Vatican City, Feb 21, 2019 / 02:16 pm (CNA).- A Polish delegation of sex abuse victims and advocates met Pope Francis Wednesday, and presented the pope with a report documenting alleged clergy sexual abuse cases and cover-up throughout their country.
“It was a very powerful moment for … [the] victims in Poland to see this gesture,” Anna Frankowska, a board member of the Have No Fear foundation, told CNA Feb. 21.
The pope met a delegation from Have No Fear, a Polish organization that hosts support groups for sex abuse victims, after his General Audience Feb. 20, and Francis silently kissed the founder’s hand.
“We recognize that is a very symbolic gesture, but it is not enough. We are demanding specific action,” Frankowska said.
The Polish group presented the pope with a Spanish copy of a report published this week documenting alleged “violations of civil and canon law by Polish bishops in the context of priests who engaged in sexual abuse of minors,” and said that Pope Francis “confirmed that he would read it.”
The report documents more than 20 cases of clergy sexual abuse and the responses by their respective Polish bishops. Unlike recent reports of clergy abuse in the United States, the documented cases are not from the 1960s-80s, but only come from the last three decades.
In the report, Have No Fear accuses 24 former and current Polish bishops of having protected or transferred child-abusing priests.
“Since 2005, the Catholic Church has been particularly involved in efforts to protect children and young people against sexual abuse by clerics,” a Polish bishops’ conference document states.
At least 11 of the cases listed in the report occurred after 2005, and four are alleged to have taken place as recently as 2011-2012.
In one case, a priest who had been convicted and sentenced to prison in the United States for sexually assaulting a 17-year-old girl in 2005, was deported to Poland, where he served as a parish priest working with young people beginning in 2009, and worked as a religious educator in a middle school.
The priest, Father Roman Kramek, testified to U.S. police that “he had intercourse as a therapeutic tool in order to help the girl forget an earlier rape,” according to the report.
The Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith was notified of the case nearly ten years later, in October 2018, and Kramek continues to serve as a parish priest in Poland, according to Have No Fear.
The Polish bishops’ conference responded to the report by “strongly and decisively condemn[ing] all sexual abuse of minors in the Church and in society as a whole.”
“In the Catholic Church, every believer can present his case to the Holy Father as the Supreme Pastor. The Holy See, on the other hand, has the opportunity to evaluate and verify reported cases,” Polish bishops’ spokesman Father Pawel Rytel-Andianik told CNA.
“According to the Church and civil law, there is the principle of presumed innocence of a person until the contrary is proven,” he said, adding that various dioceses in Poland were already claiming misinformation in the report.
Recently, the Polish bishops’ conference took additional steps to further develop prevention programs and meet with victims.
In August 2018, diocesan bishops in Poland decided to develop a prevention program for every Polish diocese against crimes of sexual abuse of children.
A Child Protection Center was established in 2014 to provide “training and educational activities in the psychological, pedagogical and spiritual fields related to the sexual abuse of minors and the preparation and development of prevention programs and examples of good practice for various pastoral, formative and educational environments in order to help them create safe environments for children and adolescents.”
Have No Fear was founded in 2013 and became affiliated with the international network Ending Clergy Abuse in 2016. The group updates a “Map of Clerical Abuse in Poland” online, which maps out 384 victims, 85 convicted perpetrators, and 95 instances of abuse reported by victims.
In the past year, the organization delivered a letter to Archbishop Wojciech Polak of Gniezo requesting the establishment of an independent committee to analyze the scale of clerical sex abuse in Poland, abolish the statute of limitations for such offenses, hold accountable perpetrators and their superiors who conceal abuse, and provide victims of abuse with full access to the files of their canon law proceedings.
“We look in particular to the situation in Chile, where the pope dismissed bishops. We think that the situation in Poland is quite similar to the situation in Chile, and the time to act is now,” Frankowska told CNA.
Last May all of the bishops of Chile presented Pope Francis with written resignations following a CDF investigation into episcopal cover-up of the sexual abuse of Father Fernando Karadima.
“We believe that we are still years behind other jurisdictions,” she continued. “For a long time victims were ostracized or were afraid to speak out. Things are slowly changing.”
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These small blessings bring gratitude for the opportunity to celebrate the Latin Mass once again at St. Peter’s. However, it is disheartening that such a thing should be viewed as an event for which we must feel so grateful — a return to a tradition upheld for nearly 1800 years.
Michael, you forget that tradition now means whatever has been believed and practiced only for the last 50 years.
Michael, you forget that tradition now means whatever has been believed and practiced only for the last 50 years.
This permission should not have been granted. The aim ought to be to completely phase out the use of the preconciliar liturgy, not to prolong its use and certainly not to encourage its growth.
The Roman Church is liturgically and ecclesiologically incoherent in its practice.
Ergo, Seabass, also sprach Zarathustra.
Pronouncing such judgment on the church, you make yourself a heathen and a slave like Onesimus, thinking you know more than the Church by defrauding your Christian master. May you find yourself an apostle like Paul. He can reset your thoughts to True.
The Church is universal & catholic, within which there are many Rites & liturgies.
It’s all good.
This is a good sign.
Habemus Papam
While I do not participate in Mass in Latin, I want it available for those who love this liturgy. As Catholics we have room for all.
As Catholics, we should accept the liturgical reform mandated by the bishops at Vatican II. That entails putting the 1962 Missal behind us and only celebrating the reformed Mass. If the reformed Mass were celebrated more in accord with tradition — including the Latin language and Gregorian chant — I believe well over 90% of the tiny subset of Catholics who say they prefer the TLM would accept that way of celebrating the reformed Mass and attend it. For the vast majority of TLMers, they are seeking a traditional, reverent liturgical aesthetic at Mass, not the 1962 Missal itself. That’s how the reformed Mass ought to be celebrated anyway: in accord with liturgical tradition.
So is the Mass celebrated by most Catholics today actually in conformity with what the conciliar documents (SC, etc) really say? This is a double-edge sword, but the fixation is always on those who prefer the “traditional” form. Once again, I’m quite thankful that I’ve been in an Eastern Catholic parish for most of my Catholic life.
To your question, the way the reformed Mass is celebrated in the typical American parish is inept, in my judgment, and does not conform to the Church’s liturgical norms nor does it accord with liturgical tradition.
I understand why the trads want the TLM: because the celebration of the reformed Mass is so embarrassingly awful in 99% of Catholic parishes. The solution is to correct the liturgical abuses and poor celebrations of the reformed Mass in parishes, not to retreat into the preconciliar form of the Mass in liturgical enclaves of traditionalism.
By maintaining the use of the 1962 Missal alongside the reformed Mass, the Roman Church is liturgically schizophrenic.
Preferring and attending the TLM is not a retreat into a preconciliar form or enclave. The TLM reverently and ritually commemorates the sacrifice of Christ’s passion without room for liturgical novelty or debased experimentation.
The Church is not liturgically schizophrenic in allowing use of both forms. Based as it is upon the TLM, the NO’s precursor, foundation, history, meaning, and rubrical model is the TLM.
Seeing the Church’s use of both forms as schizophrenic reflects a want of wisdom and a rigidity in want of charity.
Sebastian: I have the opportunity to celebrate the Holy Mass in churches frequently in three different states and in no way are they “embarrassing awful “ in any of these churches. How much have you been around, and where do you come up with your 99 %?
Carl, two of my cousins and their families recently started attending the Eastern Orthodox Church. I believe Pope Francis was a step too far for them, so they decided to leave. While I understood their choice, it still made me sad. When they explained their reasons for leaving, I found myself without a response.
Mr Olson, I totally agree with you. I too am grateful to be part of a Byzantine Rite parish. Just pure old-world style liturgical services without wars.
Will that Mass at St. Peter’s by Cardinal Burke be with or without James Martin’s parade of homosexual activists?
The Pope met with BOTH Burke and Martin. A good sign I would think.
Br. Jaques, we have come to expect your foolish sentimentality here. You seem to struggle with discriminating between good and evil.
May the Lord forgive disdain against LGBT. Our Lord died for all of his children. Arrogance, like it’s cousin pride. Does nothing to build the body of Christ. It is a poverty to show contempt to brothers and sisters in Christ. So that you might live as you wish.
Pray for the unity of Christendom.
It’s not a disdain against individuals but about Church teaching regarding acting on disordered attractions.
Joe, you seem to have a perverse notion of the moral good; you confuse/invert evil for the good. Come to your senses, man.
If I thought the TLM would bring peace to our world, I would kneel during the whole Mass. As it is, I settle for making my heart kneel before God.
Love God more than Rubrics; Burke is power hungary;
Please explain, Sister, how celebrating Mass at the Vatican is evidence of being “power hungary”. I await your cogent presentation of the matter.
Doubtful she’ll respond to you Carl if she’s one of those “nuns out of uniform.”
Clearly the holy nun (or is it “none”?) is referring to Hungary’s Cardinal Erdo and the future day when he gains further influence in the perennial Catholic Church, as when he introduced the second session of the Synod on the Family, offering this self-evident insight: “There are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage and family.” (Section III:3, below).
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/32772/full-text-of-cardinal-erdos-introductory-report-for-the-synod-on-the-family
Respectfully Sister, Cardinal Burke has always struck me as a very humble & lovely man.
Hungry, not Hungary.
Typical ‘Nun on the Bus’ sort of comment.
To James Connor above who wrote: “Sebastian: I have the opportunity to celebrate the Holy Mass in churches frequently in three different states and in no way are they “embarrassing awful “ in any of these churches. How much have you been around, and where do you come up with your 99 %?”
Father O’Connor, when you celebrate Mass, do you ONLY say the Black and DO the Red, with no deviations whatsoever? Let’s hope so.