Germany’s sex abuse scandal within the Catholic Church has finally reached the Pope. As Archbishop of Munich, 1977-1982, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger allegedly allowed a priest suspected of having abused a child to return to pastoral work in the 1980s. The archdiocese said the chaplain, identified only as H., underwent therapy for suspected "sexual relations with boys." In nearby Grafing, the same priest was suspended 3 years later in 1985, following new accusations of sexual abuse. The following year, he was convicted of sexually abusing minors.
Ireland too is reeling from the scandals of abuse at the hands of officials within the Irish church. With approximately 170 priests in question in the Archdiocese of Dublin alone, Ireland was the first country in Europe to confront the church's worldwide custom of shielding pedophile priests from the law and public scandal. The legacy of both abusers and victims is now surfacing across many European countries; the Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland, and Italy. Analysts are now beginning to wonder if a likely tide of lawsuits will force European dioceses to declare bankruptcy like their American cousins.
Saturday, the Vatican denounced “aggressive attempts to drag Pope Benedict XVI into the spreading scandals of pedophile priests in his German homeland.” According to Rev. Fergus O'Donoghue, editor of the Irish Jesuit journal Studies; “The pope was no different to any other bishop at the time. The church policy was to keep it all quiet – to help people, but to avoid scandal. Avoiding scandal was a huge issue for the church," "Of course there was cover-up," he added. But worse was "the systematic lack of concern for the victims."
Nothing’s changed. As a victim of sexual abuse as a child (not by anyone in the church), I sat in the pew at mass in 2001, waiting to hear what the church would say about the breaking American scandal. I was appalled to hear the pulpit directives - that Catholics should be “praying that the Church will overcome and withstand the demeaning and untrue accusations by the press.” There was not a single word said at that time about praying that the victims could somehow, someway, escape the psychological hell they had been sentenced to for life at the hands of priests and church policy. In 2002, as I sat watching the 60 Minutes reports about the vast and far reaching American scandal, I determined to never again support any actions of any kind of the Catholic Church. Apparently, I wasn’t alone.
The pope, meanwhile, continues to be harshly criticized for a 2001 Vatican policy letter he sent to all bishops advising them that all cases of sexual abuse of minors must be forwarded to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and that the cases were to be subject to pontifical secret. As most sexual abuse victims, including this one, will tell you; one of the worst aspects of facing both pre and post events of abuse is the propagation of secrets, lies, and cover-ups that protect the abuser and abandon, if not outright blame, the victims. I can only imagine the hell these victims have and continue to endure for the church’s sake and convenience of avoiding scandal, exposure, and the loss of church property and money. Never mind about the unrecoverable legacy of lost innocence, lost childhood, and irreparable damage done to the hearts and psyche’s of the victims. No matter what, the “church,” and apparently, the “show,” must go on.
