Facing Protests, Vatican Seeks to Be 'Ally' with Victims on Abuse

By Francis X. Rocca
Religion News Service

VATICAN CITY (RNS) The Vatican's top spokesman appealed to victims of pedophile priests who demonstrated near the Vatican on Sunday (Oct. 31) to regard the Catholic Church as an "ally" in the struggle against the sexual abuse of children.

Following a private meeting with the spokesman, however, protest leaders expressed only frustration and disappointment.

Scores of sex abuse victims from as many as a dozen countries gathered in Rome on Sunday evening to protest the Roman Catholic Church's record on child protection and outreach to victims of pedophile priests.

The event was billed as "Reformation Day" and scheduled for the anniversary of the 1517 protest by Martin Luther that set off the Protestant Reformation.

Barred by Vatican policy from demonstrating in St. Peter's Square, the protestors assembled outside Castel Sant'Angelo about half a mile away. Organizers claimed to have drawn well over 100 participants, though some observers counted as few as 60.

The largest contingent was of former students from a school for the deaf in Verona, Italy, who claimed to have been raped by a priest there in the 1960s.

Participants wore T-shirts bearing the word "Enough!" in English, German and Italian, and carried signs with slogans including "Shame" and "Hands off children." Later, they lit candles and observed a minute of silence for all survivors of sex abuse.

Shortly before the scheduled start of the rally, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, director of the Holy See Press Office, approached the group intending to read a statement calling on them to "look at the church ever more ... as an ally already active today in the pursuit of the most noble goals of your endeavors."

When protestors greeted him with derisive shouts and whistles, Lombardi left without reading the statement, but offered to meet with representatives at his office across the street.

After speeches by Bernie McDaid and Gary Bergeron of the Massachusetts-based group Survivor's Voice, the protestors attempted to march to the Vatican itself but were stopped by police. McDaid was part of the first group of sex abuse victims ever to meet privately with a pope, during Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the U.S. in April 2008.

Bergeron and another protestor, Paula Leerschool of the Netherlands, were permitted to proceed under police escort to the Apostolic Palace, which houses the residence and office of Pope Benedict XVI, where they left dozens of letters from sex abuse victims in various countries. They then placed a few small stones at the base of the obelisk in St. Peter's Square, as a symbolic trail marker for other sex abuse victims.

Bergeron, McDaid and six others, including victims and family members, met with Lombardi in his office for about an hour after the rally.

"He was basically honest enough to admit that he didn't know what to do and didn't have the power to do anything," McDaid said. "We soon realized we were getting nowhere."

Comments

[Veritas is Pro Life]

12:24 AM on 11/07/2010

For everyone slamming the Church again, I suggest you read from the US Conf of Catholic Bishops:

http://www.usccb.org/ocyp/charter.shtml

Of course, when some of the Church leadership did not handle the issue well, you all screamed at them. Now they are correcting the problem, you are screaming aain. Typical knee jerking as seen all over the Huff post! Veritas.

[alterego55]

02:14 PM on 11/08/2010

When I see prosecution of the likes of Cardinal Mahoney who aided and abetted pedophiles - and even today is fighting the release of documents that could help get justice for the victims - then I'll believe the Catholic Church is serving an interest other than its own preservation.

BTW, I read your link. There is NOTHING in there about punishing or prosecuting those who aided and abetted. Nor is there anything resembling a directive to turn all complaint information over to local law enforcement. Looks like window dressing to me. I guess it is business as usual, just CYA more.

[OuterBanx North12]

01:39 PM on 11/05/2010

"Everywhere and always, since its very inception, Christianity has turned the earth into a vale of tears; always it has made of life a weak, diseased thing, always it has instilled fear in man, turning him into a dual being, whose life energies are spent in the struggle between body and soul. In decrying the body as something evil, the flesh as the tempter to everything that is sinful, man has mutilated his being in the vain attempt to keep his soul pure, while his body rotted away from the injuries and tortures inflicted upon it." - Emma Goldman

[naschkatze]

01:00 PM on 11/05/2010

The fox wants to be the hens' ally.

[gregory57]

11:57 AM on 11/05/2010

This is standard operating procedure for the church. Ask the druids.

[ghost geezer]

12:29 AM on 11/05/2010

This is boiler plate co-option. The Church wants control of the victims and seeks
it through ingratiation. "We are your friends. Pray with us. Now. You're all better.
We're sorry, It is good to forgive. Now go home and shut up. You are sinners too."

Of course I know that what I have written is trite and very angry. But the Church's response is trite and unyielding to begin with, so I sing the song that is visible.

This one may break the Catholic Church unless a new course is set.
I don't see any signs that this might happen under the present Pope.
As it is, there should be no more altar boys, ever. Too dangerous.

[thunk]

11:35 PM on 11/04/2010

My memory is vague but I think it was a publicized meeting of the US bishops etc to discuss the issue after the first round of scandals in the US. Kind of a publicity stunt. The discussion was in terms of what "we" should do about pedophile priests and what the procedure should be. The option of just calling the police because a crime had been alleged never got mentioned. I didn't watch long. It was pretty clear that the hierarchy just didn't get it. I can understand the reluctance to commit financial suicide and open up the hierarchy to charges of conspiracy and cover up regarding past cases, but not taking a firm stand on reporting future alleged perpetrators to the authorities is kind of telling. The hierarchy obviously feels that it is a power responsible only unto itself.

[Forgive and Share]

12:49 PM on 11/04/2010

http://www.iheu.org/vatican-condemned-un-child-abuse

[Forgive and Share]

12:45 PM on 11/04/2010

"Oh, come to my confessional and confess with me. Give me all the details of what you did, when you did it, how you did it, to whom you did it, how many times you did it, and how it felt. I will give you forgiveness in the name of the father, son and holy spirit. Then we will find you a new place where your past is not known and you can continue do the work of the lord and his church."

"Now for penance, come to my office and show me how you did it and describe how it feels."

-- Fr. Benny Hex

[Donns]

07:24 AM on 11/04/2010

So the church created the victims and now wants to be their buddy? Maybe some smart lawyer can use that in court as a defense for his client who has committed a crime of agression.

[Need To Know Why]

04:00 PM on 11/03/2010

The catholic church has been an ally to it's shameless pedophile priests, not the victims. The church hierarchy move the priests from place to place and the victims are just supposed to forget about it and pray for their abusers.

[de-meme-ing]

04:48 PM on 11/03/2010

Bad doctrines equal a bad church.

[de-meme-ing]

03:19 PM on 11/03/2010

The day the Church drops it's Anti-Christ position against women and children is the day the world can breath a sigh of relief. Until that day arrives, anything and everything spoken by the church is of the guilded tongue of the golden boy Paul. Paul had no value nor respect for women and children. This is not surprising given the early treatment of women and children in the Jewish religion.

In that males are children, Paul, like his previous religion, insured their dysfunction by his hatred of women.

The evidence against the church regarding their ill treatment of women is staggering.

Destroying women in the eyes of men, like the Abraham religions before them, the church destroyed children.

[colah]

09:37 AM on 11/03/2010

Twice as good as a 12-step program:
Step 1. Pass laws making mandatory castration the punishment for peophiles.
Step 2. Arrest & convict as many pedophiles as possible.
Step 3. Castrate them.
Step 4. Allow the Vatican to establish a distant enclave where they can shield the offenders that avoided arrest & help them heal & repent in the eyes of jeebus.
Step 5. Raid the enclave & arrest & convict all the offenders that avoided it earlier.
Step 6. Castrate them.

[ThinkCreeps]

08:26 AM on 11/03/2010

Failing to succeed with the stance of an abusive boss, the vatican now moves on to use the language of the abusive domestic partner `just one more chance, I'll change'.

[MyFatCat]

01:06 AM on 11/03/2010

The Vatican is too powerful to really develop a convincing Stockholm Syndrome.

[ThinkCreeps]

06:04 AM on 11/03/2010

The kidnappers never seem to get stockholm syndrome, although they do sometimes descend into self-pitying justification once they're caught.

[timm553]

09:15 PM on 11/02/2010

I'd have to believe that the Vatican's strategy here is "keep your friends close, and your enemies closer". After they've screwed you in every possible way, I'd be loathe to accept them as an ally.