The Vatican Continues to Obstruct Justice in Sex Abuse Cases

I have noted many times that if Pope Francis is to restore any kind of legitimate moral authority to the Roman Catholic Church he needs to come down hard on those who engaged in the sexual abuse of children and youths and also on those who aided, abetted and covered up their crimes.  As the case of former Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski, former ambassador of the Vatican to the Dominican Republic, indicates, Francis appears to be failing the test.  Indeed, as the Wesolowski saga suggests, apparently nothing has really changed and the Vatican continues to protect predators.  A piece in Religion Dispatches looks at the disgusting story.   Here are excerpts:

Former Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski, ambassador of the Vatican to the Dominican Republic, is now a layperson awaiting criminal trial in the Vatican for sexual abuse of young people. After intensive negative press, the Vatican announced on August 25 that since he was no longer in their service, Wesolowski is not covered under diplomatic immunity and could potentially be extradited presumably to either his native Poland or the D.R. where he had been credibly accused of sexual abuse. There’s always more to a story than meets the eye, and in this case it isn’t pretty.

Major pressure came from a lengthy Sunday New York Times piece in which respected religion writer Laurie Goodstein offered grisly details of allegations of pedophilia against Mr. Wesolowski during his tenure in Santo Domingo. I’m hard pressed to recall a case as brazen and heinous.

Apparently this fellow regularly had a few drinks by the waterfront in the afternoon and then invited a shoeshine boy or other young man in need of money to accompany him to a secluded spot for sex. Though wealthier than its island neighbor Haiti, the Dominican Republic is a place where these kids make a few dollars for a day’s work. The clergyman, on the other hand, was probably paid in Euros so he could well afford to up the children’s wages geometrically in exchange for a little titillation.

This case unfortunately offers many insights into how the Roman world works. Vatican officials protest too much when they speak of a new approach, showing how seriously they take clergy sexual abuse. The Archbishop was “whisked away by the Vatican” so as to avoid trial in the venue where he’s alleged to have committed the crimes. That act reflected the same old same old approach to clergy sexual abuse under Pope Francis as under his predecessors until, as I read it, public pressure was simply too great. Kudos to the New York Times and other media outlets that will not let this case fade away.

I doubt sincerely that the clergy fellows will cut him loose for prosecution in other locations.. . . . while the Vatican’s rhetoric is promising, the timing and expected next steps make clear that not much has changed at all. 

So far, the so-called punishment is an insult to Catholics everywhere. “Reduction to the lay state,” Wesolowski’s fate thus far, is only a serious matter if you bank on clergy privilege. Goodness, most Catholics live in the lay state all of our lives and live to tell it. Only the notion that clergy are qualitatively different (read: better) than lay people makes being stripped of such titles bothersome.

As the New York Times article concluded, the whole sordid tale gives Catholics pause about taking children to church at all.

The Vatican could have waived immunity and let Dominican (and presumably Polish) law take its course. It did not have to secret this man away before the news of his crimes hit. But it could, so it would, and it did. This latest twist about lifting immunity is meant to convince that they were really doing the right thing all along. It rings suspiciously hollow.

A certain slime factor hovers over this case—evil so deep and enduring that few people want to talk about it. The sheer number of victims and their willingness to come forward despite whatever stigma they might endure give this case special status. The colonialism alone is repulsive; the legal ramifications boggle the mind; and the religious implications for a very Catholic country are staggering. If this is how the new guidelines work with regard to sexual abuse victims, I say back to the drawing boards because no one wins and the children always lose.