Not appointing new cardinals who willfully looked the other way when they were told of abuse committed by senior clerics would be a good start. Personnel is policy.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? - who watches the watchers? The key problem with VELM is that it is entirely an internal investigation of bishops by other bishops. Can the bishops be trusted to thoroughly and fairly investigate themselves, and apply appropriate sanctions in the case of abuse? Hardly.
Each bishop's conference needs to establish an independent review board, comprised primarily of qualified and trained laypeople to conduct these investigations, using forensic methods if necessary (including financial records and personnel files, etc.). Anything less is a sham. Take this out of the hands of the provincial archbishops, many of whom are too closely tied to the local diocesan bishops who have been accused (eg., Dolan and DiMarzio). No government or corporate entity would get away with this kind of a whitewash investigation in this day and age, and faithful Catholics should not stand for it either.
This might have been a good beginning, but it stopped too soon. When an investigation is opened but no results ever reported, what good is this law? In fact it is more damaging than nothing at all because with nothing people have no expectations. With VELM people PRESUME at a minimum a complaint is looked into. When the faithful become aware an investigation has been begun, and then they never hear another word, they presume nothing has been, or will be, done, and in fact nothing has changed. The Boys Club is at it again, and it will be ever thus.
If a bishop engages in any kind of malfeasance or a liaison with another adult, say, there is no mechanism for the faithful to get relief, providing the facts are proven. Asking interested others to investigate is unfair to all involved and unlikely to result in a acceptance of a resolution as objectively fair.
The Catholic Church tends to treat too many situations as if under the seal of confession. It will never regain credibility this way.
I want to feel confident and hopeful about reforms like Vos Estis. But it is very hard because, without intending any disloyalty to our bishops, I have to admit to a gnawing (sometimes consuming) doubt about whether the influence of Theodore McCarrick on episcopal selections has been sufficiently grappled with. This concern is not particularized about any individual bishop; it's about the overall culture of the American episcopate.
I always sense in any discussion about Priestly sexual abuse, that there is something not being said. There just always seems to be a lack of revulsion for what they do.
Make all priests and bishops vow to avoid all sexual sins, and spell them out in gory detail, with an agreement to get help if they can't keep to their word and to resign if they still can't keep it. My understanding is that something along these lines was proposed at the bishops' meeting in November 2018 and refused because Rome had ordered them not to resolve the problem except in line with the universal church.
Not appointing new cardinals who willfully looked the other way when they were told of abuse committed by senior clerics would be a good start. Personnel is policy.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? - who watches the watchers? The key problem with VELM is that it is entirely an internal investigation of bishops by other bishops. Can the bishops be trusted to thoroughly and fairly investigate themselves, and apply appropriate sanctions in the case of abuse? Hardly.
Each bishop's conference needs to establish an independent review board, comprised primarily of qualified and trained laypeople to conduct these investigations, using forensic methods if necessary (including financial records and personnel files, etc.). Anything less is a sham. Take this out of the hands of the provincial archbishops, many of whom are too closely tied to the local diocesan bishops who have been accused (eg., Dolan and DiMarzio). No government or corporate entity would get away with this kind of a whitewash investigation in this day and age, and faithful Catholics should not stand for it either.
This might have been a good beginning, but it stopped too soon. When an investigation is opened but no results ever reported, what good is this law? In fact it is more damaging than nothing at all because with nothing people have no expectations. With VELM people PRESUME at a minimum a complaint is looked into. When the faithful become aware an investigation has been begun, and then they never hear another word, they presume nothing has been, or will be, done, and in fact nothing has changed. The Boys Club is at it again, and it will be ever thus.
If a bishop engages in any kind of malfeasance or a liaison with another adult, say, there is no mechanism for the faithful to get relief, providing the facts are proven. Asking interested others to investigate is unfair to all involved and unlikely to result in a acceptance of a resolution as objectively fair.
The Catholic Church tends to treat too many situations as if under the seal of confession. It will never regain credibility this way.
I want to feel confident and hopeful about reforms like Vos Estis. But it is very hard because, without intending any disloyalty to our bishops, I have to admit to a gnawing (sometimes consuming) doubt about whether the influence of Theodore McCarrick on episcopal selections has been sufficiently grappled with. This concern is not particularized about any individual bishop; it's about the overall culture of the American episcopate.
(Edit: added last sentence to clarify.)
I always sense in any discussion about Priestly sexual abuse, that there is something not being said. There just always seems to be a lack of revulsion for what they do.
Make all priests and bishops vow to avoid all sexual sins, and spell them out in gory detail, with an agreement to get help if they can't keep to their word and to resign if they still can't keep it. My understanding is that something along these lines was proposed at the bishops' meeting in November 2018 and refused because Rome had ordered them not to resolve the problem except in line with the universal church.