Could Historic Meeting of Abuse Survivors and Vatican Officials Be a Source of Hope?
Last month, a group of sexual abuse survivors and advocates met with Vatican officials in Rome to discuss proposals to address sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, including a Church-wide zero-tolerance law that would permanently remove abusive priests and deacons from ministry.
Advocates say it was unusual for Vatican leaders to meet with a group of survivors and activists. “Their modus operandi has been to not give us any oxygen and pretend we don't even exist,” says Tim Law, a life-long Catholic and co-founder of Ending Clergy Abuse (ECA), an organization of clergy abuse survivors and allies from around the globe. “The fact that they're talking with us, I find important.”
ECA survivors and advocates (from left) Gemma Hickey, Tim Law, Janet Aguti, Sergio Salinas, and Denise Buchanan met in November with officials from the Vatican’s Dicastery of Legislative Texts.
The meeting, which lasted about 90 minutes, included members of a Vatican dicastery (a department of the Roman curia) as well as ECA board members Janet Aguti of Uganda, Denise Buchanan of Jamaica, Gemma Hickey of Canada, Sergio Salinas of Argentina, and Law, who is based in Seattle. The Vatican’s representatives included Bishop Juan Ignacio Arrieta, secretary of the Dicastery of Legislative Texts, and Monsignor Markus Graulich, under-secretary of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts. Fr. Hans Zollner, considered the Vatican’s leading expert on the topic of safeguarding and founder of the Institute of Anthropology Interdisciplinary Studies on Human Dignity and Care at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, also took part in the conversation.
ECA has called for many years for a universal Church law, modeled on the 2002 Dallas Charter in the United States, that would require priests and deacons to be permanently removed from ministry if they sexually abuse minors.
The conversation on November 20 also touched on victims' access to their abuse files, the need for a publicly available case law of decisions, and reparations for victims.
A Meeting Months in the Making
Previous meetings helped set the stage for the recent discussion with dicastery officials. In June, members of ECA’s board traveled to Rome for a summit with Zollner and canon law experts about the possibility of a zero-tolerance Church law. Zollner is a former member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, which advises Pope Francis about safeguarding efforts in the Catholic Church. He resigned from the commission in March 2022 over concerns about the commission’s approach to issues including “responsibility, compliance, accountability and transparency.”
Law notes that despite this high-profile resignation, Zollner remains “the center of clergy abuse expertise” in Rome and is respected by many people who have experienced abuse as well as Vatican officials.
The June summit, which lasted three days, was hard work, Law says. On the first day, the attendees each stated their positions, and Zollner expressed an opposition to zero tolerance, explaining that the punishment for priests who perpetrate abuse must be nuanced and proportional to the abuse committed. Law says he felt doubtful that they would be able to come to any type of agreement.
“ECA’s position is that abuse is abuse,” he says. “As a father of three children and eleven grandchildren, if I'm sitting in church with my grandchild, I've got to know that that guy up [on the altar] has never abused anybody,” Law says. “Not that he abused somebody a little bit and was given a three-year probation. That doesn't cut it. It has to be a bright line. And we stuck to that.”
Summit attendees not only sat together in meetings but also continued the conversation over meals and drinks. Law says all this time together helped. By the end of the summit, Zollner had shifted his position on zero tolerance.
“I didn't think we were going to get to where we got,” Law says, but ultimately the attendees, including ECA members and Zollner, agreed to issue a joint statement calling for:
a “one-strike-and-you’re-out” zero-tolerance policy for priests and deacons in the worldwide Church
an independent body to investigate the handling of abuse cases by church superiors, which would also issue public reports and recommendations
mandated transparency, so that survivors and the public are informed at every stage of an abuse investigation
severe penalties for bishops and Church officials who fail to implement safeguarding protocols or who protect abusers.
They also called for some other practical changes, including:
a clear definition of rights for survivors and all parties involved in ecclesiastical trials
clarification on the application and applicability of Vos Estis Lux Mundi
published case law so that all can see how previous cases have been decided by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith.
The group agreed to meet in Rome in November, at the end of the Synod on Synodality, to announce their joint statement at a press conference. Within minutes of the announcement, leaders of a dicastery contacted Zollner to say that they would be willing to meet in two days.
No Consensus, But Some Hope
Law notes that Arrieta, secretary of the Dicastery of Legislative Texts, was “defensive” about their proposals. “He thinks the system they have in place is good and it works and they just need to keep at it,” Law says.
Still, Law was glad for officials to hear from survivors from ECA, including Janet Aguti of Uganda, who attended the meeting with her infant daughter, and Sergio Salinas of Argentina. Their personal stories illustrate the fact that existing Vatican policies are not working around the world.
Attendees did not reach a consensus by the end of the November meeting, Law says, but the Vatican officials were open to meeting again and possibly including other Vatican dicasteries and their key members. Overall, the meeting ended on a positive note, he says.
“I don't want to be pollyannaish about it, but I think there's some hope that [Vatican officials] seem to be having conversations with people they didn't have conversations with before,” Law says. “That's got to be good.”
He also believes that the efforts of groups including Awake, Bishop Accountability, and SNAP have all helped in the gradual work of opening hearts and minds on the topic of abuse in the Church. “If we're accomplishing anything, it's because of everything everybody has done,” he says. “If this goes anywhere, you’ve all contributed to it.”
—Erin O’Donnell
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