The Catholic Hierarchy Has Learned Nothing

 

St. Mary's Cathedral, Tokyo

Over the next week we shall keep our focus on the breaking priest abuse scandal in Japan.

In 1984, a young boy told his parents that the parish priest had done “bad things” to him at the church in Louisiana. This would become the first case that would explode over the next years into the international priest abuse scandal. No diocese or mission territory in the Roman Catholic Church has been exempted from cases. Religious orders have been bankrupted settling cases.

At heart of all of this has been the bishops and popes protecting the institution over protecting parishioners from predator priests, and refusing to see justice dispensed to the guilty. Cardinal Bernard Law at the heart of the Boston scandal barely scratched the surface. Pope John XXIII knew in 1962 that priests in Ireland had abused over 30 boys at a school in Cork. Paul VI in 1968, was informed that priests and brothers at a school for the deaf in Warsaw had abused 8 boys. John Paul II in 1979, was informed that a school in Toronto had 3 boys abused by a priest. In all cases, the brothers and priests were transferred, and then the accused abused more children.

John Paul II already had a history of protecting accused religious back home in Krakow, Poland when he was archbishop. Transferring them to Austria, Germany, and all over Poland.

Cardinal Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict XVI, who as a cardinal led the Vatican Office of the Faith, the most powerful position after the pope. Knew the total scope of the scandal years before it became public. His concern was solely in protecting the institution. Likewise for Pope Francis. Francis has known since 2014 about the secret children fathered by priests under vows. Francis has refused any and all support for the children. Showing not only children but also adults have been victimized by scoundrels dressed in clerical collar.

Now a cursory look at the situation in Japan is exactly the same. When accusations were made about priests the immediate reaction of chancery offices of diocese was to send a vicar from the office along with a lawyer. Get a nondisclosure agreement signed that prevented any visit to the police until an internal investigation was completed. No matter the result a cursory payment was made and a further NDA barring any discussion of the accusation or notifying police. Keep all inside the chancery. The exact same for religious orders. The provincial would send a representative priest and a lawyer. The goal was to keep strict silence not to help the victim nor punish the offender.

Today, we are told that the Letter of the Bishops of Japan that outlines the procedure has changed the “systemic practice of protecting the Church”. That is completely false. The victim is encouraged to cooperate with a church investigation and only go to the police when the church endorses that action. This is the exact process as before. Nothing has been changed.

The church in Japan has even doubled down with this from the statement: In all cases, the names of individual dioceses, religious congregations and mission societies as well as the number of reported cases in each will not be made public because doing so may lead to the identification of the individual victims.

If the process is conducted under an NDA then this is a total lie. There is no way for the victim to be discovered unless the victim themselves do so. This would lead to the victim being sued for breaking the very NDA to protect the church and not the victim. Again, more lies and no change.

For the last 21 years it is painfully obvious the church has learned nothing. The wagons still circle to protect the accused and the church. The victims are still painted as enemies to the faith. The church is still operating blissfully to its own demise from the crumbling of faith in the faithful. The faithful see the wolves have disguised themselves as the shepherds all this time, the poor sheep.

Dallas Brincrest, Editor