Nation/World

Vatican asks US bishops not to vote on proposals to tackle sexual abuse

BALTIMORE - The Vatican shocked attendees of a key meeting of U.S. bishops Monday, directing Americas' Catholic leaders to delay voting on key measures meant to hold bishops themselves more accountable in the abuse cases that have scourged the church.

At the same time, the Vatican's ambassador to the United States suggested that bishops should not look to lay people in the church or law enforcement to confront the church's sexual abuse crisis.

Thus the bishops of America's 196 Catholic dioceses and archdioceses were left scrambling, as they learned just as they began their first meeting since the abuse crisis re-emerged this summer that Rome wanted them to drop all the votes on their agenda. In an unusual move, the bishops had devoted their annual meeting almost exclusively to the burgeoning national crisis starting with a period of prayer today.

Moments after the the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops learned of the Vatican's letter, Archbishop Christopher Pierre, the Vatican's ambassador to the United States, warned of supporting outside lay investigations into the church. He seemed to refer obliquely to both the bishops' now-tabled proposal to establish a lay commission capable of investigating bishops' misconduct, and also the more than a dozen U.S. states' ongoing criminal and civil investigations into crimes committed by priests.

"There may be a temptation on the part of some to relinquish responsibility for reform to others from ourselves, as if we were no longer capable of reforming or trusting ourselves," Pierre said. "Assistance is both welcome and necessary, and surely collaboration with the laity is essential. However, the responsibility as bishops of this Catholic Church is ours."

Pierre, a French bishop sent by Pope Francis to Washington in 2016, quoted a French author who said that "whoever pretends to reform the church with the same means to reform temporal society" will "fail."

The bishops had planned to vote on a code of conduct, the first ethical guidelines for bishops, and to create the lay commission. Instead, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo - the president of the U.S. bishops' conference - told the group that the Vatican's Congregation for Bishops wants American bishops to take no action until a worldwide meeting of church leaders in February.

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Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of BishopAccountability.org, called the last-minute order from the Vatican “truly incredible.”

"What we see here is the Vatican again trying to suppress even modest progress by the U.S. bishops," said Doyle, whose group compiles data on clergy abuse in the church. "We're seeing where the problem lies, which is with the Vatican. The outcome of this meeting, at best, was going to be tepid and ineffectual, but now it's actually going to be completely without substance."

The bishops, like the advocates who had gathered near their Baltimore meeting to protest on behalf of victims, expressed frustration at the Vatican's move.

Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago quickly proposed an alternative to the Vatican's request that no vote be taken. He suggested a nonbinding vote at this session, followed by an additional meeting of all the bishops in March - after Francis's worldwide meeting - to formally vote on these policies as soon as possible.

Leaders said that the bishops will still spend Tuesday and Wednesday debating and fine-tuning their proposals, as planned. They will just conclude the meeting without any binding vote.

Some bishops said the Vatican's request alone damages American leaders' efforts to regain parishioners' trust, after a longtime church leader - Theodore McCarrick - was revealed this year to have allegedly sexually harassed and molested multiple victims, and after a Pennsylvania grand jury report documented decades of abuse by hundreds of priests.

"This kind of thing is a blow to what we're trying to overcome here in the United States - the perception of a hierarchy that is unresponsive to the reality of the tragedy," said Jefferson City Bishop Shawn McKnight, who became a bishop nine months ago. He said he blamed not necessarily Pope Francis, but people around him in the Vatican who oppose efforts to move faster to put a stop to abuse. "This will be a moment to decide whether we are going to simply fall in line, slow down and get behind, or will we maintain efforts at true reform in the church."

McKnight raised a question rarely broached in the Catholic church, with its reverence for hierarchy and the specter of possible schism: whether the U.S. bishops should obey the Vatican's wishes. "I'm beginning to wonder if we need to look at a resolution where we refuse to participate in any kind of cover-up from those above us," he said. "It's for the good of the church. We have to be respectful of the Roman Curia but also we have an obligation to our people. And our priests."

But even as he he repeatedly proclaimed himself disappointed by the Vatican's request, DiNardo said that the American bishops will act in accordance with its wishes.

"We are Roman Catholic bishops, in communion with our Holy Father in Rome. And he has people around him who are what we call congregations or offices, and we're responsible to them, in that communion of faith," DiNardo said in an afternoon press conference. He later added: "We are responsible and respectful of the leadership in other places, and obviously our great, great respect is for the church in Rome, because that's the first church."

DiNardo said that the U.S. bishops informed the Vatican of their general plans for this meeting in September and October, but did not present the precise documents -- including the code of conduct for bishops -- that the body would be debating at this meeting until about Oct. 30. It was not until Sunday night that DiNardo got the letter from the Congregation for Bishops, the powerful Vatican body, that DiNardo said also raised questions of whether the documents ran afoul of some fine points of canon law and directed the U.S. bishops not to vote.

He said he did not know if Pope Francis himself had issued the order.

American bishops are focused on abuse, he said, but the "cultural heritage" of some bishops elsewhere in the world means that not all Catholic leaders are as concerned, he said. He also raised the possibility that Vatican leaders were concerned about American bishops setting a standard on their own, instead of working with their fellow church leaders globally at the February meeting.

When he opened the meeting, DiNardo said that the U.S. bishops remain committed to the proposals they had planned.

"Brother bishops, to exempt ourselves from this high standard of accountability is unacceptable and cannot stand," DiNardo said, striking a markedly different tone just after the ambassador spoke. "Whether we will be regarded as guardians of the abused or the abuser will be determined by our actions."

Then the bishops adjourned for their planned day of prayer - which was supposed to precede two days of debate and voting on concrete proposals - leaving stunned abuse survivors and church insiders to discuss what had just happened.

Becky Ianni, the District of Columbia regional head for SNAP - the most established survivor advocacy group - said that she was frustrated by the surprise announcement. "To me, this is not rocket science. Someone covers up abuse of a child, they're gone. Seems very simple to me," she said. "We're dealing [in the U.S.] with the crisis, right here, right now. Yes, it's a global problem, and they need to discuss it there, but the U.S. needs to come up with something right now."

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During the day of prayer, two clergy abuse survivors were invited to speak to the bishops. Luis Torres Jr. told the bishops, "Abuse of a child is the closest that you can get to murder and still possibly have a breathing body before you. When a child had been abused, particularly by someone whom they trust, you have destroyed the child."

He asked the question that he said he learned to ask in church: What would Jesus do? “Would he have called his lawyers and denounced the victims? Or would he have turned over the tables in a fit of rage and declared that this was intolerable in his father’s house?” Torres said. “I ask [for] your action, which is needed right now. Not in three months. Not in six months. Yesterday.”

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