Papal Responses to Sexual Abuse in the Church

In setting up a Vatican tribunal to discipline negligent Roman Catholic bishops, Pope Francis has taken the most concrete step of any pope in holding accountable church leaders who failed to prevent the sexual abuse of minors by priests. Although Francis and his most recent predecessors, Pope Benedict XVI and Pope John Paul II, made efforts to punish abusive priests, the tribunal is the Vatican’s first mechanism to punish their superiors.

Here is a look at responses to scandals by the last three popes.

John Paul II

Many of the known cases of sexual abuse by priests took place during the 27-year reign of John Paul II. Despite being widely loved, John Paul II was criticized for ignoring or failing to become aware of the problem. In particular, his long friendship with the Rev. Marcial Maciel Degollado, founder of a powerful Catholic religious order, raised questions about whether John Paul was willing to overlook abuse. Father Maciel molested seminarians and young boys for decades. Vatican investigations also revealed that he fathered several children with at least two women.

John Paul II apologized for the sexual abuse of children by priests for the first time in 2001 in an email sent to churches around the world. A year later, the Vatican said it would use ecclesiastical courts to try priests suspected of abuse. But the trials were secret, and critics said they would only reinforce the belief that the church was trying to hide its dark past.

Benedict XVI

In 2004, when Benedict XVI was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and the head of the Vatican’s doctrinal office, he reopened a stalled investigation into the accusations against Father Maciel. As pope, Benedict XVI removed Father Maciel from active ministry, a step that John Paul II had resisted. And in 2010, Benedict XVI took control of Father Maciel’s order, the Legionaries of Christ, in what was then the Vatican’s most direct action on sexual abuse.

Yet that same year, the scandal came closer to Benedict XVI himself, with revelations concerning a case that unfolded when he was an archbishop in Germany in the 1980s. After a priest in his archdiocese was accused of molesting boys, he approved the transfer of the priest for therapy. The priest was later allowed to resume pastoral duties, despite repeated warnings to archdiocesan officials from his psychiatrist that he should not be allowed to work with young children. The priest was later accused of molesting other boys and convicted of sex abuse in 1986. A subordinate took responsibility for allowing the priest to resume work with children, but Archbishop Ratzinger knew of the priest’s reassignment, according to church officials.

A Vatican document issued in 2005 under Benedict XVI explicitly barred men with “deep-seated homosexual tendencies” from the priesthood, although because it apparently equated pedophilia with homosexuality, it was seen by critics as an inappropriate effort to address the crisis.

Francis

Francis, who early in his papacy directed the Vatican to resolve sex abuse cases and punish pedophile priests, announced in late 2013 that he was setting up a commission to advise him on the matter. Some victims’ support groups were disappointed, however, saying the announcement showed that the church hierarchy was still resistant to prosecutions in secular courts for abusive priests and the bishops who protected them.

Critics point to other missteps by Francis, who is otherwise known for his compassion toward the oppressed and his campaign against inequality.

Under Francis, the Vatican last year defrocked Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski, the Vatican ambassador to the Dominican Republic, for sexually abusing children. Archbishop Wesolowski became the highest-ranking church official to be defrocked for such abuse, and is scheduled for a criminal trial by the Vatican, which has its own judicial system. But the Vatican angered critics by recalling Mr. Wesolowski to Rome to help him avoid criminal prosecution in the Dominican Republic. Another outcry erupted in January when Francis appointed a bishop suspected of complicity in a case of clerical sexual abuse to head a diocese in Chile. At the bishop’s installation in March, thousands of protesters demanded that he resign.

Still, Francis’ recent actions suggest he might be ready to complete the circle of accountability and hold bishops responsible for refusing to act on clear signs of abuse by priests they oversee. Just a month ago, he accepted the resignation of Bishop Robert W. Finn as head of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph in Missouri, who failed to report a priest later convicted of taking pornographic pictures of girls.

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