“I felt that it hurt him”

adminonDecember 14, 2021January 5, 2022Leave a Comment

This has never happened before: for days, abuse victims and the pope lived under one roof, spoke without time limit. The guests are impressed – but expect consequences.

Anger and trust. For several days, three men spoke with Pope Francis about the darkest episodes of their lives: sexual abuse by a Catholic priest and the resistance when they wanted the truth to come to light. In the end, they thought they had seen "the friendly face of the Church," the opposite of the undergrowth of power, violence and lies that they encountered in their youth in Chile.

Credibility crisis of the pope

Juan Carlos Cruz, James Hamilton and Jose Andres Murillo called sexual abuse by clergy an "epidemic". An epidemic of crime and depravity that had "thousands" on its conscience, they told reporters in Rome on Wednesday. "We speak from experience. An experience that others could not survive."

The impetus for the invitation to the Vatican was not what happened to these men three and a half decades ago at the El Bosque parish center in Santiago, but that the stories of the cluelessness of some of today's church superiors began to crack.

A spiritual foster son of El Bosque priest Fernando Karadima, Bishop Juan Barros, Francis had still publicly defended during his Chile trip in January. This has resulted in the pope's most serious credibility crisis to date.

One-on-one meetings lasted two to three hours

The three men spent a week at the papal residence of Santa Marta to discuss with Francis the causes of the abuse scandal and how to deal with it. The Vatican did not specify the content or time frame of the talks. Everything should be allowed to be addressed, each topic should be given as much time as necessary. The individual discussions lasted a good two to three hours; on Monday they met again for a joint round.

Going into little detail, Cruz, Hamilton and Murillo took stock of the situation. They described the "pathological and unrestricted exercise of power" as a cornerstone of abuse and cover-up. As long as abuse is not atoned for, repetition is possible and networks of violence can continue to grow. In Murillo's view, a new approach to power also requires a different participation of groups whose influence in the church has so far been limited, such as women.

"I have never seen anyone so contrite"

The three of them, it became clear, presented very fundamental reform approaches to the head of the church; apparently, this was precisely what Francis also wanted. Guests and hosts also seemed to have found each other on a personal level. The pope asked for their forgiveness personally and in the name of the church. "Never have I seen anyone so contrite," Cruz said. "I felt that it hurt him."

Francis admitted to having been "part of the problem" himself, according to Cruz. Murillo even said that the Pope had preserved the claim to infallibility precisely by admitting errors. Left open: what happened to the incriminating dossier on Bishop Barros that Cruz forwarded to Francis in early 2015 via Cardinal Sean O'Malley? Had not received it, had not read it or had not taken it seriously? Even Cruz couldn't answer the question Wednesday.

This meeting differed from all previous meetings with victims of abuse by its duration alone: for days the three lived with Francis under one roof, the conversations went far beyond personal descriptions of their experiences. Basically, the meeting was the preparation for a crisis meeting for which the Chilean bishops have been summoned to the Vatican for mid-May.

Consequences expected for offenders

That's unusual – for abuse victims to help set the agenda of a bishops' meeting, making them players in the exercise of church leadership. Cruz, Hamilton and Murillo stated that the Pope requested a proposal paper from them for the next few days and they want to continue to be in contact.

But the three now expect consequences for those by whom they have been antagonized over the years for their struggle: for example, a Cardinal Francisco Errazuriz, a member of the Pope's closest circle of advisors, or a Cardinal Ricardo Ezzati. They call them criminals, cover-ups and "toxic". They want to see action. Otherwise, the anger will return.

Burkhard Jurgens

Alienation from the faith as a central problem

Followed up: Former Pope Benedict XVI. Feels misunderstood in abuse debate. At the same time, he again deplores an absence of the word "God" in Catholic theology and in Western society as a whole.

In a short contribution for the latest ie of the "Herder Korrespondenz" Benedict XVI criticizes., that his essay on the church abuse scandal, published in April, had been widely misreceived.

"Alienation from the faith is the central problem"

Many reactions to his remarks confirmed him in his view that godlessness and alienation from the faith were the central problem, he added. For him, the debates showed "the seriousness of a situation in which the word God seems to be marginalized even in many cases in theology".

In an essay published in April in the "Clerical Gazette," the pope emeritus had stressed that the central reason for the extent of the abuse crisis lies "in the absence of God". Benedict XVI. added: "We Christians and priests also prefer not to speak of God, because this speech does not seem to be practical."A society with an absent God is a society in which "the measure of the human" is increasingly lost.

However, the ensuing debate in the public, church, and theological spheres had focused primarily on the former pope's comments about the role of the 1968 movement, which he had made in the same paper.

"Physiognomy of the 68 Revolution"

In addition Benedict XVI had. declared that it was part of the "physiognomy of the '68 revolution" that pedophilia was also permitted. In the same period, a collapse of social values and also a "collapse of Catholic moral theology" occurred, which also left parts of the church "defenseless against the processes in society".

Also in various seminaries "homosexual clubs were formed, which acted more or less openly and significantly changed the climate in the seminaries".

Critics then accused the former church leader of describing modernity only as a story of decay and of cultivating his own prejudices. Homosexuality in itself not a cause of child abuse, he said. Moreover, there has been abuse throughout the history of the Church and also in societies that were not touched by the '68 movement. Also of a decay of the catholic moral theology can be no speech. But norms are subject to change.

The agenda sounds rather boring: legal ies and data protection aspects are to be dealt with when the Round Table Home Children meets behind closed doors for the third time today and tomorrow in Berlin. But the panel, chaired by former Bundestag vice president Antje Vollmer, will have to deal with a number of new facts.

Since February, the committee set up by the Bundestag has been looking into a dark chapter in West Germany's post-war history: the accusation is that many of the more than 800.000 in the 1950er and 60er years in national and church homes accommodated children and young people brutal educating methods, forced labor and also sexual assaults were suspended. Caning, humiliating punishments such as scrubbing tiles with a toothbrush or confinement to windowless rooms: the question is to what extent these were regrettable cases of individual failure or an inhumane educational system. The two major churches have publicly deplored abuses. The Catholic Church, however, takes the position that there was no systematic misconduct involved. In the meantime, the Association of Former Home Children (VEH) has put demands on the table. At the beginning of June, the general meeting demanded the establishment of a compensation fund of 25 billion euros. In addition, the association wants compensation under pension insurance law for forced labor and improved treatment of the trauma suffered by many former institutionalized children. It remains to be seen whether these claims will now be put on the round table: Vollmer had repeatedly warned that the question of compensation could only be decided at the end of the work, which is scheduled to last for two years. It is possible that a ruling ied by the Federal Prison Court at the beginning of June will have an impact on the ie of compensation: In a decision on compensation for GDR home children, the judges in Karlsruhe emphasized that deprivation of liberty and violations of human dignity can be rehabilitated even if they were imposed outside of criminal proceedings. A representative of VEH then declared that the West German children in care saw their claims vindicated "right down the line". The trial court had also wiped off the table the frequently used argument that the abuse had only been strict educational methods typical of the time.

"End of the line Freistatt" A scientific study published in mid-May on the home of the Protestant Diakonie in Freistatt, south of Bremen, also sheds light on home education – at least in one specific institution. Under the title "Endstation Freistatt," two historians from the Kirchliche Hochschule in Wuppertal investigated some 7.000 files and conducted interviews with victims and educators. Describes a system that was characterized by violence, intimidation and fear. The disciples had to mine peat from dawn to dusk in heavy chain mail pants. The daily newspaper "Die Welt" quotes the president of the Diakonisches Werk, Dieter Kottnik, as saying that he could not have imagined "that we would carry something like this in our history of diakonia". And with regard to the previous position of the churches: "I used to speak of individual fates. Today I know that this was an inadmissible trivialization."The representatives of the Round Table should also be alert to current events in Ireland. The Ryan Report, released in May, shows that over decades, more than 2.000 children were abused, beaten or sexually abused in church institutions in Ireland. Study accuses church and state in Ireland of turning a blind eye to conditions. The Catholic Church has suffered such a massive loss of credibility.

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