Roman Catholic Church sex abuse scandal

In the late 20th century, and especially at the turn of the 21st, the Catholic Church in several countries was confronted with a series of allegations concerning sexual abuse of children under the legal age of consent ¹ by Catholic clergy and religious.

Flawed policies

Abusers moved from location to location

Some bishops have been especially heavily criticized for moving offending priests from parish to parish rather than seeking to have them stripped of their faculties. Many dioceses submitted priests guilty of child abuse for intensive psychotherapeutic treatment and assessment, with the priest only resuming parochial duties when the bishop was advised that it was safe for them to be so assigned.

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In response to questions, defenders of bishops' actions suggest that in re-assigning priests for duty after treatment they were acting on the basis of the best medical advice then available. Critics have questioned whether bishops are necessarily able to form accurate judgments on the nature of the recovery of a priest.

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Failure to report criminal acts to police

From a legal perspective, the single worst failure—other than the actual abuse of children—was the unwillingness of certain Church leaders to report the incidents directly to the police. This phenomenon occurred in every country with rare exceptions. This proved to have extremely negative consequences. The Norbertine Order, for example, knew not merely of Fr. Brendan Smyth's apparently pedophilic tendencies but also of allegations of sexually interfering with children from as early as 1945, yet it was only in the late 1980s and early 1990s that the two police forces in Ireland, the Garda Síochána and the Royal Ulster Constabulary, were able to gather sufficient information to prosecute Smyth.

Related Topics:
Norbertine Order - Brendan Smyth - 1945 - 1980s - 1990s - Garda Síochána - Royal Ulster Constabulary

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In May 2001, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (at that time prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and since made Pope Benedict XVI) sent a letter to all Catholic Bishops declaring that the Church's investigations into claims of child sex abuse claims were subject to the pontifical secret and were not to be reported to law enforcement. Abuse of the pontifical secret may lead to formal excommunication.

Related Topics:
May - 2001 - Joseph Ratzinger - Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith - Pontifical secret - Excommunication

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Allegations of systematic plots to conceal evidence

Reviewers of the Smyth case differ as to whether it was a deliberate plot to conceal the nature of his behaviour, or whether much of what happened involved complete incompetence by his superiors, the abbots of Kilnacrott Abbey, or perhaps a mixture of an institution presuming that what happened to its members was its own business, plus the complete incompetence of his superiors, who failed to grasp the human and legal consequences of the actions of a particularly manipulative child molester, who found ways to circumvent whatever restrictions the abbots placed on him. (Cardinal Daly, both as Bishop of Down and Connor (where some of the abuse took place) and later as Cardinal Archbishop of Armagh, is recorded as having been privately scathing at the Norbertine "incompetence".)

Related Topics:
Cardinal Daly - Archbishop of Armagh

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Motivated by a belief in an international Catholic conspiracy, a Louisville, Kentucky lawyer filed suit in June 2004 against the Vatican, alleging Roman participation in a cover-up of sexual abuse problems. Legal experts predict an unsuccessful outcome to this case, given the sovereignty of the Holy See and the lack of evidence of Vatican complicity.

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Payments to victims

Some have even gone so far as to allege that Church members paid off victims of child abuse, either in settlement of compensation claims, or in order to prevent them reporting to the police. In the mid-1990s, Archbishop (later Cardinal) Connell of Dublin loaned money to a priest who had abused altar-boy Andrew Madden, which was then used to pay compensation to Madden and prevent Madden from reporting the abuse to the police. Connell later claimed never to have paid money to a victim, insisting that he had simply loaned money to a priest who just happened to use the money to pay off his victim.

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