The Vatican has finally voiced out its condemnation of the more than 300 priests who were accused of sexually abusing more than 1,000 children as revealed by internal documents from six Catholic dioceses in Pennsylvania.
The abuse was detailed in the nearly 900-page report released on Aug. 14 by the Pennsylvania grand jury. The abuses, that took place over seven decades, have sparked outrage within the Catholic Church and their followers that they demand statement coming from Pope Francis himself.
Prior to this, the Pope had also been subjected to increasing pressure to address a sexual abuse crisis that has been found to be pervasive across several continents, extending from Australia to Latin America.
On Aug 16, through Greg Burke, director of the Vatican's Press Office, The Holy See expresses its feeling of shame and sorrow being faced with crimes it described as horrible. Burke said the Vatican treats with extreme seriousness the detailed interim report released by the Investigating Grand Jury of Pennsylvania.
Burke said Pope Francis acknowledged that such horrible crimes can shake the faith and the spirit of the believers of Church. The Holy Father, therefore, called for everyone to create a safe environment for children and vulnerable adults in the Church and in all of society.
Pope Francis, according to Burke, would like victims to know that The Holy See and the Holy Father himself are on their side. Burke assured that the Pope prioritizes those who have suffered and the Church will listen to their accounts to find resolution and end the terror that destroys the lives of child victims.
Burke continued by describing the abuses as criminally and morally reprehensible. The director said the Church must learn from this, highlighting that the accountability is on both the abusers and those who allowed these crimes to happen.
Nevertheless, Burke said that there is something promising that can be made out of what happened. He noted that the abuses took place before the early 2000s and almost nothing after 2002. This may be an indication that Catholic Church reforms in the United States have helped to reduce cases of priest child abuse.
With this, the Vatican called for the Catholic Church to continue its vigilance and compliance with the civil law, and advanced the mandatory child abuse reporting requirements.
There had been pressures coming from the Catholic community for the Pope to respond to the controversy personally. Rev. Hans Zollner, a member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, explained to CNN that under the canon law, Pope Francis has the authority to punish bishops.
Zollner, however, pointed out that the said law, unfortunately, did not specify the crimes and respective penalties. The law was also vague as to when should the Pope carry out the punishment.
Zollner also concluded that since there are approximately 5,100 bishops worldwide, it would be impractical for the Pope to personally handle each and every allegation. While there may be other departments that can investigate accusations such as the case at hand, the canon law was not clear whether these departments have the authority to punish bishops.
In the end, Zollner believed that the Code of Canon Law needs a revisiting and possibly a complete overhaul even within the penal aspect of the code.
The report released on Tuesday afternoon detailed sexual abuse dating to 1947 in several dioceses in the US State, Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro described the report as the largest, most comprehensive account of child sexual abuse with the Catholic Church that has ever been produced in the United States.
