Vatican's Abuse Guidelines: Action or Window Dressing?
The Vatican's Guidelines to Bishops for dealing with claims of priest sexual abuse has now been released.
Cardinal William Joseph Levada, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, also released a brief letter accompanying the Guidelines.
Levada says that the Guidelines were drafted to "...facilitate the correct application" of the Pope's previous instructions.
Deadline
It is interesting that the Vatican has imposed a deadline on Bishop's to respond. They are required to: "... send a copy of the completed Guidelines to the Congregation by the end of May 2012".
So it appears that the Vatican wants to know what the various Bishops are doing and may even be planning on offering feedback or suggestions to the plans proposed by each Diocese.
Obeying the Law not Mandatory
But the Vatican stops short of ordering the Bishops to comply with laws requiring the reporting of sexual abuse of minors. The Guidelines state:
"Specifically, without prejudice to the sacramental internal forum, the prescriptions of civil law regarding the reporting of such crimes to the designated authority should always be followed".[Emphasis added]Unfortunately the Vatican has missed yet another opportunity to take decisive action to address the sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic church.
The Guidelines recognize that child abuse is a crime. But the Vatican isn't prepared to require Bishops to report crimes of sexual abuse.
Action or Window Dressing: What do you think?
By recommending that Bishops "should" comply with laws requiring reporting of crimes against children, instead of emphatically stating that Bishops MUST comply with the law, the Vatican shows that these Guidelines are more in the nature of a public relations exercise, rather than a legitimate attempt to address sexual abuse by priests.
Comments
In "Politics and the English Language," (1946) George Orwell says "In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible."
Sixty-five years later the Vatican's Guidelines and Levada's letter were written to defend the indefensible.
The Vatican's "Guidelines to Bishops" uses inexact language and the passive voice to say almost nothing in 2,128 words. The document talks about "appropriate" responses and "appropriate" measures but never defines or explains "appropriate."
The word "should" is used more than eight times, "ought" eight times, and the word "must" is never used.
The "Guidelines" needs to be edited and revised so it says something instead of a lot of nothing.
I am seriously considering editing and revising the document and sending it to The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops
Posted by: Veronica Abbass | May 16, 2011 2:07 PM
Your headline question answers itself correctly. Window Dressing and more deceit and temporary wiggle room. Eventually international law will catch up with this corrupt institution. "By their fruits shall ye know them". We are called to be fruit inspectors. It has taken sixteen centuries of rot to bring these issues to a head.
Posted by: DR. HENRY | May 16, 2011 2:32 PM
Please let us not forget Cardinal Levada's personal history with overseeing policies regarding clergy sex abuse of children. While Archbishop of San Francisco, William Cardinal Levada appointed Father Gregory Ingels as his chief canon lawyer.
In 2003 Father Ingels was indicted for molesting high school students, one of whom had lost her parents in a car accident. None of this stopped Levada from putting Ingels in charge.
It is mind boggling to read about what Levada thinks of anything, not to mention his advising bishops on how to respond to clergy abuse complaints. Small wonder why there is nothing in this latest gibberish about corrupt bishops passing pedophile priests around. How could there be? Levada's own record proves that he thinks pedophile priests should be promoted.
AW
Posted by: Augusta Wynn | May 16, 2011 6:32 PM