Attacking the media is probably the worst thing that the Catholic Church could be doing. But then again, this is an organization that has succeeded in shielding pedophiles for decades.
Today’s Vatican leaders have faced the worldwide priest sex-abuse scandal with a tenor of arrogance that borders on organizational monomania. By covering up sexual abuse, the Vatican has proven that it not only holds itself above civil law but that it is willing to enable those guilty of human rights violations.
By shielding the abusive priests (and in some cases even promoting them to high Vatican offices), the Catholic Church has not only harmed the physical victims of the crimes but also the body of innocent priests and the millions of faithful around the world.
The tragic part is that this is hardly the first sex-abuse scandal within the Catholic Church. What’s new ““ and the most troubling development to date ““ is the determined effort by the Vatican to distract attention away from the sexual abuse of thousands of young children and instead onto a fictional battle between “the media” and the “Holy See.”
“These are not just sins, but crimes. It is in the best interest of everyone ““ the victims, the Vatican, the faithful, laypeople ““ to cooperate fully with authorities,” said Father Peter Abdella, director of the University Catholic Center and a priest for 25 years.
Abdella believed that the Church has “historically been guilty of hubris,” and noted that the “sense of shame and embarrassment in the pews that American Catholics felt after the sex-abuse scandal broke in the U.S. ““ where cases began surfacing as early as the 1970s ““ may not have traveled as far as Rome yet.”
Attacking the media is a trick that fools only the foolish, and anyone who does it ends up looking pathetic. The Vatican’s newest defend-and-deflect tactic thus unsurprisingly ended up as a case study in passive aggression.
Consider Vienna’s Cardinal Christoph Schönborn: “I admit that I often feel a sense of injustice these days. Why is the church being excoriated? Isn’t there also abuse elsewhere? … And then I’m tempted to say: Yes, the media just don’t like the church! Maybe there’s even a conspiracy against the church? But then I feel in my heart that no, that’s not it.”
Easter Sunday brought with it a gem from Cardinal Angelo Sodano, who assured the Pope that “the people of God are with you and will not let themselves be influenced by the petty gossip of the moment.”
Quotations like these are dangerous. The last time a sex scandal broke in the Catholic Church, hundreds of priests were fired in America and $660 million was paid to victims of abuse in Los Angeles alone.
“Petty gossip,” Cardinal Sodano?
Is there abuse elsewhere? Yes, there are other abuses in the world other than the Catholic Church’s decades-long “battle” with sex abuse, but how is that even relevant? Sad times when high-ranking priests use the “other people are doing it too!” card to defend rape and child molestation.
Not all priests and affiliates of the Church share this view. Abdella renounced these statements directly: “It is not gossip, and this is not just an attack on the Church. While some may perceive an attack on the Pope as an attack on the faith, this is a real crisis that must be tackled head-on.”
Abdella noted that “the Church should have learned that forgiveness and therapy are not suitable “˜treatments’ for sex offenders by paying witness to the American scandal.” He remembered that in America, “we learned the hard way.”
The Vatican, it appears, has learned nothing. Instead, it insists that the vast majority of priests are good men, a fact no one is disputing. Abdella remarked that “even if the number of priests is a small percentage of the clergy, the number of victims is quite large.”
“Change will require external and internal pressure ““ because the truth is that no one is as accountable as when they know they are being watched,” Abdella said. “The question is not whether or not the Church has been wrong ““ it has. The question is, “˜Can we restore trust?'”
Ignorant defenders of Church hierarchy love to spread blame anywhere they can find. They blame the scandal on the alleged homosexuality of priests and nitpick at just how involved Pope Benedict was in covering up these cases when he was Cardinal Ratzinger and head of the Doctrine of the Faith (the responsible party when it came to sex abuse).
Regardless of whether some priests who abused children were homosexuals, and whether or not the Pope was not as involved as a few media reports might infer (though that is a big “whether”), the fact is that the institution must face the scandal head-on ““ not ignore it like Pope Benedict did in his Easter address.
What the world ““ and the Church ““ needs is not a confrontation of the media, but a sincere, earnest apology followed up by transparent and thorough action. The American arm of the Catholic Church eventually understood this, as it has set up boards and instituted practices that allow for transparency and cooperation with authorities. The Vatican, however, insists on its own infallibility ““ an infallibility that centuries of history have proven errant.
Abdella had strong advice for Catholics and non-believers alike: “Don’t put your head in the sand. Read a variety of sources, offer your time to services that protect children, and learn the signs of abuse.” He urged non-believers to “ask questions of Catholic friends, so long as these questions are not posed in hostility.”
“Maybe then,” Abdella mused, “we can slowly get rid of docility within the Church and its higher offices.”
Until then, let’s not depend on the very power structure that failed to protect children from abusive priests (even those who were caught) to give us lessons in news reporting. That pill is just too bitter to stomach.
Email Makarechi at kmakarechi@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.