March 10, 2019 - "Action Points 1-4 from February Vatican Meeting"

From February 21-24, 2019, the Vatican hosted a Meeting on the Protection of Minors in the Church.  Over two hundred bishops representing 180 Bishops’ Conferences from around the world were in attendance.  In addition several different bishops or patriarchs in charge of different Eastern Rites of the Catholic Church participated in this historic gathering.  Cardinal Séan O’Malley, Archbishop of Boston, participated in the Conference.  He reported in his most recent blog post ( http://www.cardinalseansblog.org) that all the talks were excellent.  He was particularly moved by the address of Dr. Valentina Alazraki, a veteran Vatican journalist from Mexico who gave a compelling presentation on the role of the media and what the Church’s relation to the media needs to be.  Another very compelling testimony was given by Sister Veronica Openibo.  Pope Francis gave the concluding address at the conference in which he underscored dimensions of the problem of sexual abuse of minors both inside and outside the Church.  There are the eight points of action with which he ended his speech.  I will give the first four in this week’s column and the other four in next week’s column:
 
1) The protection of children.  The primary goal of every measure must be to protect the little ones and prevent them from falling victim to any form of psychological and physical abuse.  Consequently, a change of mentality is needed to combat a defensive and reactive approach to protecting the institution and to pursue, wholeheartedly and decisively, the good of the community by giving priority to the victims of abuse in every sense.  We must keep ever before us the innocent faces of the little ones, remembering the words of the Master:  “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fashioned around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.  Woe to the world because of scandals! For it is necessary that scandals come, but woe to the man by whom scandal comes (Mt 18:6-7).
 
2) Impeccable seriousness.  Here I would reaffirm that “the Church will spare no effort to do all that is necessary to bring to justice whosoever has committed such crimes.  The Church will never seek to hush up or not take seriously any case” (Address to the Roman Curia, 21 December 2018).  She is convinced that “the sins and crimes of consecrated persons are further tainted by infidelity and shame; they disfigure the countenance of the Church and undermine her credibility.  The Church herself, with her faithful children, is also a victim of these acts of infidelity and these real sins of “peculation” (ibid).  [Peculation is the wrongful appropriation or embezzlement of shared or public property, usually by a person entrusted with the guardianship of that property.]

3) Genuine purification.  Notwithstanding the measures          already taken and the progress made in the area of pre       venting abuse, there is need for a constantly renewed     commitment to the holiness of pastors, whose confor-                mity to Christ the Good Shepherd is a right of the People                 of God.  The Church thus restates “her firm resolve to                 pursue unstintingly a path of purification, questioning                 how best to protect children, to avoid these tragedies, to                 bring healing and restoration to victims, and to improve                 the training imparted in seminaries…An effort will be made to make past mistakes opportunities for eliminate ing this scourge, not only from the body of the Church but also from that of society” (ibid.).  The holy fear of God leads us to accuse ourselves—as individuals and as an institution—and to make up for our failures.  Self- accusation is the beginning of wisdom and bound to the holy fear of God:  learning how to accuse ourselves, as individuals, as institutions, as a society.  For we must not fall into the trap of blaming others, which is a step to ward the “alibi” that separates us from reality.
 
4) Formation.  In other words, requiring criteria for the selection and training of candidates to the priesthood that are not simply negative, concerned above all with excluding problematic personalities, but also positive, providing a balanced process of formation for suitable candidates, fostering holiness and the virtue of chastity.  Saint Paul VI, in his encyclical Sacerdotalis Caelibitatus, wrote that “the life of the celibate priest, which engages the whole man so totally and so sensitively, excludes those of insufficient physical, psychic and moral qualifications.  Nor should anyone pretend that grace supplies for the defects of nature in such a man” (No. 64).
 
Until next week,
Fr. John Dillon