Pope Francis to Catholic church: 'act decisively' to punish pedophile priests
Doing so is necessary 'for the church and its credibility,' Francis said, according to the Vatican. It was the first time Francis publically addressed the festering sex abuse issue since he was elected last month.
By Corky Siemaszko / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Friday, April 5, 2013, 3:11 PM Comments (17)
Franco Origlia/Getty Images
Pope Francis attends his weekly audience in St. Peter's square on April 3, 2013 in Vatican City, Vatican.
Pope Francis .. http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Pope+Francis .. gave the Roman Catholic Church some marching orders Friday — "act decisively" to root out and punish pedophile priests.
Doing so is necessary "for the church and its credibility," Francis said, according to the Vatican.
It was the first time Francis publically addressed the festering sex abuse issue since he was elected last month — and he did so in a meeting with Archbishop Gerhard Müller, who heads the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which investigates perv priests.
The department should also promote "measures to protect minors, help for those who have suffered such violence in the past," the pope's statement said.
But advocates for victims of sexual abuse by priests were not impressed.
"Once again, as have happened hundreds of times already, a top Catholic official says he's asking another top Catholic official to take action about pedophile priests and complicit bishops," said Barbara Dorris of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), a U.S.-based organization. "Big deal. Actions speak louder than words."
Still, papal historian Rebecca Rist said the timing of Francis' words is significant.
"By proclaiming this message so early in his pontificate, Pope Francis is sending a very strong signal to the world that he is willing to tackle the issue head on," Rist told the London-based Telegraph newspaper.
The Catholic Church has been dogged by the pedophile priest scandal for more than a decade - and criticized for doing more to protect perverted priests than the victims.
Victim advocates in Francis' homeland of Argentina have also been pressing the pope to apologize for the church's protection for two priests who were convicted of sexually assaulting children.
Earlier this week, the Archdiocese of Milwaukee announced it would release thousands of documents related to priest sexual abuse lawsuits on July 1, including a deposition from Timothy Cardinal Dolan.
Dolan, who headed the church in Milwaukee before moving to New York City, was questioned about his decision to publicize the names of priests accused of molestation. He said he welcomes the document dump.
The pedophile priest erupted when an ailing Pope John Paul was in the final years of his reign - and when church leaders dealt with sicko priests by shuffling them from one parish to another.
His successor, Pope Benedict, was the first pope to meet with abuse victims. But Benedict disappointed victims by not disciplining church higher-ups who shielded abusive priests.
~~~ .. well, it looks Pope Francis is moving against alleged pedophiles .. in the Dominican Republic and Peru for two ..
Dominican nuncio is fired over sex abuse allegations
Ezequiel Abiu Lopez and Nicole Winfield Santo Domingo – 05 September 2013
Authorities in the Dominican Republic .. http://searchtopics.independent.ie/topic/Dominican_Republic .. will look into allegations of child sex abuse against the papal envoy to the Caribbean country, following his abrupt removal from his post by the Vatican, the attorney general said.
Attorney General Francisco Dominguez Brito was careful to note that his office is aware only of rumours about the papal nuncio, Archbishop Josef Wesolowski, and has not received any accusations.
A Vatican spokesman, the Rev Federico Lombardi, confirmed that Polish-born Dr Wesolowski had been removed from his post and that the church was conducting an investigation of him.
Mr Dominguez told reporters that he had designated a senior official to lead the investigation and co-ordinate with the Vatican.
"We will not allow anyone to use the Catholic Church or other religious institutions as a shield to commit illegal acts, especially against children," he said.
Dominican television network NCDN, citing a statement from the director of a community group, reported that Dr Wesolowski had slept in the same room as several altar boys at his beach house.
BOYS
Shortly before his removal, several residents of the mountain town of Juncalito made allegations of sexual abuse against the Rev Alberto Gil Wojciech, also Polish.
The community leader, Pedro Espinal, told reporters that Rev Wojciech took altar boys to the home of Dr Wesolowski.
Pope Francis has instructed the Vatican office that handles abuse cases to act "decisively" to protect children, help victims and take the necessary measures to punish the guilty.
Pope Francis in July also signed off on legislation criminalising child sex abuse and other sexual crimes – laws that apply to Vatican employees as well as diplomatic staff.
The whereabouts of the 65-year-old Dr Wesolowski were unknown.
He was removed a few weeks ago, Fr Lombardi said, though there was no official announcement of it in the Vatican's daily bulletin.
Gabino Miranda, auxiliary bishop in Ayacucho, Peru, has been removed from his post after allegations surfaced that he sexually abused children. Little is known at this point about the nature or number of the accusations, but church officials have confirmed to the press that Miranda’s dismissal was the result of allegations of sex abuse.
Bishop Emeritus of Chimbote Luis Bambarén told RPP Noticias that the swift action by church authorities can be credited to Pope Francis strict policies on sex abuse scandals: “It’s what the pope said— zero tolerance […] Those are very serious crimes, especially when it has to do with a bishop.”
Though early reports indicated that Miranda was a member of the ultra-conservative Catholic order Opus Dei (made famous by Dan Brown’s novel “The Da Vinci Code”), the organization denies official involvement with Miranda. In a statement to Reuters, Opus Dei said that Miranda had benefited from “spiritual assistance” from a related organization, but stated definitively that “Gabino Miranda has never been incardinated in the clergy of Prelature of Opus Dei.” The statement added that Miranda “denies any crime related to minors.”
Andina news agency reports that that legal authorities in Ayacucho have opened a formal investigation into the matter. According to RPP, Miranda, 53, was known for performing mass in Quechua.
In interviews and emails with Associated Press, the experts have questioned the pope’s pledge to hold bishops accountable and keep children safe, given the record of Bishop Juan Barros in the case of the Rev Fernando Karadima.
The five commission members spoke to AP in their personal and professional capacities and stressed that they were not speaking on behalf of the commission, which Francis formed in late 2013 and named Cardinal Seán O’Malley, the archbishop of Boston, to head.
“I am very worried,” said Dr Catherine Bonnet, a commission member, French child psychiatrist and author on child sex abuse. “Although the commission members cannot intervene with individual cases, I would like to meet with Cardinal O’Malley and other members of the commission to discuss a way to pass over our concerns to Pope Francis .. http://www.theguardian.com/world/pope-francis .”
Another commission member, Marie Collins, herself a survivor of abuse, said she could not understand how Francis could have appointed Barros, given the concerns about his behaviour.
“It goes completely against what he [Francis] has said in the past about those who protect abusers,” Collins told AP. “The voice of the survivors is being ignored, the concerns of the people and many clergy in Chile .. http://www.theguardian.com/world/chile .. are being ignored, and the safety of children in this diocese is being left in the hands of a bishop about whom there are grave concerns for his commitment to child protection.”
Barros was installed as bishop of the southern Chilean diocese of Osorno last weekend amid unprecedented opposition, and scuffles inside the cathedral by protesters who say he is unfit to lead. The demonstrators point to his close association with Karadima, a charismatic and popular priest who was sanctioned by the Vatican .. http://www.theguardian.com/world/vatican .. in 2011 for sexually abusing minors.
Three of Karadima’s victims told AP this month that Barros witnessed the abuse decades ago at the Sacred Heart of Jesus church in Santiago, the Chilean capital, and that he did nothing. They accused Barros of destroying a letter detailing allegations against Karadima that was sent to the then bishop in 1982.
Barros had long refused to comment publicly on the allegations, but on the eve of his installation insisted he did not know about any abuse until he read about the allegations in 2010 news reports.
Barros’s appointment in January sparked unprecedented opposition, in a country that is slowly coming to grips with the church sex abuse crisis that has afflicted the US, Europe and Australia in particular. More than 1,300 church members in Osorno, along with 30 priests from the diocese and 51 of Chile’s 120 members of parliament, sent letters to Francis in February urging him to rescind the appointment.
To no avail. On the eve of the 21 March installation, the Vatican embassy in Chile issued a statement expressing its full “confidence and support” in Barros and urging the church in Chile to show a spirit of “faith as well as communion” by accepting Barros as the new Osorno bishop.
His installation, however, was a scene of utter chaos, with protesters entering the cathedral, pushing and shoving and nearly coming to blows as Barros tried to walk down the aisle. Most of the diocese’s priests boycotted the event, an almost unheard-of vote of no confidence in a new bishop.
The appointment has divided Chile’s bishops’ conference, and it remains to be seen if Barros will be able to effectively govern. That said, the Holy See is loth to be bullied by popular opinion, although Francis has shown himself willing to remove bishops who have divided their local church or caused scandal.
The issue is particularly delicate for Francis, who would have known well the Karadima scandal when it broke in 2010, when he was archbishop of Buenos Aires in neighbouring Argentina. The scandal implicated his friend, the then archbishop of Santiago, Cardinal Francisco Javier Errázuriz, who admitted that he shelved an investigation into Karadima in 2005 but reopened it in 2010 as the global abuse crisis was erupting.
Francis has since made Errázuriz a member of his group of nine core cardinal advisers. Any wavering by Francis on the Barros appointment could open a Pandora’s box of renewed allegations against Errázuriz and others in the Chilean church hierarchy who dismissed allegations from victims and instead stood by Karadima.
Commission member Baroness Sheila Hollins, a psychiatrist and psychotherapist and life peer in Britain’s House of Lords, said accountability regardless of role or rank must be enforced when it comes to children being sexually abused.
“The hierarchical rank of the perpetrator must be of no consequence in evaluating the facts,” she said. “The crime of sexual violation against children and minors transcends both rank and role.”
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