Vatican's New Pedophile Plan Upsets Victims
By Stan Finger
Originally published in The Wichita Eagle, January 14, 2002
Victims of clergy sexual abuse are troubled by new Vatican guidelines that call for priests accused of pedophilia to be tried in secret, newly created ecclesiastical courts. Victims of clergy sexual abuse are troubled by new Vatican guidelines that call for priests accused of pedophilia to be tried in secret, newly created ecclesiastical courts.
Church officials said the trials are intended to be in addition to criminal or civil trials -- not in place of them, a Wichita diocesan official said.
But the guidelines, made public last week, do not require the notification of law enforcement or social service officials.
"It's more of the same," said David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, a nonprofit organization based in Chicago.
"There's nothing in there about the need or obligation, legal or moral, to report this to civil authorities, which in our view is a critical component.
"That's very, very troublesome," he said. "In general, you have to be suspicious."
The issue is fresh in the minds of Catholics in the Diocese of Wichita because a former priest pleaded guilty last spring to molesting four boys at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Newton in the mid-1980s. Robert K. Larson is serving a three- to 10-year sentence in Lansing.
The Rev. John Lanzrath, chancellor of the Catholic Diocese of Wichita, said the Vatican's new guidelines are not an attempt to quash attention paid to an issue that has proven morally embarrassing and costly.
National experts on clergy sexual abuse estimate the Catholic Church has paid out more than $1 billion in lawsuit settlements linked to sexual abuse since the mid-1980s.
"The attempt from Rome is to highlight pedophilia as one of the gravest offenses that a priest can commit," Lanzrath said.
"It is trying to make the issue more aware to people that the Vatican wants to be informed and involved in investigations … that are taking place throughout the world."
The new norms require local bishops to report probable cases of clerical sexual abuse against minors to the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The case would then be handled by a tribunal of priests, either within the diocese or in Rome.
Pedophile cases would be subject to pontifical secrecy, which means they would be handled in strict confidentiality. Victims must make their accusations within 10 years after turning 18, under the guidelines.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops confirmed that the policy asking local dioceses to set up their own policies for dealing with sexual abuse cases, adopted in America in 1994, is still in place, Lanzrath said.
The newest guidelines highlight how seriously the Vatican takes the issue and lay the framework for how cases will be reviewed.
"We don't see in this any change that's necessary in terms of our regular diocesan policy," Lanzrath said, adding that the new directive "is really giving a greater awareness of how grave this offense is."
But it has already drawn sharp criticism from victims and support groups for those who have been abused by priests.
Experience has shown that most childhood sexual abuse victims are not able to begin dealing with the trauma of their abuse until they are in their 30s or 40s, Clohessy said, so the Vatican's statute of limitations would largely silence reports.
Asking a young boy who has been molested by a priest to testify about the abuse in front of other priests is ridiculous, said Paul Schwartz, one of Larson's victims.
"How can you expect a 12-year-old boy … who has had something as horrific as this happen to him, to go right back to the entity that is hurting him to report it?" Schwartz asked.
"You can't."
The Wichita diocese last year paid an undisclosed amount of money to Schwartz and the other three men Larson admitted molesting in Newton. The men came forward after several other men told The Wichita Eagle in the summer of 2000 that Larson had molested them.
The cumulative claims painted a pattern of abuse that stretched out over many years in several parishes he led and positions he held while serving as a priest in the diocese. Larson was removed from the diocese in 1988, sent out of state for treatment and stripped of his title and duties as a priest.
The diocese reworked its sexual abuse policy to include notifying parishes when cases are reported, and it now specifies how incidents are to be reported in accordance with Kansas law.
