Pope Francis arrives to receive the participants of the Plenary Assembly of the Commission of Episcopates of the European Union (COMECE) this Thursday in the Nervi Hall of the Vatican CLAUDIO PERI (EFE)
EL PAÍS launched an investigation into pedophilia in the Spanish Church in 2018 and has an updated database of all known cases. If you know of a case that has not yet come to light, you can write to us at: [email protected]. If the case is in Latin America, the address is: [email protected].
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Pope Francis has updated the norms against abuse within the Catholic Church that he promulgated in 2019, adding some provisions that expand reporting on the crime and include lay leaders of Catholic associations in the provisions on responsibilities, which they have previously referred to bishops, religious superiors and clergymen charged with the governance of a particular church or prelature. From now on, the lay people who lead these Catholic groups must be held accountable for their actions and required to denounce the abuses that come to their attention. This is in response to the numerous instances of lay leaders committing abuse of power or sexual abuse of people under their care or spiritual authority. Among the religious institutions run by lay people is the Neocatechumenal Way, popularly known as Kikos in honor of its founder, the layman Kiko Argüello.
Addressing the universal Church, this new law, which is a rewrite of the motu proprio Vos estis lux mundi (You are the light of the world), also recognizes that vulnerable adults can also be victims of priests and now lay people. Predators when unable to give consent. It understands the notion of vulnerable adult as “any person who is in a condition of illness, physical or mental impairment, or deprivation of personal liberty which actually, even occasionally, limits their ability to understand the fact or to defend themselves against it , a crime”. The previous law provided that, in addition to minors, only adults who “normally” lacked reason could be considered victims. In practice, the new provisions also extend the protection to nuns or seminarians who are dependent on their bishops or superiors.
The new regulations, which come into force on April 30, also attempt to clarify some of the vagueness of the previous law. For example, it stipulates that dioceses must provide “organizations and offices” readily available to the public to receive complaints of abuse. The old text spoke more generally of “stable systems” for receiving complaints.
The new regulation also expands the protection of whistleblowers and is intended to ensure some transparency. Having previously established that the person making a report of abuse cannot be required to remain silent about its content, this protection now extends to “the person who claims to have been offended and the witnesses”.
“The crimes of sexual abuse offend our Lord, cause physical, psychological and spiritual harm to their victims, and harm the community of believers. In order for such phenomena to stop occurring in all their forms, a continuous and profound conversion of hearts is necessary, manifested in concrete and effective actions, involving everyone in the Church, so that personal holiness and moral commitment help promote the full credibility of the evangelical proclamation and the effectiveness of the Church’s mission,” writes the Pope in the norm.
The new provisions strengthen the previous law, passed in 2019 at a time of crisis for the Vatican and the Catholic hierarchy plagued by abuse scandals, and which was lauded at the time for introducing precise mechanisms to investigate bishops and religious superiors who are complicit and for taking the crime of concealment. Although its application has been patchy depending on the local churches in different countries, victims of abuse have criticized the continuing lack of transparency regarding the cases.
Currently, the pedophilia scandals are also shaking the Spanish Church, which, after years of denying the scandal and launching a general investigation into the incidents, had a law firm audited a year ago. Likewise, with the exception of a few bishops, he still does not publicly report the cases known to him. The request by the Attorney General’s Office to extradite all cases known only to them does not apply either. The Spanish Bishops’ Conference admitted only 220 complaints in 2021 and 506 in 2022. The tally that this newspaper keeps of all known abuses in the Church by the media and court judgments, the only one that exists in Spain on an open database, currently lists 929 accused and 1,770 victims.
This Pope’s pontificate was marked by anti-abuse reforms, but as he himself recognized, there are still countries where the Catholic Church is reluctant to apply them. Bergoglio, an advocate of zero tolerance for abuse, founded the Pontifical Commission a year after his election to improve the protection of minors in Catholic communities around the world. Likewise, he began meeting with victims inside and outside the Vatican, including on his international travels, to listen to them, a practice he continues to this day. The last known time he met with abuse victims was last Wednesday at the Vatican.
In February 2019, he summoned the presidents of all the world’s bishops’ conferences to a summit in Rome to deal with the issue of abuse, and at the end of the year promulgated two canonical laws that forced Catholic bishops and hierarchs to open proceedings against them to any grievances, from that they were aware of. Francis even broke the papal secret so that dioceses can provide civil authorities who request it with documentation of the canonical processes that the Church has internally judicialized.