So it was on Jan. 16 when Vatican representatives appeared before a United Nations committee in Geneva. As a signatory to the UN Convention for the Rights of the Child, the Vatican was compelled in an open forum to address the thousands of crimes of sexual abuse committed by priests over the decades and to explain what steps the Church has taken to protect children.
The Vatican representatives, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi and Bishop Charles Scicluna, endured a very public grilling about the Church’s past reluctance to reveal and punish pedophile priests. Instead, abuser priests were routinely re-assigned and often reoffended. A member on the UN panel called this a failure of transparency and accountability — and Scicluna agreed.
“The Holy See gets it,” he said. “Let’s not say too late or not. But there are certain things that need to be done differently.”
Many of those things have already been implemented. The UN has been slow to acknowledge as much, but the Church has been moving steadily since Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, years before he became Pope Benedict XVI, instituted new norms in 2001 to punish abuser priests. That was the first in a series of reforms, apologies and restitution payments for victims, culminating in a “mortified” Benedict laicizing hundreds of guilty priests during his papacy, including 384 in his final two years.
Pope Francis has followed by establishing a special commission on sexual abuse of children to address what he called “the embarrassment of the Church.” The commission will work with bishops’ conferences and religious orders around the world to toughen up the rules and enforce compliance.
Where everyone agrees is that, after years of failure, the Church must never shy away from transparency and accountability when dealing with priests who violate children. Abusers must be exposed, arrested and prosecuted. The truth should never be hidden to save the Church from shame. Doing so in the past only burdened the Church with deeper shame when the criminal acts were eventually uncovered.
“Only the truth will help us move on,” Scicluna said.
It was humbling for the Vatican to be taken to task by the UN. The Church should be extolled as a world leader in every discussion about defending the weak and vulnerable members of society. Instead, its representatives had to answer for egregious failings and demonstrate the Church was committed to doing better.
The day was painful but it offered a valuable reminder that there is still much work to be done to ensure the safety of children and to fully restore the Church’s tarnished image.