March 3rd 2020

Bill Berkowitz

Last year, at an extraordinary Vatican summit, the Catholic Church declared that it was entering a new era of transparency regarding clergy sexual abuse. However,  instead of diving headfirst into admittedly churning waters, judging from ongoing reports, it has barely gotten in up to its ankles. “Now, despite the dioceses' release of nearly 5,300 names, most in the last two years, critics say the lists are far from complete,” The Associated Press reported in January.  Its analysis “found more than 900 clergy members accused of child sexual abuse who were missing from lists released by the dioceses and religious orders where they served.”

"No one should think, 'Oh, the bishops are releasing their lists, there's nothing left to do,'" said Terence McKiernan, co-founder of BishopAccountability.org, who has been tracking the abuse crisis and cataloging accused priests for almost two decades, accumulating a database of thousands of priests, told the AP. "There are a lot of holes in these lists," he said. "There's still a lot to do to get to actual, true transparency."

Facing 250 sexual abuse lawsuits, the Diocese of Buffalo recently filed for federal bankruptcy, seeking protection from a 2019 New York state law allowing victims to sue.  By filing for bankruptcy, it is likely that “the victims of clergy sexual abuse may not anytime soon get the answers that have long been hidden in secret diocesan archives regarding pedophile priests,” WKBW Buffalo recently reported. “The cases will soon be shifted from state civil court to U.S. Bankruptcy Court, [and] survivors of clergy sexual abuse are likely to receive compensation, though it is unclear how much per case the diocese would be required to pay out,” WKBW pointed out.

Michigan’s WTVB recently reported that “The Diocese of Kalamazoo announced Friday that they have received an allegation of sexual abuse against the retired Reverend Richard Fritz which dates back to the late 1970s and early 1980s.”

In early February, WBUR’s Here and Now program reported that while Colorado’s Catholic Church has established a victim’s compensation fund, many victims may not be eligible for compensation. 

The stories reported by WKBW, WTVB, WBUR, and others, are not anomalies. These stories continue to reveal how priests accused of child sexual abuse, were protected by Catholic Church officials. Frequently, the offending priests were transferred to another city and another parish. Often priests offended again. 

A year ago, the Vatican held an “unprecedented summit at which bishops and cardinals heard the testimony of victims,” The Guardian reported in mid-February. Now, a year later, “The Vatican has done little to seriously address the problem of clerical sexual abuse.”

 A “majority od U.S. dioceses as well as nearly two dozen religious orders, have released lists of abusers currently or formerly in their ranks,” a Pro Publica report pointe out. “A Pennsylvania grand jury report in 2018, revealed that hundreds of hundreds of priests [were] part of a statewide clergy abuse investigation. Nationwide, the names of more than 5,800 clergy members have been released so far, representing the most comprehensive step toward transparency yet by a Catholic Church dogged by its long history of denying and burying abuse by priests.”

According to Pro Publica’s report titled “Catholic Leaders Promised Transparency About Child Abuse. They Haven’t Delivered” (co-published with the Houston Chronicle), “it has become clear that numerous alleged abusers have been omitted and that there is no standard for determining who each diocese considers credibly accused.” 

In addition, the Catholic Church has taken its own time awarding compensation to victims of sexual abuse. Some cases have been dragging on for years. 

A year ago, Pope Francis said that the church would “spare no effort” to bring those responsible for sexual abuse to justice. Thus far, according to The Guardian, “he has failed to implement crucial reforms to canon law that would allow that to happen,”. 

The Guardian reported that “Anne Barrett Doyle, a co-founder of Bishop Accountability, which tracks clergy sexual abuse cases, said that while the summit did a tremendous amount of good by raising the profile of the issue, increasing media coverage of cases and encouraging victims to come forward, it had not led to a ‘zero-tolerance’ policy. ‘By that I mean ‘one strike and you’re out’ for abusers, at least out of the ministry, and ‘one strike and you’re out’ for enablers,” Doyle said at a recent press conference in Rome.

At last year’s summit, the Vatican set up “procedures for every diocese to report allegations of abuse and foster accountability for the actions of bishops and cardinals. In December, Francis announced that the rule of ‘pontifical secrecy’ would be abolished in an effort to improve transparency in sexual abuse cases.”

Doyle told the Guardian that “Looking at the dioceses, parishes and episcopal conferences in seven of the largest Catholic countries in the world, we’re finding mixed results. But what they all have in common is a sobering verdict on the summit, which is that it is still entirely possible today, as it was a year ago, for a bishop to knowingly keep an abuser in ministry or return him to ministry, and for neither one of them to suffer a consequence under canon law.”

"If your goal is protecting kids and healing victims, your lists will be as broad and detailed as possible. If your goal is protecting your reputation and institution, it will be narrow and vague. And that's the choice most bishops are making," said David Clohessy, the former executive director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, who now heads the group's St. Louis chapter.

"Every cleric no matter where they came from or were ordained or went to school or who signs their paycheck ... all of that is hair-splitting and irrelevant," said Clohessy. "What matters is one question: Did or does this credibly accused predator have access to my flock ever? Even for a few hours. If the answer is yes, then that bishop needs to put that predator on his list."