JARED BALL: Welcome, everyone, back to the Real News Network. I'm Jared Ball here in
Baltimore.
With Pope Francis now visiting the United States, groups working domestically and in
the region on issues related to the Catholic church are seeking greater attention for their
causes. Among them are of course those still wanting to ensure that the church be held
accountable for its support in defense of members who have both in the past and still
today sexually abused children. While the pope has publicly condemned these acts and
reconfirmed his support for the church's zero tolerance policy, there are those who want
to remind him and others that the atrocities are far from over.
To help us better understand this and related issues are our next two guests. Barbara Blaine
is the founder and president of SNAP, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. A survivor
of clergy abuse herself, Blaine works tirelessly to protect the innocence and safety of children
and vulnerable adults by exposing coverup in the church. Also joining us is Pam Spees,
senior attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, where she has represented the Survivors'
Network of those Abused by Priests at the International Criminal Court in the Hague
and the United Nations in Geneva. Welcome to you both, to the Real News Network.
BARBARA BLAINE: Thank you.
PAM SPEES: Thanks.
BALL: Barbara, let me start with you, if I can. How do you assess Pope Francis' response
to this issue of child abuse in the church? We have heard of his establishing a tribunal
to deal with church abuses, and of course his claim of zero tolerance. Is he an advance,
as many think or claim, and is there hope behind his position regarding sexual abuse
in the church?
BLAINE: Well, thanks for having me. I'm happy to be with you today. I'm not so sure that
Pope Francis has actually made a zero tolerance policy. I know that's the policy here in the
United States, the U.S. bishops have adopted that. But it's my understanding that the U.S.
is the only country that actually operates that way. And I think that for us as victims,
what we are looking for is concrete action on the part of the pope. We just don't want
any more children to suffer as we did. And we believe that children remain at risk today,
so we think that Pope Francis should clearly state that all sexual perpetrators have to
be removed from the priesthood. They shouldn't get to keep their jobs, and yet they do.
BALL: Pam, is it not true, as has been reported recently in the Boston Globe, that despite
the zero tolerance policy something similar to what I think Barbara was just alluding
to, that the church requires that first the secular, legal world must generate the cause
for concern before the church will involve itself? And even then when it does, often
the punishment is little more than a warning. Does that comport with what you understand
to be the case?
SPEES: Often I believe that is the case. And it's, you know, we have seen a number of examples
of that. I would say that even though there is a zero tolerance policy on paper here in
the U.S. we do have examples where when certain diocese have been certified by their review
boards as having been, as functioning and in compliance with that policy, investigators
have still found credibly accused priests to be actively serving.
One clear example of that is the archdiocese of Philadelphia, where a grand jury looked
into the matter after the archdiocese had been certified as functioning properly. They
had found 37 credibly accused priests still functioning. So you know, it's not to say
that the problem is solved here in the U.S., it's still--there are still a lot of underlying
policies and practices that are still very problematic.
BALL: Could you both take a shot at briefly explaining the procedures here or the process,
or even the hierarchy? We understand the pope obviously is at the top of the chain here,
but also if I understand correctly, bishops have a great deal of autonomy in their region
of leadership. And I'm wondering, you know, what exactly the pope can do to assure this
zero tolerance policy is adhered to, or to bring those who are accused of these atrocities
to “justice”. What exactly is the process or procedure here? Barbara, I'll start with
you.
BLAINE: Well, I think that first of all, we should understand that the “tribunal”
that the pope said he will set up has not been set up yet. He just says it's going to
be set up. But we don't believe that he needs a tribunal. He is the pope, after all. He
can fire any bishop he wants at any time. And we think that if he really wanted to protect
children he would be firing some of those bishops who had transferred perpetrator priests,
or covered up, or concealed information about crimes from police.
So our concern is that children remain at risk. We think Pope Francis should open all
his files and turn them over to the police, and he should order all the bishops to do
likewise. And he should punish the bishops, and we should post the identities of these
perpetrators on websites so that parents and employers can know to keep children away from
them.
BALL: Pam, I ask you the same question.
SPEES: Well in terms of the procedure, it's just not true to say that the bishops have
a lot of autonomy and they're operating sort of independently of Vatican instructions and
guidelines. We saw under Pope Benedict that the process was streamlined even more than
it had been before, where all allegations of abuse were supposed to go from the diocese
and archdiocese and religious orders to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith,
which is one of the congregations operating in the Vatican in Rome. So all of those allegations
were supposed to be directed directly back to Rome. And Rome was exercising oversight
over the handling of these cases.
And we've seen in, for instance, in documents that have come through in discovery in several
cases here in the U.S., they've learned that bishops have often sought guidance from those
in Rome as to how to handle certain accused priests. And often they were pleading to be
able to remove these priests from the priesthood, and there was delay and often, you know, there
were instances even when Joseph Ratzinger, when he was head of the Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith, was declining those requests.
So it's just not true that the Vatican doesn't exercise control over this issue. And many
others. Very tight control over bishops. For instance, you will see the swift removal of
a bishop who speaks out on certain issues or goes astray of certain doctrine. But on
this issue what we've seen repeatedly is that for instance, in the case of Cardinal Mahony
in the Los Angeles archdiocese, repeated instances of very elaborate efforts to shield accused
priests. This is known. And yet Cardinal Mahony is alongside Pope Francis now. And he's still
a cardinal. So it's just--it's not true. The process is very clear.
And I think it speaks to this issue of the tribunal that was set up, because there were
mixed messages going from the Vatican to bishops. If you're a bishop, and the mid-2000s there
was a letter that was sent from a higher-ranking official in Rome to the bishops basically
praising a bishop in France for having protected and having refused to cooperating with the
court, cooperate with civil authorities, and report a priest who had admitted, basically,
to sexually assaulting at least ten boys in that diocese. And what the Congregation for
the Clergy said is you did the right thing, and you're to be congratulated, and we're
going to share this letter with bishops around the world so they know how to act.
So it's not true that bishops are just acting on their own and the Vatican, those in the
Vatican have clean hands in this. They're directing policy for--they've been directing
policy. And you can set up a bishops' tribunal, but what do we do about the accountability
for those within the Vatican?
BALL: Well, so just, Pam, staying with you and to wrap up here, what are each of your
demands going forward? And what do you each expect as restitution from the church?
SPEES: Well, I think actually Barbara can speak to that with the voice of survivors
who have been working on this for over two decades. But first of all, let's start with
the UN's recommendations. The Vatican as a state is a party to the treaties, the Convention
on the Rights of the Child and the convention against torture. For the first time last year
they were called to answer questions about their handling of this matter. And those committees
have asked for data and information, and they've issued a series of recommendations about the
kind of accountability that's needed.
And what we've seen, and this is in stark contrast to the public messaging on this from
Pope Francis and others in Rome, what they have submitted to those committees on paper
is that they basically don't have to cooperate. They have not, particularly with the committee
against torture, they basically told them we're not responsible for anything that happens
beyond Vatican walls. And we don't think that these issues of rape and sexual violence rise
to the level of torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, so we're not even
going to answer those questions.
So that's very telling. And you can start with the recommendations these UN committees
have made.
BALL: Barbara, anything to add to that?
BLAINE: I think that it's interesting because one of the first recommendations from the
Committee on the Rights of the Child was that the Vatican officials should remove the known
perpetrators from ministry. So in the investigation that the independent body at the United Nations
did, they found perpetrators were still working in ministry. And so that's why when you say
that the pope is claiming that there's a zero tolerance policy it's just not true. I don't
know whether it's true that he's really claiming that zero tolerance for the whole world, because
it was my understanding that that didn't go beyond the U.S., but even so.
What should happen is that those who abuse children should be removed from the priesthood.
And when you ask what we as victims want, you know, nothing can give us back our innocence
and our childhood that was taken from us. We can't go back and grow up over again. But
it would mean the world to us to know that maybe the other 12 and 13-year-olds are not
getting raped like we were when we were children. And that's the most important thing for us
as victims.
BALL: Well, Barbara Blaine and Pam Spees, thank you very much for joining us here at
the Real News Network.
SPEES: Thank you.
BLAINE: Thank you.
BALL: And thank you for joining us here as well. For all involved I'm Jared Ball again
here in Baltimore saying as always, as Fred Hampton used to say, to you we say peace if
you're willing to fight for it. So peace, everybody, and we'll catch you in the whirlwind.