Catholic Church still plagued by cardinal sin
While critics of the Vatican’s handling of the Catholic Church’s sex abuse scandal have breathed a sigh of relief at the news of Pope Benedict’s resignation and many hope that a changing of the guard will mean a change in the handling of current and past sex crimes, we must stop to consider who exactly will be selecting the next pope. As Mary Caplan, a leader in the Survivor’s Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), noted, “We’d all like to think there could be a transformation in the church now, but we have to face the reality that the same men responsible for protecting our abusers are going to be the ones casting the ballots.”
First, there is Cardinal Angelo Sodano. Sodano famously described allegations of sexual abuse within the church as “petty gossip” and has been accused of intervening to halt investigations of two of the more notorious sex abuse cases involving his close associates. Although he is ineligible to vote due to his age, Sodano is responsible for convening the process through which the next Pope will be selected and he wields considerable influence and power in that process.
Next, there is Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who served under Joseph Ratzinger before he was pope at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the entity tasked with handling allegations of rape and sexual violence by priests. Together, according to New York Times reporting, Bertone and Benedict decided to halt proceedings in the case of Father Lawrence Murphy, who had been accused of sexually assaulting over 200 deaf students at a Wisconsin school for the deaf, a story told in the new documentary “Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God.” Bertone has also expressed the view that bishops should not be required to report priests they know to be committing acts of rape and sexual assault. Like Sodano, Bertone is a highly influential figure in the conclave that will be voting on the next pope; unlike Sodano, Bertone gets to cast his own vote.
Also voting is Cardinal William Levada. In 2004, a founding member of an independent review board investigating allegations of sexual abuse within Levada’s archdiocese in San Francisco resigned in protest, accusing Levada of blocking the release of the panel’s findings on sexual abuse allegations involving 40 priests. He was also sued by a whistleblower priest for retaliating against the priest for reporting suspected sexual assaults of altar boys by a fellow priest.
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