THE VATICAN: The Catholic Church's definitive response on clerical sex abuse may be to take a defensive attitude, writes Paddy Agnew, in Rome.
Over the next two weeks, behind closed doors in the Vatican, a commission of eight senior senior Catholic bishops and cardinals will sit down together to hammer out a blueprint policy for the handling of clerical sex abuse cases. Their conclusions are certain to have an impact on any public inquiry, statutory or non-statutory, in Ireland or elsewhere.
They will also go a long way towards revealing just where the Holy See stands in relation to a worldwide phenomenon which, since 1995, has generated more than 5,000 reported cases of child abuse by Catholic clergy.
At issue is the Catholic Church's ability to prove that it is willing and able to react to the problem of child sex abuse by priests in a manner less concerned with protecting the institution of the church and the reputation of its priests but more with an admission of institutional culpability as well as with genuine compassion for the victims of such abuse.
No one has any doubts but that the Holy See is greatly concerned about the sex abuse crisis. In relation to Ireland, one senior Vatican figure this week told The Irish Times that "full church co-operation with any public inquiry in Ireland" will be good not just for Irish Catholics and for the victims of clerical sex abuse but also for the church itself.
Yet even now there are signs that the Catholic Church's defintive response to the problem may embody a defensive attitude and one which furthermore could lead to a full-scale clash between the requirements of canon law and state law, be it in Ireland or anywhere else.
The commission that will deliver that definitive response was set up just last week in order to revise the new sexual abuse policy formulated by the US Bishops' Conference in Dallas last June. Faced with an unprecedented public outcry in the wake of the burgeoning sex abuse crisis in the US church, the US bishops had been keen to draw up a policy that would not only prove effective but also win back the shattered confidence of both the faithful and of public opinion.
Having drawn up their so-called "norms" regarding diocesan policies and their "charter" regarding the protection of children, the US bishops then passed them on to Rome for the "recognitio", in other words for approval from head office. To no one's surprise, no such immediate approval was forthcoming, with Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, prefect of the Congregation of Bishops, last week telling the US bishops that the "norms" contained provisions that were "difficult to reconcile with the universal law of the church".
In response to the US proposals, the Vatican offered to set up a "mixed commission", comprising four senior US church figures and four senior Vatican figures. It all sounded rather like a slightly exasperated university tutor telling his student that "we'll sit down together to do it and this time we'll do it right".
Cardinal Re did not publicly spell out the areas of concern but it is no secret that the Vatican has questioned the harsh penalties proposed for offender priests, incuding automatic removal from priestly ministry without recourse to an appeals process. Furthermore, the Vatican has questioned the US policy on its wide definition of the term "sexual abuse", regarding the lack of a statute of limitations and the role of lay review boards.
If that sounds cautious, a look at the track record of the two most senior Vatican figures on the mixed commission likewise suggests a rigidly orthodox and defensive response. Those men are Colombian Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy, and Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone, secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Cardinal Hoyos earned himself unexpected worldwide publicity at a Vatican news conference last March when it fell to him to present the Pope's annual Holy Thursday letter to all priests. That was the letter in which, towards the end of the document, the Pope made reference to the sex abuse crisis, talking about his profound sense of affliction at "the sins of some of our brothers who have betrayed the grace of ordination in succumbing even to the most grievous forms of the mysterium inquitatis [mystery of evil]".
Faced with a barrage of questions, mainly from American reporters, on the sexual abuse issue, Cardinal Hoyos at first appeared to suggest the issue was of concern only to the English-speaking world. Furthermore, Cardinal Hoyos defended the church's internal disciplinary procedures, as determined by canon law. He added, however, that the church did not seek "to exempt itself from the civil law in different countries", except however where that touched on the seal of the confessional and on "secrecy linked to the exercise of the episcopal ministry and to the common pastoral good".
Archbishop Bertone set out his stall on the sex abuse crisis in an interview last March in which he gave voice to an oft-heard, off the record Vatican comment that financial motivation might be behind many of the US sex abuse allegations.
Later in the interview, he added: "Civil society has the obligation to defend its own citizens, but it must also respect the 'professional secrecy' of priests. If a priest cannot confide in his bishop because he is afraid of being denounced, it would mean that there is no more freedom of conscience".
The theology underlying statements such as those of Cardinal Hoyos and Archbishop Bertone is complex. Yet an indication of what it all might mean in practical terms came this week from one senior Vatican source who, off the record, admitted that the Holy See was firmly opposed to the handing over of all diocesan files, lock stock and barrel, to civil or police authorities.
"They (civil authorities) can have some files", he said, "but only the ones we feel are relevant".