The New York Times, September 16,
2010
Benedict, in Britain, Criticizes Abuse Response
By RACHEL DONADIO and ALAN COWELL
EDINBURGH,
Scotland — As Pope Benedict XVI arrived here Thursday for the first state
visit to Britain by a pope, he offered his strongest criticism yet of the Roman
Catholic Church’s handling of the sex abuse crisis, saying it had not been
“sufficiently vigilant” or “sufficiently swift and decisive”
in cracking down on abusers.
Speaking to reporters on his flight from Rome, Benedict also said that the church’s “first interest is the victims.”
“I must say that these revelations were a shock for me, a great sadness,” he said of the crisis that has undermined the church’s moral authority in many parts of Europe and beyond.
He expressed “sadness also that the authority of the church was not was not sufficiently vigilant and not sufficiently swift and decisive to take the necessary measures.”
His remarks showed that the Vatican had perhaps begun to learn from its mistakes after months of stumbling in its response to the crisis.
Asked how the church could restore the faith of those shaken by the revelations of widespread priestly abuse, the pope said: “The first interest is the victims” and the church needed to determine “how can we repair, what can we do to help them to overcome the trauma, to re-find their lives.” He also said that priests who abused had a “sickness” and needed to be kept away from children and from themselves.
The pope was responding in Italian to reporters’ questions submitted in advance and relayed to him by Vatican officials. His words may have been designed to pre-empt a potentially hostile reception in Britain provoked by the church’s response to the abuse scandal.
The pope’s four-day stay, the first by a pontiff since his predecessor, John Paul II, paid a pastoral visit to Britain in 1982, was likely to be marked by a sustained effort to counter a perceived loss of religious belief in Britain and urge a new struggle against secularism.
The pope’s first appointment on Thursday was with Queen Elizabeth II in Edinburgh, before officiating at a mass in Glasgow. The visit is laden with historical reference points since the days of the Reformation when King Henry VIII of England broke with Rome in the 16th century, provoking centuries of anti-Catholic passions that linger still in parts of Britain.
The pope met her at Holyrood House, her official residence in Scotland. He used the encounter to evoke what he depicted as Britain’s drift from Christianity, saying the country should “not obscure the Christian foundation that underpins its freedoms.”
“Even in our own lifetime, we can recall how Britain and her leaders stood against a Nazi tyranny that wished to eradicate God from society and denied our common humanity to many, especially the Jews, who were thought unfit to live,” the pope said in English, speaking as Britons mark the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain — a turning point in the Second World War.
“As we reflect on the sobering lessons of the atheist extremism of the 20th century,” the pope said, “let us never forget how the exclusion of God, religion and virtue from public life leads ultimately to a truncated vision of man and society and thus to a reductive vision of the person and his destiny.”
The queen is the formal head of the Church of England, whose relationship with Roman Catholicism remains uneasy.
Last year, the Vatican upset many Anglicans when it announced a fast-track conversion to Catholicism aimed at Anglican traditionalists uncomfortable with that church’s acceptance of female priests and openly gay bishops. (So far, few Anglicans appear to have taken the Catholic Church up on the offer.)
Gay and human rights activists, incensed by the pope’s handling of sex abuse scandals involving priests in many parts of Europe — including his native Germany — have threatened to protest the visit. Opponents of the trip have planned a march and rally in London on Saturday and there has been speculation that some activists may attempt to make a citizen’s arrest of the pope.
But while the pope will be tested by the protests, the visit will also test Britain’s tolerance of Catholics, who have often been snubbed in British society and often ridiculed in Britain’s famously fierce press.
Many British commentators have drawn unfavorable comparisons between Benedict’s visit and the rapturous welcome offered 28 years ago to John Paul II, noting that tickets for some papal events have remained unclaimed. Church leaders in Britain have been trying to urge a big turn-out on the streets of Edinburgh to show support for Benedict, who is generally seen as less of a crowd-pleaser than the charismatic John Paul II.
The unease in the relationship with Britain deepened when Cardinal Walter Kasper told a German magazine that arriving at London’s Heathrow airport was like arriving in a third world country. Cardinal Kasper had been due to accompany the pope but the Vatican said he would not participate on health grounds.
The cardinal retired recently as head of the Vatican department overseeing the fraught dialogue with Anglicans.
With some symbolism, a central part of the pope’s mission in Britain is to beatify Cardinal John Henry Newman, an Anglican convert to Catholicism who worked to bring the two churches closer in the 19th century. Beatification is an important step toward sainthood.
But, like much of the Vatican’s public dealings, the overwhelming issue confronting Benedict is the abuse scandal, in which critics have accused the hierarchy of failing to take resolute action against abusers and sheltering them from civil courts.
The latest case in the United States came with news on Wednesday that a prominent Harlem priest who helped arrange the pope’s New York visit in 2008 has resigned, two years after he was suspended on charges of sexually abusing high school students he taught in the 1980s.
In Europe, revelations of abuse have shaken the Catholic Church in Ireland, Germany and Belgium, where the leader of the Belgian church on Monday acknowledged the scale of the scandal and offered to do more for victims.
The church leader, Archbishop André-Joseph Léonard, said it was too soon for a detailed response to the crisis. The lack of more comprehensive steps was greeted with anger by representatives of victims, with one lawyer calling the church’s response “scandalous.”
Much of the victims’ anger in Belgium has focused on the former bishop of Bruges, Roger Vangheluwe, who resigned in April after admitting that he had abused a boy later revealed to be his nephew. The cleric said Saturday that he would leave the Trappist monastery where he had been living and go into hiding.
Protected from prosecution by the statute of limitations, he has faced increasing calls to give up his status as a priest. Archbishop Léonard said it was for the Vatican to decide on any punishment.
Rachel Donadio reported from Edinburgh, Scotland, and Alan Cowell from Paris.