Do you remember how the unfolding of the Catholic Church sexual abuse crisis had been front-page news? It wreaked havoc on many young and innocent lives and did irreparable harm to a once-revered institution. The scandal implicated the Church itself at the highest levels. Certainly, individuals could cause grievous harm, but, so too, could an institution. And from my perspective as a lawyer, I noticed how, along the way, it has also helped to transform the all-important private law of responsibility.
The claims for clergy sexual abuse concerned institutional as well as individual actions. The few victims who sought legal redress faced a daunting array of obstacles. Limitations periods alone had the effect of barring almost all child sexual abuse claims. To a certain extent, immunities also helped to shield the Church. Private law itself was generally hostile to institutional liability, particularly where the harm resulted from the criminal act of an individual. All of that has changed. Ironically, the Church’s determination to protect itself at any cost brought about the very result it most feared. A broader idea of institutional liability started to seem important and even necessary.
Among the catalysts for change within private law, the Catholic Church sex abuse crisis still looms large. From the initial impulse to cover up instances of abuse to choices made in the legal and political arenas, it appeared willing to do almost anything to protect itself. The tension between the Church’s mission and its approach to covering up abuse began to attract notice. The litigation we saw in our courts did not reflect well on the Church as it continued to aggressively defend itself in court. The troubling continuity between how the Church treated initial allegations of abuse and how it handled the legal claims of victims suggested an ethos that placed the preservation of the institution above the interests of the child.
During his controversial trip to South America in 2018, Pope Francis was forced to apologize for sexual abuse and cover-ups in Chile and to remove several Chilean bishops. Around the same time, Cardinal Pell of Australia, the third-highest official in the Catholic Church, was ordered to stand trial for sexual abuse, the Archbishop of Guam was removed from office for abuse, and a Vatican diplomat to Washington was convicted of child pornography. The winds of change were in the air. The Catholic Church had to move from simple apologetic words to action.
Of course, in the wake of those developments, the Church in Malta had to follow suit. It was in 2015 that the Church, on the initiative of Archbishop Scicluna, set up The Safeguarding Commission, consisting of a predominantly lay team of professionals, including a paediatrician, psychologists, social workers, a warranted clinical psychologist, and a lawyer, entrusted with investigating cases of alleged sexual abuse by anyone under the clergy’s watch. Whenever they find that a crime has been committed this is referred to the competent civil authorities and church authorities since they do not have any authority to prosecute or to deliver any judgment. As far as the Church is concerned, therefore, the buck does not stop there. However, at the end of the day, where does all this lead to?
That Commission is supposed to offer support to victims of abusive members of the clergy. In practice, what does this entail? This is not to say that there is an ongoing epidemic of priests committing sexual abuse of children. Though vigilance is still required and even one case of abuse is unacceptable, there is reason to believe that the practices and policies adopted by the Commission, along with greater public awareness of the problem, have drastically reduced the incidence of abuse.
But while these welcome developments have helped prevent further abuse, they have not repaired the devastating breach of trust caused by years of obstruction, denial, and negligence on the part of leaders of the institutional church, especially parish priests and superiors of religious communities, who returned abusers to ministry repeatedly, while doing little or nothing to care for their victims or protect those who were vulnerable. This crisis in the church continues, most painfully for the survivors of abuse whose stories have not been heard and whose wounds have not been sufficiently cared for. They have even seen some members of the clergy who failed to protect them promoted through the ecclesial ranks.
It is part of the church’s great shame that it did not, in a timely fashion, willingly and fully hear the Gospel’s call to repentance for these crimes and sins. Yet, even as the church finally begins to hear the call for repentance, there is still much left to be done. It must, above all, focus on the survivors of abuse, not on the effects of this crisis on the church as an institution, its reputation, or its financial standing. It must stop being reflexively defensive or dismissive in response to accusations against the church and revelations of past or ongoing failures. In the past, it demonstrated remarkable tone deafness to the horror that the faithful experienced and to the trauma survivors still live with. It must not wait for civil authorities to bring past scandals to light. Such cases should be anticipated and embraced, not resisted until they are imposed.
On more than one occasion, Archbishop Scicluna has emotionally appealed to anyone who has suffered sexual abuse at the hands of the clergy to come forward and speak up. One of the few remaining ways that the church can offer mercy to survivors of sexual abuse is to demonstrate through such voluntary disclosures that it values the sacred dignity of the victims more than the church’s reputation and security.
The crisis is far from over. Victims are still hoping for closure. And while this sad chapter in the history of the Church is yet to be concluded there is a greater and more serious crisis looming around the corner. It consists of the growing scarcity of spiritual vocations.
Dr Mark Said is a lawyer