Critique of the Vatican’s Role in Recent Child Protection Practice: A Brief Report

Abstract

The current report aims to clarify the practices and implicit intentions of the Holy See in addressing child sexual abuse (CSA) by clerics in the twenty-first century. Church investigation reports, United Nations reports, press coverage, and academic literature were explored to understand the relationship between Church intention and practice. Various types of literature highlight the Roman Catholic Church (RCC) as an organization that is self-referential and self-defensive, with the implicit aim of protecting the reputation of RCC at the expense of children. Organizational responses are seen as promoting the protection of perpetrating clerics, resulting in the spread of CSA by clergy nationally and globally. Recommendations are made for the introduction of modern-day management practices in RCC, filtered through a faithful understanding of gospel principles. The authors suggest that the United Nations may be an important vehicle for fostering leverage for change in RCC child protection practice.

Child Sexual Abuse by Catholic Priests, Deacons, and Male Members of Religious Orders in the Authority of the German Bishops’ Conference 1946–2014

“…Our data strongly support that at least in former decades, the handling of this issue by the Roman Catholic Church was inadequate and weakened by a culture of secrecy and clandestine organizational management models (Rashid & Barron, 2018a, 2018b). This lack of institutional transparency is part of the problem.…”

“…Members of institutions may tend to place the interest of the institution above the protection of children (Hamilton, 2017). Therefore, structural explanations for clergy abuse have to be considered, namely, the unique authority of priests, the high level of isolation, a lack of supervision, and a subculture that is defined by solidarity and informal rules that value secrecy and maintain the status quo (Rashid & Barron, 2018a, 2018b; White & Terry, 2008).…”