Sexual Abuse in Churches: A Turn to Healing

When Sarah Mullally was formally installed in a historic ceremony at Canterbury Cathedral on March 25, 2026, a former nurse became the Archbishop of Canterbury. Her vocational background highlights the importance of healing, which was appropriate because her predecessor, Justin Welby, had stepped down because he had failed to address a serial sexual-abuse scandal. It had been important most of all to the victims—boys at a church camp who were sexually molested by a gay man volunteering at the camp—that Welby go. Close to the day of the ceremony, Mullally promised explicitly to attend to such victims, as is fitting and proper for a Christian cleric to do. It is what Jesus Christ would do, whereas he would not recognize the sexual predators or their enablers in the hierarchies of Christian denominations. The contrast itself bears witness to just how far some denominations had fallen from being justified in claiming to follow the principles preached by Jesus in the Gospels. That those sects had been able to do so even while representing themselves as distinctly Christian institutions shows just how power clerics have in beguiling laity.

Mullally emphasized her commitment to “do all I can to ensure that the Church becomes safer and also responds well to victims and survivors of abuse.”[1] Being safer refers to the Church proactively policing its own, whereas responding to victims is a reaction to past abuse. Regarding the latter, she said the Church was “seeking to become more trauma informed, listening to survivors and victims of abuse.”[2] As a former nurse, she could have gone further by saying that she would make her Church into a facilitator of victims getting connected to therapists so the healing process could really begin, for being listened to is just a first step in the help that victims of sexual abuse need in order to heal.

Psychology not being my field, I can only surmise that victims of sexual abuse avoid commitment and instead may engage in anti-commitment behavior, such as having sex with friends and anonymous men or women. Of course, this is not to say that every man or woman who is sexually promiscuous has been sexually abused. Using rampant sex to push commitment away is a defense mechanism that only needs a fear of emotional intimacy to be able to control a person’s life and serially thwart genuine (i.e., intimate) romantic relationships. For some victims, sex itself may just be too painful.

It is precisely because sexual abuse can scar its victims so deeply that Welby’s abject failure to properly handle the case of John Smyth, “who sexually and physically abused young men at Christian camps in the UK, Zimbabwe and South Africa over five decades,” is so damning, especially as Welby was a Christian priest (and Archbishop).[3] This is not to say that such enabling and lack of accountability on such a crime only occurs in religious institutions. Penn State University’s athletic director and football coach looked the other way as an older men molested student football-players in the showers for decades. Even so, it is more shocking when older men molest younger men under a Christian flag.

Sexual abuse by an older man can be tacit, or subtly legitimated because it is camouflaged by a relationship arrangement that gives the younger man the go-ahead to be sexually promiscuity that keeps emotional intimacy away. There is, in other words, a cost to the younger man in being what is known as a trophy. An older man having such a “trophy” younger man bears no cost, as the older man can even be living with another man romantically. That the trophy is being kept from having an emotionally intimate partner of his own is of no concern to the older man who gets to have his cake and eat it too. The trophy may even be deluded into thinking that the older man is his partner. In short, this is sadly very unfair to the younger man, and thus I contend that the arrangement is a subtle form of abuse.

A fear of emotional intimacy, such as motivates a person to push people away when they get too close (such as by using sexual promiscuity), fits well with being in a trophy role. It can be caused by sexual abuse or from having witnessed abusive relationships, or even simply a low self-esteem. Such fear is, I suspect, very difficult for therapists to heal because people who don’t think they are worthy of emotional intimacy will lash out to thwart it in its tracks. This is precisely why Christian institutions could play such an important role in connecting victims of sexual abuse with psychological clinics, rather than merely be good at listening. The damage done mentally is surely very deep. That a former nurse became the Archbishop of Canterbury is a good indication of where Christian Churches could go in emphasizing healing in such cases. After all, Jesus heals in the Gospels.  

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1. Gavin Blackburn, “Sarah Mullally Makes History as First Woman Enthroned as Archbishop of Canterbury,” Euronews.com, 25 March, 2026.
2. Ibid.
3. Oman Al Yahyai, “Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby Resigns amid Sexual Abuse Scandal,” Euronews.com, 12 November, 2024.

The Vatican on the Brink of Bankruptcy: The Missing Piece

During at least its first millennium, Christianity—with the notable exception of Clement of Alexandria—held that greed is tightly coupled to profit-seeking and wealth. Amid the increased trade, and profits, during the Commercial Revolution in the Middle Age in Europe, Aquinas began the trend severing the coupling to allow for greedless moderate profits, and thus wealth. Also in Medieval Europe, the Roman Catholic Church allowed monasteries to have collective wealth (including land) without being subject to having to go through the eye of a needle to enter the Kingdom of God.[1] With it supply of gold and real estate, the Vatican could be considered rich in the twenty-first century. When the exemption for collective wealth justifies those holdings from the stain of greed is one question; here I look at reports in 2024 that the Vatican was on the brink of bankruptcy, and why, for at least in one media report, one major reason is curiously left out even though that reason may have been making all the difference, and may even be considered just, whether in terms of divine or human justice.

Pope Francis admitted that the Vatican was in trouble financially. “The current system is unable to guarantee in the medium-term compliance with pension obligations for future generations.”[2] According to the Daily Express in late 2024, the Vatican’s “unprecedented financial crisis as of late . . . was caused by a decline in donations.”[3] In 2023, “the Vatican reported an operating deficit of $87 million,” and a larger deficit was the case in 2024 as of mid-December.[4] The question is why.

The Vatican had been “embroiled in debt after the European recession in 2012 and once again during the [coronavirus] pandemic in 2021.”[5] Also, the price of gold decreased in the early 2020s. Some conservative Catholics blamed Pope Francis’ “progressive” policies as “causing a decrease in donation.”[6] But on conservatives’ hot-button issues of abortion and homosexuality, the pope had reaffirmed the Church’s magisterium (i.e., teaching) that both are sins, and opposing climate change was not an unpopular position globally by 2024. As for emphasizing the poor, Jesus in the Gospel narratives does as much, so the pope was by no means an outlier in that respect. In fact, it could be counter-argued that the conservative, theologically excluding policies of the preceding pope, Joe Ratzinger, had caused church attendance, and thus donations, to decline. A church that views itself as more like a hospital than a club of saints will, everything else equal, enjoy larger attendance.

Entirely omitted, however, is the decreased attendance due to the Roman Catholic priests who had been molesting and even raping children for decades without being defrocked—Joe Ratzinger being among the many sordid bishops who reassigned rather than defrocked pedophile priests for the good of the reputation of the universal Church. The lack of accountability within the Vatican, such as in the ceremonial role in the Vatican being given to Cardinal Law by Pope John Paul II, who would be canonized as a saint by the Church he led, after news had surfaced of Archbishop Law having protected nearly 100 pedophile priests in Boston at the expense of 550 victims and with court judgments “that eventually topped $85 million.”[7] Even though the Boston Archdiocese was responsible for paying out the judgments, the hit to the credibility of the Roman Church from not only there being so many pedophile priests (and bishops), but also there being so little accountability—not even a resulting change at the top due to the serial unaccountability from Rome—led to a marked decline in church attendance. Besides this meaning less in donations, surely a significant number of the laity decided not to contribute financially to a religious organization in which employees thereof had been molesting and even raping children over decades. In any democratic state, a government covering up and even harboring so many rapists and their superiors would have faced a no-confidence vote, yet neither Pope John Paul II or Benedict XVI was pushed out or resigned for that reason, although it may be that the International Criminal Court made a deal with the latter pope, Joe Ratzinger, that would drop the charges pending against him in exchange for that conservative pope breaking with tradition and resigning, as well as being confined to Vatican City for the rest of his life. Even efforts inside the Vatican to hide this deal would be consistent with the efforts to cover-up cases of pedophile priests and their clerical protectors, such as Archbishop Law of Boston.

In short, no one should be surprised that the Vatican was on the brink of bankruptcy, though were the Vatican to sell some of its real-estate and gold the organization’s pensioners might not have had to fear being left high and dry in a worldly rather than heavenly sense. Although such fear would not be just for innocent priests and bishops, the extent of orchestrated covering up by the Vatican since at least 2002 and even the possible culpability psychologically of clerical celibacy as a church tradition from the Middle Age regarding the molestation and raping of children as a result of dysfunctional repression means that in addition to guilty priests and bishops being defrocked, the Roman Catholic Church was facing natural and perhaps even divine justice in being on the brink of bankruptcy. That is a powerful statement—much more so than one blaming the Vatican’s weak financial condition of Pope Francis, as if his policies were progressive, and if they really were so, blameworthy too.  

To be sure, religion does not reduce to morality; Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible is more concerned with being worshipped exclusively and thus in covenant, than in sticking to human ethical principles. But it is God, rather than Popes and other bishops (and priests), who has license to trump ethics when needed for theological purposes. When us mere mortals decide unilaterally to trump the dictates of justice by inflicting harm on other people and by enabling the perpetrators who are aggressive especially against the weak, then we can expect that our own suffering is just. Therefore, it is just that the Vatican was on the brink of bankruptcy at the end of 2024.

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1. See my books, Godliness and Greed, and God’s Gold, the latter text reflecting my further thought on the topic, especially on how Christianity can be held off from the increasing susceptibility to greed theologically.
2. Alana Loftus, “Vatican ‘On the Brink of Bankruptcy’ Due to Dramatic Decline in Global Donations Under Pope Francis’ Leadership,” MSN.com, December 17, 2024.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Phillip Martin, “The Pope Promises Accountability to Victims Abused by the Church. Where is Cardinal Law?” The World, August 3, 2015.

Justice’s Last Resort: Accountability in the Roman Catholic Church Sex Scandals

A pattern of deeply violent acts of power-aggrandizement, followed by the efforts of “organizational men” to cover up the atrocities in the interest of the organization and even the offenders at the negligent expense of the offended, cannot but have ripple effects, or make waves, once the stories are revealed to the public. It is sad, very sad, when an offending institution, or “club,” refuses to enforce accountability on its offending functionaries—members of the club. In early August, the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s office released to the public an 884-page report finding that six Roman Catholic dioceses in Pennsylvania had covered up sexual abuse—molestation and even rape—by 301 “predator priests” over 70 years in the twentieth century.[1]

With even at least one bishop (then cardinal)—Donald Wuerl--a prime culprit in covering up rapes, the lack of accountability on Wuerl by the Vatican would send a message that within a club, the big guys are essentially beyond reproach, even in such a sordid matter as covering for pedophile rapist subordinates. The sheer extent of injustice within one organization can trigger vigilante acts at justice. Hence, Rev. Basil hJ. Hutsko was thrown to the ground while praying at his church one morning—the assailant saying, “This is for all the little kids.”[2] It is sad, very sad, when justice is so imperfect as to be “accomplished” on an innocent priest. This incident thus reflects badly back on the lack of justice having been enforced by the Vatican on its own.

After the grand jury report was issued by the Attorney General, Cardinal Donald Wuerl’s upcoming appearance at a Roman Catholic conference on the family. Additionally, a Catholic High School in Pittsburgh removed mention of Wuerl from the school’s name—ostensively because Wuerl suggested that mention of his name would “detract from the purpose of Catholic education.”[3] The remaining question at the time was whether the pope would remove Wuerl from the College of Cardinals.

In line with the dictum, where there’s smoke, there’s fire, I got a snapshot of how Bishop Wuerl’s cathedral operated when I was a graduate student studying business and religion at the University of Pittsburgh. Late one weekday afternoon when the church was open, I knelt down near the low fence separating the place for the laity from the liturgical area. A janitor came up to me from behind and pushed me down, even though I was on the people side. So, interestingly, I can have a sense of how the innocent priest felt when he was pushed down from behind. At the very least, I concluded at the time that the bishop was probably a hard-ass, or at the very least he put up with some rather squalid employees. I complained at the time to the church office receptionist, but she gave it only a cursory notice. Clearly, Wuerl’s little world in Pittsburgh was not to be a part of my study of places of worship there.

My point is that the callousness and even violence one a very small scale in a religious organization can be just one sign of a broader and much deeper dysfunctional organizational culture. In such cases, accountability and justice from within are not likely; presumptuous boundary-issues are more likely. The press reported in the wake of the report that American Catholics were demanding action rather than just words in enforcing accountability; even so, I was struck by how many Catholics kept going to their same Roman Catholic church as if news of the report had not been made public. Perhaps accountability can easily be slighted by religious laity who believe that going to their church—receiving Catholic communion—is vital soteriologically even if not ethically. Yet Jesus surely would have tapped the dirt from his sandals and moved on had he been amid a religious group that covered up rapists in the group and even the cover-uppers. Great harm to others is antithetical to the Golden Rule, let alone the notion emphasized by Augustine and Calvin both that God is love. How can love of this sort overflow in an organization that covers up rapists and then the cover-uppers? We all know what Jesus thought of the hypocrites—the Pharisees.

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[1] Hayley Miller, “Indiana Priest Beaten Unconscious, Allegedly Told ‘This Is for All the Little Kids.” The Huffington Post, August 22, 2018.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Michelle Lou, “Cardinal Donald Wuerl’s Name Removed from School after Abuse Coverup,” The Huffington Post, August 22, 2018.

An Interfaith Declaration of Business (Ethics)

Released in 1994, “An Interfaith Declaration: A Code of Ethics on International Business for Christians, Muslims, and Jews” is comprised of two parts: principles and guidelines. The four principles (justice, mutual respect/love, stewardship and honesty) are described predominantly in religious terms, devoid of any connection to business. In contrast, the guidelines invoke the principles in their ethical sense, devoid of any religious connotation. The disconnect in applying religious ethics to business is not merely in books; the heavenly and earthly cities are as though separated by a great ocean of time.

 Are these religions applicable to business?    Wikipedia

The full essay is at "An Interfaith Declaration of Business."

Source:

An Interfaith Declaration: A Code of Ethics on International Business for Christians, Muslims, and Jews.

Related paper: "Religion in Strategic Leadership: A Positivistic, Normative/Theological and Strategic Analysis," Journal of Business Ethics (2005) 57: 221-239.

Related book: God's Gold  The text goes through the history of Christian thought on how greed is related to wealth and profit-seeking, and proffers an explanation for why the historical shift was from anti-wealth to a pro-wealth dominant stance. 

Church Scandals in a Secularizing World

A religious institution can least afford scandal involving highly unethical and illegal activity when the world is secularizing; the headwind alone requires a lot of energy just to stay in place, let alone move forward. The trail of child-rape scandals and cover-ups had by 2018 made a dent in the number of Roman Catholics in Latin America, yet other factors also accounted for the declines in church membership, and thus obfuscated estimates of the fallout in particular.  I contend that the gravity of the sexual abuse and related cover-ups by clergy warrants more than just being reckoned as one of several factors, even though the actual exodus was muted relative to the severity of the crimes.

“The number of Chileans who described themselves as Catholic dropped from 74 percent in 1995 to 45 percent [in2017], according to a poll by Latinobarómetro. The decline of Catholicism in Argentina, from 87 percent in 1995 to 65 percent [in2017] has also been significant.”[1] These are significant drops, and they exist in other countries in the region too. What factors lie behind this downward trend?  The New York Times pointed at the time to increasing secularity in “prosperous nations, including Chile and Uruguay. . . . In countries in the region troubled by violence, stark inequality and entrenched poverty like Brazil, evangelical denominations have cut deeply into the historical base of the Catholic Church.”[2] Fallout from sexual-abuse scandals by priests and covering bishops was also doubtless in the mix. Such abuse by religious men in a religious organization is unlike these other factors, for neither secularity nor economic inequality is so closely associated with, and thus pertaining to, the Roman Catholic Church. The downward effect of the personal failures and indeed hypocrisy of religious functionaries, especially in a denomination in which liturgy is so important in the process of sanctification, should arguably have been more pronounced that it actually was.

To be sure, during his visit early in 2018, Pope Francis “angered Chilean Catholics by defending a bishop who critics [said] protected a pedophile priest.”[3] Victims of Fernando Karadima, “Chile’s most notorious priest,” accused Bishop Juan Madrid of complicity in the crimes. The pope stated that “there is not one single piece of evidence. It is all slander. Is that clear?”[4] Ouch! Juan Cruz, one of the victims, had written, “As  if I could have taken a selfie or picture  while Karadima abused me orothers and Juan Barros stood there watching it all [before being elevated as a bishop by Pope Francis}.” Dismissing such an account was a good way for the pope to throw gas on a fire. “The pope’s comments set off a storm in Chile, raising questions about his commitment to repairing the damage from sexual abuse scandals and improving the decline in the church’s image and adherents” in Chile.[5] From the  standpoint of Jesus’s message, hypocrisy by the vicor of Christ is not a good thing. It is telling that a spokesperson of the Chilean government was closer to Jesus’s  message in stating, “Respecting,  believing  and supporting victims of sexual abuse is  an ethical imperative. No  institutional defense can override this basic principle for a fair society, one that is empathetic with those who most need it.”[6]  Empathy with the most vulnerable is one of the pillars of Jesus’s depicted life and teachings, whereas denial in defense of  the powerful sounds more Roman than Christian.

So I ask: why, even at the time of the pope’s visit to Chile and Peru, hadn’t more Catholics walked away from the Church? Why not a major exodus worldwide after the press reports of the reason for the pope’s chilly reception in Chile?  Imperfect information is doubtless part of the explanation. The short lifespan of moral outrage even at hypocrisy combined with the sheer force of routine in the human psyche is another. Even so, I submit that the importance of taking part in the Church’s sacraments—believed by the faithful to be important to salvation—kept even disgusted Catholics in the pews.  

Most important to a Catholic’s process of sanctification—the gradual transformation into being Christlike and thus fit for full reconciliation with God—is taking Communion at the Mass, which is presided over by clergy. They are a necessary part of a layperson’s return to God, according to Catholic belief. Historically, the Church decided the Donatist controversy by declaring that the moral lapses of a priest does not invalidate his concentration of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ. Moral and presumably even criminal faults may give rise to hypocrisy, but saying the liturgy is nonetheless sufficient in the consecration. Think of the liturgy of the Eucharist as a recipe of sorts; if said correctly, the consecration is, hocus pocus, accomplished. Whether the presiding priest was rude to someone before Mass is of no consequence. In a secularizing world, such a rationale is difficult to accept, yet Catholics socialized into the importance of attending Mass for their very salvation have a very different framework of belief. Even though that belief may be sorely tested when clergy misconduct arises, the way to salvation is held to be more important to the individual believer. In this perspective, the pursuit of salvation may appear selfish relative to taking a stand against a rapist priest or corrupt bishop by no longer going to Mass in empathy with the victims. By which of these two alternative courses does a believer become more Christlike—literally taking in the deity via Communion, or following Jesus’s example and teachings on how to live so as to enter the kingdom of God? A tough theological problem to be sure!

The sex scandals have been just one of several factors that together have doubtlessly been perceived by the Vatican as just another headwind that the long-lived institution will doubtless survive as it has survived other set-backs and challenges. Relativizing a current scandal by assuming a two-thousand-year perspective wrongly presumes an infallible coat of armour built up by centuries of existence. That the Catholic Church—any religious institution in fact—has responded so imperfectly (or not at all) is a testament to the human nature involved. Yet this is no excuse. The instinct for greater accountability within the Church is of course valid, for the ongoing need of a clergy so consecration can continue to be done does not justify retaining child-rapists and corrupt bishops who cover up the heinous crimes. For example, the Vatican could remove the rotted clerics and seek replacements. Lest it be objected that bending on the issue of clerical marriage would be inconvenient, the close tie between the Church and the crimes and cover-ups suggests that an inconvenient course-change is called for—that suffering costs due to external actors rather than one’s own volition is insufficient as payment by the institution. Such internal accountability is difficult, given the conflict of interest in an organization being tasked with voluntarily taking a hit (rather than merely taking a hit due to the actions of external actors, such as laity giving less financially). The laity and even the societies within which the Roman Catholic Church exists need not accept such institutional self-serving inertia.  Taking the road less convenient is something clerics ostensibly for agape (i.e., self-emptying) love should not have to be pressured into taking. Perhaps more Christians are needed in the Vatican, and fewer comfortable hypocrites in sheep’s clothing.

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1. Daniel Politi, “As Pope Heads to Chile and Peru, Argentines Feel Snubbed Again,” The New York Times, January 14, 2018.

2. Ibid.

3. Marcelo Rochabrún and Pascale Bonnefoy, “Pope Leaves a Furor in Chile, and Later Defends the Indigenous in Peru,” The New York Times, January 20, 2018.

4. Ibid.

5. Ibid.

6. Ibid.

On how Church leaders might lead, see Spiritual Leadership and Christianized Ethical Leadership. On the secularization of the Church historically in terms of how wealth has been viewed in relation to greed, see God’s Gold.

The Regensburg Domspatzen: Systemic Abuse of Kids in an Established Religious Institution

The utility from beautiful music for many does not justify the physical and sexual abuse of a relative few. Even though utilitarianism goes by the motto, the greatest pleasure (and least pain) for the greatest number, the severity of the pain to a few can, I submit, outweigh a more widespread, yet relatively superficial, pleasure for others. Surely the intensity of pleasure and pain must enter into the ethical calculus. I have in mind here the Regensburg Domspatzen, a Roman Catholic boys choir, in the E.U. state of Germany. This case points to the default power of established institutions and a religious psychology.

On July 18, 2017, Ulrich Weber, an outside lawyer announced the findings of his investigation. He found 547 cases of plausible physical abuse, 67 of which involved sexual abuse.[1] The abuse took place while Georg Ratzinger was the choir’s music director—from 1964 to 1994. His brother would be the Pope from 2005 to 2013. The presumption in terms of accountability was that the Church would police itself according to its Canon Law. However, in this case the personal conflict of interest should have sent the case to the local police, yet this was not the case. Instead, that pope threatened priests with excommunication should they contact the public authorities. Cut off from heaven for aiding accountability concerning people who had abused children! The power to excommunicate itself can thus be viewed as culpable. Moreover, the presumptuousness, including the accompanying blind-spots, that religious authority can engender and perpetuate is worthy of note.

One rather obvious take-away from this case is that the investigation of illegal act should be left to local police rather than religious organizations. Put another way, canon law does not trump criminal law. A second, less obvious, point regards the ethics of the sheer inertia of established societal institutions such as large, very old, religious organizations. Like a speeding ball in the void of outer space, such an institution can go through time seamlessly without virtually any resistance to slow it down, regardless of how unethical or even illegal the internal acts and cover-ups may be. This disconnect for clergy and members alike, wherein they continue as they had as if nothing had changed, can be reckoned as a sort of cognitive pathology in itself akin to or abetted by denial. Members as a whole continue to contribute money, and virtually no one resigns from the organization as an ethical protest or personal stand of sorts. In terms of organization theory, a disconnect between an organization and the wider society can be expected to impair the organization in at least some respects, not limited to diminished reputational capital. In terms of organizational life-cycles, such a period should be one of significant contraction, rather than steady-state. I submit that in the case of the Roman Catholic Church, the combination of being such an established (i.e., entrenched) institution and the psychology of religious denial block the natural “ebb and flow” that both in theory and practice pertains to organizations generally.

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[1] Melissa Eddy, “’Culture of Silence’ Abetted Abuse of at Least 547 German Choir Boys, Inquiry Finds,” The New York Times, July 18, 2017.

On the Vatican’s Conflict of Interest Regarding Accountability on Sex-Abuse

Integrity is arguably essential to the credibility of religious functionaries—even and especially those with considerable organizational power. So it was significant that Marie Collins, whom Pope Francis had appointed to the Vatican’s commission on sexual abuse by clergy and herself had been a victim of such abuse, resigned on March 1, 2017 due to “fine words in public and contrary actions behind closed doors.”[1] Notably, the commission suspended Peter Saunders a year before, “after he accused the panel of failing to deliver on its promises of reform and accountability” even including recommendations that the Pope had approved.[2] What is the basis of the problem? I submit that the conflict of interest that is inherent in having the clergy of a religious organization hold each other accountable is, much like industry self-regulation, culpable in this case.
For example, “a tribunal to hold negligent bishops accountable recommended by the commission and approved by the Pope in June 2015 was never implemented,” Marie Collins said in March, 2017.[3] She had no idea whether guidelines issued by the Pope to discipline bishops who had covered up abuse were in force. The Vatican also refused to give the commission an office and staff, and a “Vatican department was refusing to cooperate with a recommendation that all correspondence from victims of clerical abuse receive a response.”[4] The abuse could sadly have been too widespread, in which case the roadblocks in the Vatican are particularly damning.
The integrity and related credibility of the Roman Catholic Church was on the line. “I find it impossible to listen to public statements about the deep concern in the church for the care of those whose lives have been blighted by abuse, yet to watch privately as a congregation in the Vatican refuses to even acknowledge their letters!,” she said. Moreover, the “reluctance of some in the Vatican Curia to implement recommendations or cooperate with the work of a commission when the purpose is to improve the safety of children and vulnerable adults around the world is unacceptable,” she added.[5] The Pope himself had lessened punishments for some pedophile priests—one of whom would be convicted by an Italian court for “sex crimes against children as young as 12.”[6]
To be sure, Marie Collins did admit, “The pope does at heart understand the horror of abuse and the need for those who would hurt minors to be stopped.”[7] Yet that administrative clergy at the Vatican were ignoring his decisions on recommendations points to an institutional problem—that of a conflict of interest in having clergy police themselves. That the sexual abuse could become so widespread as to compromise the very credibility of the Roman Catholic Church suggests that the Vatican’s Curia, or government, was not in an intra-clergy accountability mode. In other words, we cannot expect a tight-knit club to self-regulate. In this case, the sense of brotherhood among the clergy is too strong; hierarchical distinctions and the related power differential is no match.
The implication is that the governments of countries should take more of a role in policing priests. Rather than viewing them as organizational functionaries tied to a Roman jurisdiction, they should be viewed as residents of the country in which they live. Society should not expect the Vatican to come down on its own. Moreover, no religious organization can realistically meet this expectation. In other words, the world has been asking too much of the Vatican. That Bishop Law of Boston, for example, was given a plush appointment in the Vatican after being forced out of his bishopric in disgrace is just one indication that the sort of accountability that Marie Collins and Peter Saunders would not happen inside the Vatican—the clergy's own answer, in other words, was no. It is unrealistic to force people in power to do something they simply refuse to do; external means are needed in such a case. Actions speak louder than words, and through its non-actions the Vatican itself had spoken. This is not to say that it cannot or should not be blamed. In fact, we should expect that its integrity and thus credibility rightfully take a hit, but unfortunately what is right often does not materialize, even from the pews.

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1. Elisabetta Povoledo and Gaia Pianigiani, "Abuse Victim Quits Vatican Commission Citing 'Resistance'," The New York Times, March 1, 2017.

2. Ibid.

3. Ibid.

4. Ibid.

5. Ibid. 

6. Ibid.

7. Ibid.