{"id":28500,"date":"2022-01-22T01:43:00","date_gmt":"2022-01-22T01:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=28500"},"modified":"2022-01-26T21:05:51","modified_gmt":"2022-01-26T21:05:51","slug":"pope-benedict-accused-of-mishandling-sex-abuse-cases-4-essential-reads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/pope-benedict-accused-of-mishandling-sex-abuse-cases-4-essential-reads\/","title":{"rendered":"Pope Benedict accused of mishandling sex abuse cases: 4 essential reads"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Molly Jackson<\/a>, The Conversation<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Pope Benedict XVI resigned in 2013<\/a> \u2013 the first leader of the Catholic Church to do so in more than half a millennium \u2013 the sexual abuse crisis had already roiled the church for years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the conservative theologian\u2019s papacy, the church revised canon law<\/a> and announced new guidelines<\/a> in an effort to respond to clergy abuse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But a new report<\/a> accuses Benedict of having mishandled at least four cases of sexual abuse when he was an archbishop in Munich, Germany, in the 1970s and 1980s. The investigation, which covers abuse in the diocese from 1945 to 2019, concluded that the former pope failed to properly act on claims or punish priests \u2013 claims Benedict has rejected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The accusations against a living, if retired, pope underscore how dramatically the sex abuse crisis has shaken the church. Here are some of The Conversation\u2019s many articles examining the crisis over the years \u2013 both its roots and the potential routes for reform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Years of scandal<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

High-profile reports have consistently put the crisis in headlines for the past 20 years, particularly The Boston Globe\u2019s famous \u201cSpotlight\u201d investigation<\/a> in 2002 and the film it inspired in 2015.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the paper trail documenting patterns of abuse \u2013 and cover-ups \u2013 goes back to at least the 1950s<\/a>, according to Brian Clites<\/a>, an expert on clergy sex abuse. That\u2019s when U.S. bishops began referring priests to church-run treatment centers, rather than reporting abuse to independent authorities. \u201cHush money\u201d payouts followed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/
Victims or their family members react after a Pennsylvania grand jury released a report on clergy sex abuse in 2018. AP Photo\/Matt Rourke<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

By the 1990s, as lawsuits mounted, \u201cthe national outcry forced dioceses across the country to create public standards for how they were handling abuse accusations,\u201d Clites writes, \u201cand American bishops launched new marketing campaigns to regain trust.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Speaking up \u2013 and out<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Two barriers to bringing abusers to justice, many experts argue<\/a>, are the church\u2019s hierarchy and canon laws, which regulate the church and its members.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in 2019<\/a>, Pope Francis modified the \u201cRule of Pontifical Secrecy,\u201d which required that sensitive information about the church be kept confidential. Over the years, critics alleged that the policy allowed officials<\/a> to withhold information about sexual abuse cases, even from victims or legal authorities. Francis\u2019 announcement lifted the rule for three situations: sexual abuse of minors or vulnerable persons, failure to report or efforts to cover up such abuse, and possession of child pornography by a cleric.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even with this change, however, transparency may prove elusive, argues law professor Christine P. Bartholomew<\/a>. She outlines other practices<\/a> that can be used to conceal information and work around mandatory reporting requirements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. Celibacy controversy<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Other analysts trying to understand the roots of the sex abuse crisis focus on the rules of the priesthood itself \u2013 especially that priests be male and celibate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it hasn\u2019t always been that clear cut. Kim Haines-Eitzen<\/a>, an expert on early Christianity, outlines how views on marriage have shifted<\/a> ever since the first century. The early Christian leader Saint Paul seemed to endorse marriage \u201creluctantly,\u201d she writes, as \u201can acceptable choice for those who cannot control themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The French Baroque painting \u2018Saint Paul writing his Epistles.\u2019 Valentin de Boulogne\/Museum of Fine Arts, Houston<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Attitudes toward sex and marriage continued to cause controversy for centuries, contributing to schisms between the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Church, and later the Protestant Reformation. This is still the case today, as some Catholics advocate that married men be allowed to become priests<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4. Change is possible<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Changing a 2,000-year-old institution is hard, but not out of reach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a scholar of religious change, Melissa Wilde<\/a> pinpoints moments when the Catholic Church changed course<\/a>. Chief among them was Vatican II, the seminal church council in the 1960s that made significant reforms to worship, such as conducting the Mass in parishioners\u2019 own language, rather than Latin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the church mired in crises, \u201cthe church needs more than reflection,\u201d she argues. \u201cIt needs another council.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Editor\u2019s note: This story is a roundup of articles from The Conversation\u2019s archives. It is an updated version of an article<\/a> originally published on October 7, 2021. It has been updated to include the January report accusing Pope Benedict of mishandling sex abuse cases.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Molly Jackson<\/a>, Religion and Ethics Editor, The Conversation<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Molly Jackson, The Conversation When Pope Benedict XVI resigned in 2013 \u2013 the first leader of the Catholic Church to do so in more than half a millennium \u2013 the sexual abuse crisis had already roiled the church for years. During the conservative theologian\u2019s papacy, the church revised canon law and announced new guidelines in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":28501,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,2450],"tags":[2753,11205,11207,2620,1829,6346,6347,2275,5875,11206,4207,6345,6610,3625,3552,5648,5650],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28500"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28500"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28500\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28526,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28500\/revisions\/28526"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}