Washington D.C., Aug 6, 2018 / 02:00 pm (CNA).- A former member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors has said that proposals made by Cardinal Donald Wuerl in the wake of the Theodore McCarrick scandal do not go far enough.
Marie Collins, who is herself a survivor of clerical abuse, also said that the actions taken by Church leaders thus far in response to the McCarrick allegations, are not sufficient to resolve the problem.
On August 3, Cardinal Wuerl released a “pastoral reflection” on the McCarrick crisis. In it, the Archbishop of Washington, D.C., noted it was “particularly disheartening” that the Church had already been through the pain and trauma of addressing sexual abuse and episcopal failures in 2002, but quoted St. John Paul II, saying “We must be confident that this time of trial will bring a purification of the entire Catholic community.” He also pointed out that earlier work by U.S. bishops, including the Dallas Charter, could be revisited and built upon.
In response, Marie Collins told CNA that Cardinal Wuerl “speaks as if the issue had already been addressed when we know this is not the case.”
Cardinal Wuerl’s reflection also praised Pope Francis for his “strong and decisive” response to the McCarrick allegations, calling it an example to follow.
On July 28, the pope accepted McCarrick’s resignation from the college of cardinals and directed him to live in “seclusion, prayer, and penance” pending the outcome of a canonical process. This followed the similar acceptance by the pope of the resignations of five Chilean bishops in the wake of the abuse scandal still unfolding in that country.
Collins, who resigned from the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors in March 2017, said that episcopal resignations were no substitute for a proper determination of guilt and formal punishment following a canonical trail. She said that allowing bishops to effectively remove themselves following public scandal was not a credible means of resolving the crisis.
“Asking for resignations is not the same thing as having a proper, transparent, penal process,” she said, “no proper structure has been put in place to hold bishops or religious leaders to account.”
Cardinal Wuerl’s reflection noted that, in 2002, U.S. bishops issued a “Statement of Episcopal Commitment” which bound them to self-report allegations made against them to the Apostolic Nuncio, and to similarly report allegations they received against other bishops.
Wuerl said the statement could “serve as the nucleus of a more effective mechanism” for holding bishops accountable. Collins was deeply skeptical of the suggestion.
“It is disturbing that Cardinal Wuerl speaks of revising the very unsatisfactory Statement of Episcopal Committeemen that accompanied the Dallas Charter when what is needed is that the Charter itself should be revised to cover all clerics and religious.”
A spokesman for the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., told CNA that the cardinal’s comments were intended as a “contribution to an important and ongoing conversation.”
“Cardinal Wuerl was drawing attention to the Statement of Episcopal Commitment, to highlight what the U.S. bishops can build upon.”
“He feels it is important for the Church, and especially for victims, that time isn’t wasted reinventing the wheel. The Statement and the Charter could be built upon and improved, and might be useful in that way. But if the bishops decide to go in another direction, that’s also an option.”
In a separate media interview, given on August 5, Wuerl suggested that the USCCB could form a committee or panel of bishops with the authority to investigate allegations, and even persistent rumors concerning individual bishops, such as those which were reportedly in wide circulation concerning Archbishop McCarrick.
Collins told CNA that the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors had already drawn up a set of safeguarding guidelines, approved by the pope, but that it has been left up to bishops’ conferences to take notice of the Commission’s recommendations.
“The Safeguarding Guidelines template which the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors drew up, and which was approved by the Pope, is on the Commission website” she pointed out, also noting that unlike the Dallas Charter “the Commission’s guideline do not exclude bishops – they refer to ‘clerics and religious’.”
Echoing previous criticisms made about the way the Pontifical Commission’s work had been adopted, Collins said that although the guidelines were meant to be a binding standard, they have not yet become normative.
“The original intention was to disseminate the guidelines to all bishops’ conferences globally as best practice and to hold all local policies to this standard, instead, they are now simply a resource on the website to take or leave.”
When asked what a credible response to the McCarrick scandal might look like, Collins called for a serious commitment to transparency by the Church, both in Rome and in dioceses.
“There must be transparency around every action that is taken in response to a report of any sort of abuse or exploitation. The use of the ‘pontifical secret’ to restrict the information available to victims in canonical trials should end – this was recommended to the Holy Father by the PCPM last September, but there has been no word as to whether the recommendation has been approved or not.”
Collins said that real reform would need to be dramatic, and could include a national body charged with inspecting dioceses.
“Each diocese should open itself to an annual audit by an independent body, with diocesan bishops making all their files available. This is done in Ireland by the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church and their audits are published.”
“The NBSCCI are not completely independent but they are a central office not connected to any one diocese.”
In his Pastoral Reflection, Cardinal Wuerl has said that any review of policy must be more than just canonical and procedural. The cardinal said any revised version must include “an expansive theological and moral perspective” and recognize the need for “fraternal correction” among bishops.
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While I support background checks and banning felons and the mentally ill from owning guns, Chicago already has very strict gun laws and they have failed miserably in curbing violence.
Did the archbishop even bother to learn this fact?
Cardinal needs to shut his mouth and mind his own business. Take the beam out of your own eye Cardinal before worrying about the mote in your neighbor’s.
I find it dispiriting that you think it’s more appropriate to castigate DiNardo for speaking out against a senseless loss of life… and that he should “mind his own business”? This is a website whose writers and users proffer almost exclusively in minding others’ business. The moment someone speaks out against gun violence, they are getting too uppity?
I urge you to think more with charity and empathy, instead of venting hate and anger as your first recourse. It’s bad for the soul.
What utter nonsense. There is no such thing as “gun violence”. The gun is a tool. Do we characterize the genocide of the 1990s in Rwanda as “machete violence”? no we do not because the tool used to commit the horrendous acts of violence is simply the material at hand. The Cardinal should pull his head out of his fourth point of contact and focus on the underlying hatred, mental distress, and the triggering causes of the act of violence. We don’t focus on the crack pipe when helping addicts heal, we focus on their mental and physical state, and those things that cause the addict to reach out for the crack pipe (or the bong, or the bottle). Its not the presence of the crack pipe that made the addict light-up, it was an mental/emotional disorder. Cardinal DiNardo’s continuance of the myth of “gun violence” is yet another entry on the scroll of reasons the laity do not trust the judgement of the “leaders” of the Catholic Church in America. They continue to prove their judgment clouded by emotion, false reasoning, and lack of focus on authentic Catholic Apostolic Teaching.
Begs the question, when was the last time that the Cardinal purchased a firearm from a federally licensed firearms dealer? Has he ever? My guess is that he has not because anyone who executes a legal purchase from a federally licensed firearm dealer is well aware of the extensive ‘reasonable’ restrictions already in place. And there are many.
Additionally Cardinal DiNardo’s calling into question how someone ‘capable of such violence was able to obtain a firearms to carry out this heinous act’ betrays a stunning naiveté on at least two fronts. First, does the Cardinal really lack imagination to such a degree that he cannot consider any number of ways both legal and illegal that the weapon was acquired? Was his question rhetorical or an irresponsible and ill-informed throw away comment indicting the legal firearms market?
Secondly, does the Cardinal not realize that we are all fallen and capable of committing evil? That someone is capable of acquiring a firearm and committing such a heinous act is a surprise to him? Really? Murders happen everyday in Chicago and only now is he surprised that people commit murder? At risk of putting too fine a point on it, on what planet does he live?