of Bishop Juan Barros, who is accused by victims of covering up the abuse of Father Fernando Karadima. During the trip, Francis callously dismissed accusations against Barros as “slander,” seemingly unaware that victims had placed him at the scene of Karadima’s crimes. On the plane home, confronted by an AP reporter, the pope said: “You, in all good will, tell me that there are victims, but I haven’t seen any, because they haven’t come forward.” But former members of the pope’s Commission for the Protection of Minors say that in April 2015, they sent a delegation to Rome specifically to hand-deliver a letter to the pope about Barros. The letter from Juan Carlos Cruz detailed the abuse, kissing and fondling he says he suffered at Karadima’s hands, which he said Barros and others witnessed and ignored.

Four members of the commission met with Francis’s top abuse adviser, Cardinal Sean O’Malley, explained their objections to Francis’s recent appointment of Barros as a bishop in southern Chile, and gave him the letter to deliver to Francis.

“When we gave him (O’Malley) the letter for the pope, he assured us he would give it to the pope and speak of the concerns,” then-commission member Marie Collins told the AP. “And at a later date, he assured us that that had been done.” Cruz, who now lives and works in Philadelphia, heard the same later that year. “Cardinal O’Malley called me after the pope’s visit here in Philadelphia and he told me, among other things, that he had given the letter to the pope – in his hands,” he said in an interview at his home Sunday.

Neither the Vatican nor O’Malley responded to multiple requests for comment.

While the 2015 summit of Francis’s commission was known and publicized at the time, the contents of Cruz’s letter – and a photograph of Collins handing it to O’Malley – were not disclosed by members. Cruz provided the letter, and Collins provided the photo, after reading an AP story that reported Francis had claimed to have never heard from any of Karadima’s victims about Barros’s behavior. The Barros affair first caused shockwaves in January 2015 when Francis appointed him bishop of Osorno, Chile, over the objections of the leadership of Chile’s bishops’ conference and many local priests and laity. They accepted as credible the testimony against Karadima, a prominent Chilean cleric who was sanctioned by the Vatican in 2011 for abusing minors. Barros was a Karadima protege, and according to Cruz and other victims, he witnessed the abuse and did nothing.

“Holy Father, I write you this letter because I’m tired of fighting, of crying and suffering,” Cruz wrote in Francis’s native Spanish. “Our story is well known and there’s no need to repeat it, except to tell you of the horror of having lived this abuse and how I wanted to kill myself.” Cruz and other survivors had for years denounced the cover-up of Karadima’s crimes, but were dismissed as liars by the Chilean Church hierarchy and the Vatican’s own ambassador in Santiago, who refused their repeated requests to meet before and after Barros was appointed.After Francis’s comments backing the Chilean hierarchy caused such an outcry in Chile, he was forced last week to do an about-face: The Vatican announced it was sending in its most respected sex-crimes investigator to take testimony from Cruz and others about Barros.In the letter to the pope, Cruz begs for Francis to listen to him and make good on his pledge of “zero tolerance.” “Holy Father, it’s bad enough that we suffered such tremendous pain and anguish from the sexual and psychological abuse, but the terrible mistreatment we received from our pastors is almost worse,” he wrote.

Cruz goes on to detail in explicit terms the homo-eroticized nature of the circle of priests and young boys around Karadima, the charismatic preacher whose El Bosque community in the well-to-do Santiago neighborhood of Providencia produced dozens of priestly vocations and five bishops, including Barros.

He described how Karadima would kiss Barros and fondle his genitals, and do the same with younger priests and teens, and how young priests and seminarians would fight to sit next to Karadima at the table to receive his affections. “More difficult and tough was when we were in Karadima’s room and Juan Barros – if he wasn’t kissing Karadima – would watch when Karadima would touch us – the minors – and make us kiss him, saying: ‘Put your mouth near mine and stick out your tongue.’ He would stick his out and kiss us with his tongue,” Cruz told the pope. “Juan Barros was a witness to all this innumerable times, not just with me but with others as well.” “Juan Barros covered up everything that I have told you,” he added. Barros has repeatedly denied witnessing any abuse or covering it up. “I never knew anything about, nor ever imagined, the serious abuses which that priest committed against the victims,” he told the AP recently. “I have never approved of nor participated in such serious, dishonest acts, and I have never been convicted by any tribunal of such things.”

For the Osorno faithful who have opposed Barros as their bishop, the issue isn’t so much a legal matter requiring proof or evidence, as Barros was a young priest at the time and not in a position of authority over Karadima. It’s more that if Barros didn’t “see” what was happening around him and doesn’t find it problematic for a priest to kiss and fondle young boys, he shouldn’t be in charge of a diocese where he is responsible for detecting inappropriate sexual behavior, reporting it to police and protecting children from pedophiles like his mentor. Cruz had arrived at Karadima’s community in 1980 as a vulnerable teenager, distraught after the recent death of his father. He has said Karadima told him he would be like a spiritual father to him, but instead sexually abused him.

Based on testimony from Cruz and other former members of the parish, the Vatican in 2011 removed Karadima from ministry and sentenced him to a lifetime of “penance and prayer” for his crimes. Now 87, he lives in a home for elderly priests in Santiago; he hasn’t commented on the scandal and the home has declined to accept calls or visits from the news media.

The victims also testified to Chilean prosecutors, who opened an investigation into Karadima after they went public with their accusations in 2010. Chilean prosecutors had to drop charges because too much time had passed, but the judge running the case stressed that it wasn’t for lack of proof. While the victims’ testimony was deemed credible by both Vatican and Chilean prosecutors, the local Church hierarchy clearly didn’t believe them, which might have influenced Francis’s view. Cardinal Francisco Javier Errazuriz has acknowledged he didn’t believe the victims initially and shelved an investigation. He was forced to reopen it after the victims went public. He is now one of the Argentine pope’s key cardinal advisers. By the time he finally got his letter into the pope’s hands in 2015, Cruz had already sent versions to many other people, and had tried for months to get an appointment with the Vatican ambassador. The embassy’s Dec. 15, 2014, email to Cruz – a month before Barros was appointed – was short and to the point: “The apostolic nunciature has received the message you emailed Dec. 7 to the apostolic nuncio,” it read, “and at the same time communicates that your request has been met with an unfavorable response.”

One could argue that Francis didn’t pay attention to Cruz’s letter, since he receives thousands of letters every day from faithful around the world. He can’t possibly read them all, much less remember the contents years later. He might have been tired and confused after a weeklong trip to South America when he told an airborne press conference that victims never came forward to accuse Barros of cover-up. But this was not an ordinary letter, nor were the circumstances under which it arrived in the Vatican. Francis had named O’Malley, the archbishop of Boston, to head his Commission for the Protection of Minors based on his credibility in having helped clean up the mess in Boston after the U.S. sex abuse scandal exploded there in 2002. The commission gathered outside experts to advise the church on protecting children from pedophiles and educating church personnel about preventing abuse and cover-ups. The four commission members who were on a special subcommittee dedicated to survivors had flown to Rome specifically to speak with O’Malley about the Barros appointment and to deliver Cruz’s letter. A press release issued after the April 12, 2015, meeting read: “Cardinal O’Malley agreed to present the concerns of the subcommittee to the Holy Father.”

Commission member Catherine Bonnet, a French child psychiatrist who took the photo of Collins handing the letter to O’Malley, said the commission members had decided to descend on Rome specifically when O’Malley and other members of the pope’s group of nine cardinal advisers were meeting, so that O’Malley could put it directly into the pope’s hands. “Cardinal O’Malley promised us when Marie gave to him the letter of Juan Carlos that he will give to Pope Francis,” she said.O’Malley’s spokesman in Boston referred requests for comment to the Vatican. Neither the Vatican press office, nor officials at the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, responded to calls and emails seeking comment. But O’Malley’s remarkable response to Francis’s defense of Barros and to his dismissal of the victims while he was in Chile, is perhaps now better understood. In a rare rebuke of a pope by a cardinal, O’Malley issued a statement Jan. 20 in which he said the pope’s words were “a source of great pain for survivors of sexual abuse,” and that such expressions had the effect of abandoning victims and relegating them to “discredited exile.”

A day later, Francis apologized for having demanded “proof” of wrongdoing by Barros, saying he meant merely that he wanted to see “evidence.” But he continued to describe the accusations against Barros as “calumny” and insisted he had never heard from any victims.
Even when told in his airborne press conference Jan. 21 that Karadima’s victims had indeed placed Barros at the scene of Karadima’s abuse, Francis said: “No one has come forward. They haven’t provided any evidence for a judgment. This is all a bit vague. It’s something that can’t be accepted.” He stood by Barros, saying: “I’m certain he’s innocent,” even while saying that he considered the testimony of victims to be “evidence” in a cover-up investigation. “If anyone can give me evidence, I’ll be the first to listen,” he said.

Cruz said he felt like he had been slapped when he heard those words. “I was upset,” he said, “and at the same time I couldn’t believe that someone so high up like the pope himself could lie about this.”

Clericalism, Celibacy and Child Sexual Abuse In the Catholic Church in Australia

DES CAHILL and PETER WILKINSON.

Emeritus Professor Des Cahill and Dr Peter Wilkinson are both Catholic priests who resigned from ministry and married. They were consultants to the Royal Commission and co-authored a recently released five-year RMIT University study on Child Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church. Their report can be read online at:

Click to access child-sex-abuse-and-the-catholic-church.pdf

The Final Report of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse was published on 15 December 2017. Among its 409 recommendations was one which is proving controversial, namely, the introduction of voluntary celibacy for diocesan priests. There are compelling reasons why the Commission chose to urge a change to a long-held tradition.

The Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has recommended that the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference (ACBC) formally petition Pope Francis to allow voluntary celibacy for diocesan priests (Rec. 16, 18). This is unsurprising, given the overwhelming scientific and evidentiary material that it has considered. Also unsurprising was the Commission’s repetition of its previous recommendation that the ACBC seek clarification from the Holy See on matters related to the seal of confession.

Initially the Commissioners were quite tentative about whether it would be more appropriate for them to be making recommendations regarding canon law and other sensitive church matters. When they expressed their hesitation directly to the metropolitan archbishops in the Case Study 50 public hearings in February 2017, Archbishop Coleridge of Brisbane reassured them that “it would be very appropriate for the Royal Commission to make whatever recommendation they judge to be in the best interests of children and therefore the best interests of the Church” and that “he personally would welcome any suggestions or recommendations that the Royal Commission would present”. As the Commission commented in the Final Report, “There may be leaders and members of some institutions who resent the intrusion of the Royal Commission into their affairs. However, if the problems we have identified are to be adequately addressed, changes must be made to the culture, structure and governance practices of institutions. A failure to act will inevitably lead to the continuing sexual abuse of children, some of whom will suffer lifelong harm. That harm can be devastating for the individual. It also has a cost to the entire Australian community.”

The Australian Royal Commission has been the world’s most thorough examination ever of clerical sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. In its breadth and depth, it surpasses all 26 other major inquiries in Belgium, Canada, Ireland, the Netherlands, the UK and the US. It is comprised of 17 volumes with 7,323 pages. It found that criminality against children by Catholic priests and religious was nested in a culture of destructive clericalism.

Clerical Sexual Offending
In a series of scarifying results comparable to the US evidence, the Royal Commission found that between 1950 and 2012, one in thirteen diocesan priests, one in seventeen religious order priests and an estimated one in eight religious brothers sexually offended against children. The offending was worst in the regional dioceses of Sale, followed by Sandhurst (Bendigo), Port Pirie and Lismore and least in the archdiocese of Adelaide. It was even more horrific in some of the residential settings run by the religious Brothers of St John of God and the Christian Brothers.

Altogether there were 572 Catholic priest offenders and 597 religious brother offenders. There were some, but few, offending sisters. Over 3000 survivors alleged that these priests and religious had sexually abused them when they were children. All these offenders had promised or vowed never to engage in sexual acts, abuse or otherwise, with another person, and never to marry.
Anglican ordained ministers (a total of 247) also offended, mainly in Anglican grammar schools, particularly boarding schools. Major issues in the Church of England Boys’ Society, especially in Tasmania, Sydney and Adelaide, surpassed those in the Evangelical wing of the Australian Anglican Church where ministers were ordained into the Anglo-Catholic tradition, which the Commission described as authoritarian, opposed to the ordination of women, exalting in the authority of the priest and making an unhealthy separation between clergy and lay people. The Uniting Church also had offending ministers, but only three had been convicted since 1950. However, no other major religious group in Australia came close to the level of Catholic criminality, although in some smaller groups, particularly the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Salvation Army, there were significant problems.

Sexual offending against children can be traced back to the earliest years of Christianity. It has always been a problem, especially where celibacy has been enforced. It was an early problem in the Catholic Church in Australia. When some religious sisters of the congregation founded by Mother (now Saint) Mary MacKillop, discovered in 1870 that the Franciscan parish priest in Kapunda, a parish of the Adelaide Diocese, was sexually abusing children and reported it, a cabal of his fellow Franciscans prevailed on the Franciscan bishop of Adelaide to excommunicate Mother Mary. Later on during World War Two, Archbishop Beovich of Adelaide suppressed a small male religious order in the suburb of Thebarton because of their sexual abuse of vulnerable children in their care.
In navigating its way through the waters of religious freedom and its limits, the Royal Commission could only recommend that the Australian bishops submit to the Holy See a proposal for a change to the law of clerical celibacy for diocesan priests. Any decision on the matter can only be made by the Pope. The Commission was well aware that its recommendations cannot apply to another sovereign state and that there would be criticism about its recommendations as attacks on religious freedom. However, the right to religious freedom is a relative, not an absolute, right. Individuals have the freedom to be bigoted or to sexually abuse, but not the right. The State has the responsibility to protect itself against bad religion or bad religious practices in order to maintain public safety, good order, health and the morals of its people. While the State can make accommodations where deemed appropriate (e.g. Sikhs wearing the sacred dagger), the civil and criminal law in a secular, democratic society that respects the rights of all must generally over-ride religious law, whether it be Anglican Church law, Catholic canon law, Jewish religious law or Islamic Shari’ah law. A healthy society needs healthy religion.

Celibacy and clericalism
The Commission has made two other recommendations on celibacy: 1) that all Catholic religious institutes in Australia implement measures to address the risks of harm to children and the potential psychological and sexual dysfunction associated with a celibate rule of religious life (Rec. 16, 19); and 2) that the ACBC and all religious institutes in Australia further develop and regularly evaluate and continually improve their processes for selecting, screening and training candidates for priestly and religious life, as well as their processes for ongoing formation, support and supervision (Rec. 16, 20). Both are designed to encourage and protect a mature and healthy celibate commitment to God for the service of the community. The Commission carefully acknowledged that ‘such a personal choice is valid and to be respected’ and stated that having consecrated celibate religious persons supported by a caring community life was desirable.

While the evidence supporting the recommendation to vary the rule of clerical celibacy was overwhelming, the Commission wrestled with the question as to whether celibacy had been ‘a direct cause’ of child sexual abuse. It was clearly convinced that it was ‘a significant factor’ in this Catholic catastrophe, especially when combined with other risk factors. The Commission was impressed by the evidence of the Irish psychotherapist, Marie Keenan and her indictment of the Church, its structures and ‘hegemonic masculinity’. Her much cited study was supported by the research of many others, including the priest psychiatrists and researchers such as Richard Sipe and Stephen Rossetti in the US, Eugene Drewermann in Germany and David Ranson in Australia. Other important studies came from the University of Sydney, RMIT University, the Ulm University Hospital, the Boston University School of Medicine and Marquette University in Milwaukee.

The Royal Commission found that, aside from the important individual factors such as psychosexual immaturity and mal-development, lack of intimacy and sexual deprivation, the key variable amongst the structural and cultural factors was clericalism. In its view, the very high occurrence of sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests and religious and the inadequate handling of abuse complaints by Catholic bishops and religious superiors were elements of the same incubating clericalist culture. It found that clericalism within the Catholic Church is characterised by several outstanding identifiers:

 The sacramental belief that the priest is an ‘ontologically changed’ sacred personage. It was this belief that led to unregulated power and an unquestioned trust which was able to be exploited by priest perpetrators and deceiving bishops. The Commission noted that offenders were caught in a vortex of unregulated public power and their own powerlessness within church structures, and that the nature of Church power was highly genderised.

 The theological view that the Catholic Church is a two-tiered ‘perfect society’, with the clergy placed on pedestals and the rights of the child completely neglected. This was extended to the beliefs that the Church is above the State, canon law outranks state/civil law and that the Church has nothing to learn from the outside world.

 Some bishops and clergy, hiding behind their clericalism facade, lived in ‘a kind of clerical bubble’, catastrophically failing to understand their obligations under civil and criminal law, and being fundamentally opposed to transparency, accountability and collaboration. The Commission observed that many priests were narcissistic in their thought and actions.

 The concentration of personal power in the bishops as ‘little monarchs’ in their own dioceses meant they had few checks and balances and no separation of powers. Their key concern was the avoidance of scandal and the maintenance of the culture of secrecy. The exclusion of lay people, especially women, impacted negatively on good governance and decision-making.

 The flawed selection of bishops was a key factor according to the Commission. The criteria seemed to be their perceived orthodoxy and deferential obedience, together with their limited training and education for Catholic leadership. The Commission has recommended that the Australian bishops request the Holy See to publish the selection criteria and that lay people be involved in the selection process.

 The Commission bemoaned the lack of consultative, inclusive and transparent models of governance of dioceses and religious institutes.
The Royal Commission also noted its concern about the current resurgence of clericalism in some Catholic seminaries and amongst younger clergy.

Already across Australia, Catholic schools have responded very well to the abuse crisis. With a succession of policies and practices, and now run almost completely by lay teaching professionals, mostly married but with many gay teachers, Catholic children are now being educated in very safe institutions.
For most ordinary Catholics, a determination by the Holy See to allow married men to be ordained and tp minister as diocesan Catholic priests would be a momentous pastoral decision, but one likely to be welcomed and readily accepted. Australian Catholics are already accepting of former Anglican married clergy now working in many local parishes.

Moving forward

Overcoming this Catholic catastrophe will require new ways of thinking about a more diverse, flexible and professional priesthood, and about sexuality and gender amongst other things. The Church has to become a much more professional operation, overcoming the lack of ethical professionalism that has characterised the behaviour of bishops and priests in the sexual abuse crisis.

Transitioning to a more inclusive and flexible priesthood will need to be carefully managed and calibrated because up until now consecrated celibacy has been the linchpin of the clericalist system. Voluntary celibacy will not be a panacea, but it can give hope and strength to a renewed Church over the coming decades. The Catholic Truth, Justice and Healing Council which played an excellent facilitating and mediating role during the Royal Commission has already urged the government to implement all its recommendations. At the same time the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference must move quickly to implement all the carefully considered recommendations that apply to the Catholic Church in Australia, but above all in a transparent, accountable and synodal manner.