The Catholic church has an infamous history of child abuse scandals. The Vatican willingly admitted that 400 priests left after being exposed of child abuse. CNN reports that the UN has acknowledged over 10,000 child abuse victims from the Catholic church. While clergy officials and Pope Francis has created programs and new laws, organizations such as the UN and SNAP do not think enough is being done.
Despite numerous allegations, the Vatican has maintained its Michael Jackson-like popularity. Their greatest public diplomacy concern is to calm down the concerns of the public surrounding these allegations. Over the years, they have made vague and obvious announcements such as "I want to express my compassion and to ensure my prayers to all victims of sexual abuse and their families" (Pope Francis) and "There is no excuse for any form of sexual violence or exploitation of children. Such crimes can never be justified, whether committed in the home, in schools, in community and sports programs." (CNN)
Recently, the Vatican has made some steps forward to show the public they care. They created a commission against sexual child abuse to prevent and support more victims. This commission is a bilateral mandate between clergy officials and civilian authorities.
SNAP says that this is meaningless, stating "Only decisive action helps, not more studies and committees and promises ... Clergy sex crimes should be dealt with by secular authorities." (CNN)
The pope also created a law the banned Child abuse on Vatican grounds (CNN), but child abuse has always been illegal; these laws never prevented allegations from arising.
While the Vatican is under a lot of pressure for not publicly naming and shaming guilty priests, they do not seem pressed to do so. Although this method would benefit children, victims, and punish criminals, exposing every criminal is not the best public diplomacy for the Vatican. With every criminal exposed, they can risk a massive backlash. But by remaining silent, holy, and reticent they can subdue allegations while maintaining their world wide following.
While thousands of children suffer in silence, the Vatican maintains its grand following.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/16/world/europe/un-vatican-sexual-abuse/
http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/05/world/europe/vatican-abuse-commission/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/05/world/europe/un-vatican-report/index.html?hpt=wo_c2
I completely agree that by maintaining a silent facade, the Vatican can subdue sexual abuse allegations. I also find it interesting, based on your first article, that the addressing of this issue is done through lawyers, and that the Pope and Vatican officials do not offer lengthy, detailed explanations of how they are going to resolve this issue. The presence of SNAP is a good jumping off point, but extensive conferences and dialogues are necessary in order to prevent child sexual abuse from occurring in the future. The way the Vatican appears to operate now, monologue is being used to announce intent and future policy (in the form of investigations and conferences), but more public dialogue is necessary, as well as international collaboration. As the Vatican is made up of religious leaders from around the world, more diversity brought to this issue would be beneficial in this context. In order to avoid massive backlash, as you said above, remaining silent and not listening to the UN is not the way to go. Being more public about this issue and including the public in dialogue would be more beneficial because people will know if progress is being made. The Catholic Church is one of the strongest institutions in the world, and while sexual abuse is a terrible thing, the Church will recover in time.
ReplyDelete