Rome and Dallas Move Closer

The announcement in Rome that the Vatican would not approve the U.S. bishops' Dallas sex-abuse norms met with a calm and untroubled reception in the United States. Gone was the piling-on of Church critics eager to paint the Church as a harbor for perpetrators.

For that, both the Vatican and the U.S. bishops deserve credit. Both have learned important lessons since the onset of “The Crisis” last spring.

The Vatican learned that public opinion is not an inconsequential player in the handling of the sex-abuse scandal.

It was easy to dismiss the ramped-up accusations of the media before June. News stories sensationalized events, and by April, news stories had taken the less than half of 1% of priests who were accused of abuse (few even in that number were accused of abusing young children) and used them to denounce a culture of tolerance of “priest pedophiles” in the Catholic Church.

When the charges are that absurdly exaggerated, why change Church policy over them?

U.S. bishops who felt the sting of loss of credibility, loss of trust by the laity and crippling losses of missed donations were able to tell the Vatican why.

Meanwhile, U.S. bishops had to learn the opposite lesson. In Dallas, it seems that they were all too prepared to take the media's sense of the scandal at face value. In their zeal to show that there is no place in the priesthood for those who have abused children, rights of accused priests were overlooked.

Father John Beal, an associate professor in the department of canon law at The Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C., spelled out in a recent article in America magazine how the Dallas policy violated the principles of canon law. Some examples from his article:

Shifting the Burden of Proof. The classic standard of “innocent until proven guilty” is reversed by the norms, says Father Beal. The process for priests goes like this: An accusation is received, the bishop removes the priest from clerical duty and then may or may not begin an investigation into the charges. “[I]t is incumbent on the accused priest to prove, usually with little cooperation from the diocese, that the alleged offense did not occur,” writes Father Beal. The classic standard of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt is thrown out the window by the new policy, too.

Statutes of Limitations. The Dallas charter and its Essential Norms also do away with any statute of limitations for the punishment of sexual abusers of minors. A fed-up public might not care: The sexual abuse of minors is such a horrible crime, why shouldn't a perpetrator pay, no matter how long after the fact his crime is discovered? But it makes priests very vulnerable to false accusations. It is easy to make false changes a long time after the fact and difficult for a priest to prove his innocence. In abuse claims stretching back decades, suggests Father Beal, “potential witnesses disappear, memories dim, relevant documents are lost or inadvertently destroyed, alleged crime scenes are razed or renovated.” It's already tough under the norms for a priest to clear his name. In older cases it would be nearly impossible.

Conflicting Responsibilities of Review Boards. The article next points to the difficult circumstances the structure of the review boards invites. “On the one hand, review boards are responsible for ensuring that the Church provides a safe environment for children,” writes Father Beal, and thus, “must err on the side of the safety of children.” On the other hand, review boards are supposed to assess the evidence supporting priests and would presumably need to err on the side of the priest. The two can't serve both masters and, as it turns out, don't. They tend to side against priests.

Combining the American emphasis on reassuring the public that bishops are doing the right thing with the Vatican's emphasis on protecting the canon law rights of priests, the work of the new mixed commission will be a genuine exercise of ecclesial communion. We can expect it will produce good fruit.