Abuse victims seeking answers
Courts should decide
VATICAN CITY — Attorneys who have tried unsuccessfully for years to sue the Vatican over failures to stop clergy sex abuse are looking into whether former Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI is more legally vulnerable in retirement, especially if he travels beyond the Vatican walls.
A U.S. lawyer for the Vatican argues that, like any former head of state, Benedict retains legal immunity regardless of whether he is in or out of office. But advocates for victims say immunity in this case should be tested, since modern-day courts have never dealt with an emeritus pope.
“So much of this is unprecedented,” said Pamela Spees, an attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York, which is pressing the International Criminal Court to investigate the Vatican’s response to abusive priests as a crime against humanity. “There’s nothing set in stone about it.”
Benedict stepped down last week, becoming the first pontiff in six centuries to do so. Before he became head of the Roman Catholic Church in 2005, he spent more than two decades in charge of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican office that over the years gained authority to oversee abuse claims against clergy.
Still, his record on trying to end abuse stands above that of many other church officials.
Benedict spoke openly of ridding the church of “filth” and was the first pontiff to meet directly with victims, during a 2008 visit to the U.S.
He instructed the Rev. Martial Maciel, founder of the conservative Legion of Christ religious order, who was favoured by Pope John Paul II, to leave the ministry and lead a life of prayer and penance. Maciel had been accused for years of abusing young men.
Benedict also ordered bishops worldwide to craft guidelines on protecting children and keeping abusers out of the priesthood. Jeffrey Lena, a U.S. attorney for the Vatican, said that Benedict deserves “tremendous credit” for “recognizing the problem and helping to change the church’s approach.”
However, advocates for victims have criticized his reforms as half-steps. As evidence, they point to the Maciel case. The pope never disclosed what the influential priest had done wrong.
Only later was it confirmed that Maciel had molested seminarians and fathered at least three children.
In Ireland, where church leaders had shielded guilty clerics from prosecution for decades, the Vatican during Benedict’s pontificate refused or ignored repeated requests from state investigators for access to its case files.
Benedict’s lengthy record dealing with the scandal before he was pope plays a part in the complaint against the church with the International Criminal Court.
The court prosecutor, who can decide whether to open an inquiry, has not said whether he will act.
Lena has called the effort, which was first filed in 2011, “ludicrous.”