A pending element of tackling the abuse crisis: transparency

(OSV News) -- While much was done during Pope Francis' pontificate to tackle the global abuse crisis -- a crisis moving at differing speeds in the church, depending on the country -- one significant element is still pending and left for Pope Leo XIV to implement. That element is transparency.

Of the three pillars of the February 2019 summit organized by Pope Francis -- accountability, responsibility and transparency -- Cardinal Seán O'Malley, longtime president of the Pontifical Commission of the Protection of Minors, recently noted the third as a priority in the church today.

In an interview with Vatican News June 5, Cardinal O'Malley, who met Pope Leo with his commission hours earlier, said the church's priorities with regard to the prevention of child abuse "are the same as ever" and that "we're trying to put the victims and their families first."

However at the same time the cardinal mentioned transparency as an element high up on the list of priorities.

"In the past, the worst … actions of the church were covering up the crimes, not reporting them. So, working with the civil authorities is a very, very important step forward: transparency, letting people know what's happening."

The retired archbishop of Boston, who cleaned up his archdiocese after the 2002 scandal triggered by the Boston Globe's "Spotlight" team reporting on a massive, decades-long cover up, also emphasized "a sense of responsibility" and "the importance of a whole educational process in the church, so that people realize that the church, by our very mission, needs to be an expression of God's love and mercy, and therefore the care and protection of the children and young people needs to be central in our mission."

"People will listen to our message only if they are convinced that we care about them," Cardinal O'Malley said. "We care about their children. We care about the safety of their children."

An American cardinal spoke to Vatican News days before the Vatican's flagship news outlet began removing artwork by Father Marko Rupnik -- the once-renowned mosaicist now accused of abusing over two dozen women -- from its website. However, the Holy See Press Office did not reply to OSV News' inquiry regarding the move. Other journalists' inquiries also have not been addressed.

Asked about the need for transparency in the church, Father Jordi Pujol, associate professor of media ethics and media law at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome, told OSV News that "unnecessary secrecy breaks down people's trust and also harms communion within the church."

He said "secrecy is not a 'stamp' to hide your wrongs. Transparency, properly understood, is not opposed to the existence of areas of confidentiality. But the attitude by default should be openness."

Asked about the need for the church to be more transparent, he said that "the authority of the church has been seriously compromised by the crises of abuse and the institutional cover up."

He emphasized that "the church lives in the world" and that "leaders in the church must understand that there's no way back to the socio-cultural call to more transparency."

The Holy Cross University professor added that transparency is perfectly aligned with the mission of the church.

"The first motive for being transparent is justice to those who have suffered the horror of abuse within the church," Father Pujol told OSV News.

To carry out its mission, the church "is called to be truthful and trustworthy," he said.

However, that's not always the case -- from dioceses across the globe not informing about the reasons of abusive priests' removal from parishes to the Vatican not transparently announcing why bishops who covered up abuse were removed -- secrecy is speaking more loudly than transparency. Transparency is also lacking in the canonical processes, where victims stand as witnesses only without access to information formally given to the parties involved.

"A lack of transparency on the part of the institutional church during the process of an investigation can cause the victim to believe the institution is untrustworthy and therefore 'unsafe,'" said Antonia Sobocki, a British Catholic and advocate of those abused in the church, who is running the LOUDFence initiative.

"A lack of transparency can also cause the victim to feel anxiety and creates the impression the church is trying to impose its will on the victim, which in turn can cause the victim to feel as if they have been robbed of yet more control over the situation they find themselves in," she told OSV News in an email exchange.

"A person who feels powerless feels fearful, and the last thing any survivor should feel is additional fear and distress," Sobocki -- who is a victim of domestic sexual abuse -- added.
"A lack of transparency is the twin sibling of silence," she said.

Father Pujol admitted there are "internal systemic resistances" regarding transparent communications of clerical sexual abuse cases.

"It can be a clericalist attitude of feeling untouchable or somehow above the law," he said. "What I see more recurrently is fear and lack of proper formation of church leaders, which paralyzes."

Father Pujol said that "the final document of the Synod (on Synodality) calls the church to embrace this culture of transparency seeking the help of collaborators" -- that is often laity.

Sobocki, for her part, said that secrecy "adds insult to injury and prevents dialogue which is the catalyst for truth, healing and the re-establishment of the right relationship between the injured and the institutional church."

Cardinal O'Malley said that while the commission was "very much involved in the educational efforts of the church -- particularly with the leadership, to help them to understand safeguarding" -- it at the same time was "involved in reviewing and developing guidelines and protocols to promote safeguarding and protection of children and minors."

He emphasized that in the global South, the issue of safeguarding "is only beginning to be discussed," and "many of the churches are very under-resourced."

Speaking about the challenge of transparency -- much bigger in places where the abuse crisis has not been fully addressed yet -- Father Pujol admitted that "to talk publicly about your wrongs makes you vulnerable, as a leader and as an institution," however -- it "is the only way to address them."

He said that "in situations of serious betrayal of credibility as sexual abuse of children and its cover up, public acknowledgement of one's own mistakes is an indispensable step for the successive stages of reparation, compensation, and healing," and that "transparency is the most effective way to show that you are willing to change, and to start regaining trust."

Sobocki added: "We must reject clericalism in favour of fraternal love and care for the clergy who are our brothers in Christ. Transparency is a core characteristic of our mission and we cannot function without it."