Abuse survivors urge the Vatican to globalize the zero-tolerance policy it approved in the US
ROME — Survivors of clergy sex abuse urged the Vatican on Monday to extend its zero-tolerance policy, which it adopted for the US Catholic Church in 2002, to the rest of the world. that children everywhere must be protected from predatory priests.
The American standardspassed at the height of the abuse scandal there, say a priest will be permanently removed from church ministry based on even a single act of sexual abuse authorized or codified under church law.
That ‘one strike and you’re out’ policy in the US has long proven to be the strictest policy in the church. It is considered the gold standard by some, excessive by others, and imperfect but better than most by still others. It was adopted by the U.S. bishops as they tried to regain credibility after the revelations of abuse and cover-up in Boston documented by the Boston Globe’s “Spotlight” series.
Since then, the church abuse scandal has erupted worldwide, and survivors from around the world said Monday that there is no reason why U.S. standards cannot and should not be applied universally. They called for changes in the canon law and reasoned that they could be approved because the Holy See had already approved the standards for the American Church.
“Despite Pope Francis’ repeated calls for zero tolerance of abuse, his words have not yet led to real action,” said Gemma Hickey, a transgender abuse survivor and president of the global survivor network Ending Clergy Abuse.
The proposal, launched at a news conference, was hammered out during an unusual June meeting in Rome between survivors and some of the Catholic hierarchy’s top priestly experts on abuse prevention. It was described by participants at the time as a “historic collaboration” between two groups who often talk past each other, given the victims’ deep distrust of the Catholic hierarchy.
Priestly participants at that meeting included the Rev. Hans Zollner, head of the church’s premier academic think tank on safeguarding; the No. 2 in the Vatican Child Protection Advisory CouncilBishop Luis Manuel Ali Herrera; and the Dean of Canon Law of the Gregorian University, Rev. Ulrich Rhode, as well as diplomats from the American, Australian and other embassies.
However, there was apparently no one from the Vatican Legal Office, the Secretariat of State or the discipline department of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, which processes all abuse cases worldwide and largely sets policy for the application of the Church’s canon law – albeit secretly . because the cases are never published.
As a result, it was unclear what would become of the proposed policy changes, as the American standards only came about because the American bishops pushed the Vatican to adopt them, driven by their outraged flocks and insurance companies.
Nicholas Cafardi, a US canon lawyer who was originally a member of the US National Review Board that provided input for the 2002 US standards, said globalizing that policy into universal canon law would be “one of the logical next steps” that Francis would take to continue the fight against abuse.
But Cafardi, author of “Before Dallas,” about the run-up to the 2002 meeting of bishops in Dallas that approved the standards, said some bishops today chafe at the way the policy limits their authority and freedom . And in a telephone interview, he noted that even in the U.S., the standards are only in effect because U.S. bishops continue to formally ask for them to be enforced, which he said was a “weakness” in the system.
“It seems to me that a good protection would be, ‘Let’s just make this a universal law,’” Cafardi said. ‘Once you have that law, you don’t have to worry about bishops asking for it in country after country. It’s just the law.”
However, the proposal faces an uphill battle as the Vatican has repeatedly insisted in recent years on “proportionality” in its punishments for abuse, refusing to adopt a “one-size-fits-all” approach and taking into account with cultural differences in countries where abuse occurs. It is not talked about as openly as in the West.
That has resulted in apparently light sentences for even confirmed cases of abuse, which in the US would have led to a priest being permanently removed from ministry.
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