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Mixed results in the global fight against pedocriminality in the Church

"La Croix" survey shows many episcopal conferences around the world have still not implemented sex-abuse protocols Pope Francis issued three years ago

La Croix International

It’s been three years since Pope Francis issued strong directives to get the entire Church to address the issue of sexual abuse of minors and vulnerable people.

And what has been the result?

La Croix carried out a vast survey of all the bishops' conferences in the world in order to find out.

We asked them a dozen questions about how they have applied the provision found in the “motu proprio” Vos estis lux mundi, which the pope promulgated on May 9, 2019.

This apostolic letter is particularly suitable for a global analysis since it states "that procedures be universally adopted to prevent and combat these crimes that betray the trust of the faithful".

It also calls for a concrete and easily measurable step: the creation, within a year, of reporting offices in the dioceses.

A total of 26 episcopal conferences agreed to answer our questions, that is to say one fifth of the episcopates we contacted.

It is difficult to draw definitive lessons or general conclusions from the responses received. They came from France, Poland, Madagascar, even Taiwan, Japan and Russia.

Conversely, the bishops in countries such as Mexico, the United States and Belgium did not respond.

The Germans were the only ones who justified why they did not. 

"The Holy See is making a similar request. We will respond, but not through the media," they said.

From these responses, it appears that Vos estis lux mundi has had significant circulation for a document of this kind.

In addition to the most common language translations normally provided by the Holy See (French, English, Italian and Spanish), the “motu proprio” has also been put into languages as varied as Russian, Hungarian, Japanese, Indonesian, Tamil and Mandarin.

This is a special effort on the part of the episcopal conferences, which is not the case for many papal documents.

Limited accessibility

The document can be translated, but it must also be made accessible. Here, the figures are more mixed.

Only half of the bishops' conferences that responded indicate that the document is available on their website.

And there is no need to count on a paper edition either, since in three out of four countries this does not exist.

Whether in Austria, Lithuania, the Central African Republic or Myanmar, the faithful who seek information on this “motu proprio” will have to turn to resources other than those provided by their bishops.

It will be much easier in Malta, Argentina, France and Colombia.

"Dioceses or the Eparchies, individually or together, must establish within a year from the entry into force of these norms, one or more public, stable and easily accessible systems for submission of reports," the “motu proprio” says clearly.

This obligation is at the heart of Vos estis lux mundi. It was to be adhered to by June 1, 2020, but this has not happened everywhere.

The national episcopal conferences in Mali, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Mozambique acknowledge that such offices have not yet been created.

In total, one-fourth of the respondents indicated that they had not yet followed the instruction, in violation of canon law.

This figure is all the more revealing since one can legitimately imagine that it is even higher among those who refused to answer.

Some countries, such as the Central African Republic and Guatemala, have assured that these offices will be created by the end of the current calendar year.

Before being able to make a report, one must hunt down contact details

When they exist, these bodies have most often been established at the diocesan level, sometimes coupled with another, national one.

To find the contact details, the faithful are generally led to look on the Internet. More rarely, a display in the parishes is provided.

In two African countries that responded, the procedure is surprising, to say the least. 

Those who wish to access this office must ask their parish priest how to contact the reporting body. Such an arrangement does not seem to make free reporting a possibility, which calls into question the relevance of these offices.

Once the contact details have been found, the alert can, in most cases, be made by telephone or by Internet.

The episcopal conferences in some countries, such as Austria and Poland, also offer to directly meet in person with those who want to make reports.

In others, such as Papua New Guinea and Burundi, these "face-to-face" meetings seem to be the only possibility, which again does not necessarily encourage such an approach.

Have these structures and the exposure of the global reality of sexual abuse in Church settings resulted in actual reporting, and with what results?

Many episcopal conferences did not answer these questions.

"We don't have any information about this because the system works at the diocesan level," explained the Hungarian bishops' conference.

"The bishops' conference is not aware of these elements because they fall within the competence of the diocesan ordinary," the Italian conference said.

Unequal accounting of cases

The investigation highlights another blind spot in the prevention of abuse: the dominance of the bishop.

Thus, the reporting offices, the means allocated, and the treatment given to the facts reported largely depend on the local bishop. Thus, in his diocese he is in control of the place given to the prevention and fight against abuse.

Some episcopal conferences – such as in France – indicated that they have no overall figure for the number of victims identified. 

Others, on the contrary, keep national accounts. This is the situation for Bulgaria, where no cases have been identified.

In the Central African Republic and Guatemala, less than five cases have been passed on to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (as has been the rule since the early 2000s), which is in charge of investigating all cases of sexual abuse committed by clerics on minors or protected adults.

And among the bishops' conferences that have provided information to the CDF, only Poland -- which admittedly has a very large number of priests -- has identified more than ten reports. 

Between the beginning of July 2018 and the end of December 31, 2020, the Poles sent some 368 cases dating as far back as 1958 to Rome.

Have the bishops received answers from the Vatican for all the cases they sent in? Again, the data collected shows that this is a bottleneck.

Several of the bishops’ conferences that reported cases said they have not yet received a response from the Holy See, or at least not on all cases.

For example, the Polish bishops have only received a response from Rome in 186 of the 368 cases they submitted. 

This statistic illustrates the weakness of the resources at the second section of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which is in charge of handling these cases.

According to the I.Media news agency, some 500 files concerning priests accused of abusing minors arrive at the CDF every year. 

Processing them can take months and, in some cases, even years.

Additional reporting by Loup Besmond de Senneville in Rome.