Pope Francis and sexual abuse, "Asking for forgiveness is not enough"
Abuse in the Church, the Pope's great challenge: "Asking for forgiveness is not enough"
Decisive, categorical, conclusive. The Argentine Pope displayed a coherence marked by denouncing abuse and putting the victim at the center of attention in both his speeches and his actions. In June 2021, the Supreme Pontiff toughened laws against sexual abuse in a historic reform of the Canon Code.
"In the face of abuse, especially that committed by members of the Church, asking for forgiveness is not enough." These are the words of Pope Francis in the video with his prayer intention, made in March 2023. After his controversial visit to Chile in 2018, the Supreme Pontiff displayed a more confrontational and merciless attitude toward those members of the Church who were accused of abuse that continued until his final days at the helm of the Vatican.
“Asking for forgiveness is necessary, but it is not enough,” the Bishop of Rome acknowledged. “Asking for forgiveness is good for the victims,” he continued, “but they are the ones who must be ‘at the center’ of everything. Their pain, their psychological damage, can begin to heal if they find answers; concrete actions to repair the horrors they have suffered and prevent their repetition,” he expressed with that mixture of shame and common sense, but knowing that acknowledgment is the first step in trying to combat this dark cloud that haunts the Church.
“It is the Church that must offer safe spaces to listen to the victims, accompany them psychologically, and protect them,” Pope Francis stated. In this regard, and during a conversation with a young man who was a victim of abuse, the Supreme Pontiff expressed his sorrow over these events and detailed everything that is being done to combat them, because, at least in the Church, "these cases of child abuse do not have a statute of limitations. And if they do, I automatically lift the statute of limitations. I never want this to expire," he concluded.
On April 12, 2014, the Pope received at the Vatican a delegation from the International Catholic Children's Bureau (BICE), a Catholic NGO that has been working worldwide for more than 60 years in the service of children. During his address, he reiterated his intention to address the issue: “The Church is aware of this harm; it is a personal and moral harm to them, men of the Church,” Francis asserted, and assured them: “We will not take a step back when it comes to addressing these problems and the sanctions that must be imposed; on the contrary.” “I think we must be very strong. Children are not to be trifled with,” the Pontiff emphasized.
The following year, Pope Francis urged bishops to guarantee the safety of minors in parishes. During his speech, he emphasized that they must be “safe houses” for families and reminded them that “there is absolutely no place in ministry for those who abuse minors.”
Like a Movie
Throughout the history of the Church, there have been priests who, camouflaged and protected by religion, satiated their sexual appetites with victims who arrived damaged, hoping to trust the authority hidden behind the white robe.
In the case of the film "Spotlight," based on a real investigation conducted by the Boston Globe in 2002, it exposed a vast number of abusive priests that the Church ended up hiding by changing the priest's legal address and offering financial compensation to (some of) the victims. The Boston Globe investigation revealed repeated cases of ecclesiastical cover-up of abuse. This investigation brought to light a report of abuse cases between 1950 and 2018 involving 20,000 minors and 7,000 members of the clergy.
Chile's Karadima Case
After Cardinal Theodore McCarrick's allegations of abuse involving him during the 1970s became public knowledge, Pope Francis decided to expel him in 2019. The reaction was not impulsive; it had an immediate precedent: the Fernando Karadima case in Chile.
During Pope Francis' visit to the Andean country, a wave of allegations against various members of the clergy—including Fernando Karadima—emerged. Pope Francis's first reaction, during an official visit in 2018, was to demand "evidence" from the victims and call all the accusations "slander."
However, after Vatican envoys visited the country on several occasions that same year, Bergoglio acknowledged a "culture of abuse and cover-up" in Chile. Despite this, Karadima died at the age of 90 without having served a sentence and was only expelled from the institution in 2018.
In June 2021, the Supreme Pontiff toughened laws against sexual abuse.
The damage caused by the priest Karadima was such that journalist Juan Carlos Cruz, physician James Hamilton, and PhD in Philosophy José Andrés Murillo, who directs the Foundation for Trust and fights against child sexual abuse, published the following Monday after his death: "Fernando Karadima, a former Catholic priest who sexually and spiritually abused many people, including us, has died."
Following Karadima's expulsion, it emerged that more than two hundred members of the Chilean Church were the subject of investigations for 150 cases of sexual assault. More than 240 victims were identified, 123 of them minors. During a controversial visit to Chile in 2018, Pope Francis was accused of failing to take action, supporting a bishop accused of covering up crimes attributed to Karadima. The Pontiff delivered a mea culpa and accepted the resignation of seven Chilean bishops in Rome.
In November 2020, following the release the day before of the report on former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, Pope Francis again expressed his solidarity with the victims of sexual abuse committed by religious leaders and reiterated the Church's commitment to eradicating pedophilia.
Reform of the Canon Law Code
During June 2021, the Supreme Pontiff tightened laws against sexual abuse in a historic reform of the Canon Code. Pedophilia was now considered a crime against human dignity. Abuse of adults was also criminalized. After years of scandals in numerous countries, Pope Francis tightened laws against sexual abuse within the Catholic Church in a historic reform of the Canon Code.
Days later, Francis himself appointed Fr. Andrew Small, former national director of the Pontifical Mission Societies in the United States, as secretary pro tempore of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors.
In the blacksmith's house
The case of Argentina is unique. With former Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio as Supreme Pontiff, complaints should be dealt with with exemplary speed. Since Julio César Grassi's conviction, 128 members of the Catholic Church have been accused of sexual abuse, of which 31 were convicted by the courts, 28 were expelled from the Clerical State—the Church's highest sanction—eleven were convicted by the courts and also expelled from the priesthood, and six nuns were reported.
Despite these numbers and the convictions, Justo José Ilarraz (sentenced to 25 years in prison), Julio César Grassi (sentenced to 15 years in prison with a Supreme Court ruling), and Horacio Corbacho (sentenced to 45 years in prison in the abuse case at the Próvolo Institute in Mendoza) remain "priests" for the Catholic Church.
The Grassi Case
On October 23, 2002, the media once again unmasked what the political and ecclesiastical powers had concealed. At that time, Channel 13's Telenoche Investiga aired three teenagers who had denounced Julio César Grassi. The young people had been victims of the priest within his foundation "Felices los Niños," a 65-hectare property in Hurlingham, which is under the control of the bishopric of Morón, Buenos Aires province.
"The fact that he was convicted is very important; there are few precedents in the world where such powerful people serve sentences. Serving an effective sentence was very restorative for the victims," said Juan Pablo Gallego, the plaintiff's attorney.
Enrique Stola, the psychiatrist who treated two teenage victims of the priest, maintained that the case "was a turning point not only in accusations against the Church, but also in the abuse that occurs within the family. The sexual abuse of children began to be discussed throughout society."
Father Julio César Grassi
Despite the court conviction, the Church never removed Julio César Grassi from his position as a priest.
Father César Grassi once had 17 homes distributed throughout the country, housing more than 6,000 children. The media-savvy priest appeared on television channels boasting of his morality and his dedication to protecting these children, which led him to lead donation campaigns in television studios such as those of Mirtha Legrand and Susana Giménez.
After several years of trial, in June 2009, the First Criminal Court (TOC) of Morón sentenced Grassi to 15 years in prison for two counts of sexual abuse and aggravated corruption of minors. He was acquitted of the other charges.
On 20 September 2010, the TOC N°1 granted Grassi his freedom until the sentence became final. It was only in 2013 that the Supreme Court of Buenos Aires ratified the sentence and ordered his arrest. The priest was taken to Penitentiary Unit Number 41 of Campana prison, in the province of Buenos Aires. It should be noted that, despite the judicial sentence, the Church never removed him from his position as a priest.
On 21 March 2017, the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation unanimously dismissed several appeals presented by the defence and made the sentence final.
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