Salon.com > Catholic sex abuse cases

Dear Cardinals: Pick a winner!

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 16:28:00 +0000

When Pope Benedict XVI finally officially winds down a farewell extravaganza that has in recent days felt like the enthusiasm-testing run-up to the "30 Rock" finale crossed with yet another "last" Rolling Stones tour, a ragtag bunch of men who generally garb themselves in red dresses will assemble to pick their new boss. Would it be too much to ask at this moment: Guys, can you try not to screw this up?

We are at a moment in history when the leadership of the Catholic Church is at once both transparently in need of serious reform and obviously deeply clueless about itself. As the New York Times describes the College of Cardinals, this is one seriously "fallible" group, a gathering of men widely "reviled" for their grotesque behavior – and it doesn't even include Keith O’Brien, who hastily stepped down Monday after reports that he had made inappropriate sexual advances to subordinates. Of course he did. The remaining lot, however, still includes Roger Mahony, the Los Angeles leader who is known for his long and well-documented work in shielding serial abusers from justice; Sean Brady, the Irish leader who refused to resign even after mounting evidence he'd failed to turn over critical information in one of the country's most appalling sex abuse cases; and Francisco Javier Errázuriz, the former archbishop of Santiago who's been accused of covering up abuse and refusing to meet with victims.

Did a gay blackmail scandal bring down the pope?

Fri, 22 Feb 2013 19:56:00 +0000

You know what the sudden, surprising, once-every-700-years story of the pope's resignation needed? What every dramatic story line does: a gay blackmail twist. And so the Italian daily newspaper La Repubblica this week reports on a very tangled web that claims to have brought down a pope, under the irresistible headline "Sex and career, blackmail in the Vatican: Behind the resignation of Benedict XVI." It's like "Pretty Little Liars" for octogenarians.

The paper says that Benedict made his decision to step down on Dec. 17, just one day after he received a revealing 300-page dossier from a trio of elderly cardinals. He'd assigned them to investigate last year's scandal involving a slew of leaked confidential Vatican documents and letters that purported to show corruption and internal conflict within the Holy See. The "Vatileaks" mess was just another of the embarrassments the church has faced during Benedict's reign -- including a money laundering investigation and record-breaking settlements in sex abuse lawsuits. But the leaks were a particularly personal humiliation to the pontiff -- the documents in question had allegedly been stolen by his own butler Paolo Gabriele. Gabriele later told investigators he released the documents "for the good of the Church." "I was sure that a shock, perhaps by using the media, could be a healthy thing to bring the Church back on the right track," he explained in his earnest pretrial testimony.

The British sex abuse bombshells keep pouring in

Fri, 15 Feb 2013 16:36:00 +0000

For 30 years, Michael Le Vell has played a part on Britain's enduring soap opera "Coronation Street." In real life, it turns out, he was living a kind of soap-operatic drama: On Friday, he was charged with an alarming number of sex offenses, including "raping a child, indecently assaulting a child and sexual activity with a child." Le Vell, whose real name is Michael Turner, will appear in court on February 27 to face charges stemming from an investigation of his activities — a total of nine years, between 2001 and 2010.

The father of two separated from his wife in 2011, shortly before he was arrested on suspicion of a sex offense involving a young girl. At the time, he "strenuously" denied the accusation, vowing to "do everything in my power to prove my innocence." The investigation was dropped three months later due to insufficient evidence, and Le Vell declared himself "completely exonerated."

Benedict XVI’s legacy

Mon, 11 Feb 2013 14:09:00 +0000

Pope Benedict XVI set a couple of precedents in recent months. He became the first social media pontiff, opening a Twitter account late last year. And as of Monday, he is the first pope since the middle ages to resign.

These nontraditional moves aside, though, Benedict XVI, formerly Joseph Ratzinger, was a fiercely conservative Catholic leader who failed to challenge a widespread child sex abuse scandal in the church. His papal legacy will include the maintenance of a system of impunity for abusers of the church's most defenseless and innocent members. The Guardian's Rome correspondent John Hooper noted:

The abuse scandals dominated his seven years as leader of the world's Catholics. Before his accession, there had been scandals in the United States and Ireland. But in 2010, evidence of clerical sex abuse was made public in a succession of countries in continental Europe, notably Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway and Benedict's native Germany.

The pope was himself affected by one of these scandals. It emerged that, while he was archbishop of Munich, a known molester was quietly re-assigned to duties that, in time, allowed him to return to pastoral duties and make contact with young people.

Catholic bishops yank a sex-abuse investigation

Thu, 10 Jan 2013 16:57:00 +0000

Today in irony: Catholic church leaders are having trust issues.

A sweeping independent investigation into sex abuse charges dating back nearly 70 years has screeched to a halt in Germany, because the German Bishops Conference there says "The trust was shattered" between the conference and the Criminological Research Institute of Lower Saxony. The bishops have now canceled their contract with the institute.

The head of the institute, Christian Pfeiffer, lashed back at the bishops Thursday, citing old-fashioned butt-covering as the cause of the falling out. "The Archdiocese of Munich and Freising clearly demanded that all texts must be submitted to them for approval," he said, "and they made it clear to us that they also had the right to prohibit the publication of texts." He added, chillingly, "They have a requirement that you have to destroy the papers ten years after the conviction of a priest. They kept us in the dark about this, because we agreed in the contract to an analysis of records going back to 1945."