CRIME AND HOPE
GRZEGORZ GÓRNY
In a pedophilia scandal which broke out around Church in Poland, one should distinguish two issues. The first one is a media and social campaign undoubtedly aimed against Catholicism. Its elements are, among the others, anti-clerical protests and statements of many politicians, activists and publicists, as well as blasphemous actions in the form of profanity of the image of Our Lady of Częstochowa. The purpose of these actions is removing Christianity influences from the social space, that is, in the final decisions it is building the world without God. Another issue is sexual abuse of under-aged people by priests, which is a real problem, touched on many times by John Paul II, Benedict XVI or Francis. This problem has been recently used not to eliminate this evil from clergy so much but to pursue a fight against Church. For, it is difficult to consider people as moral restorers of Polish Catholicism, who are known not only for their fight against religion, but also for pushy promoting postulates of sexual revolution. It is rarely said that pedophilia is a global and transreligion problem. Every year about 3 million adult men travel to countries of the Third World only for one purpose – abusing children. Profits from the market of pedophilia pornography are estimated for over 20 milliard dollars every year. Today in Europe there are about 18 million children who were sexually abused. Known scandals in various countries revealed that this problem exists in political, business or celebrities’ environments. Unfortunately, this problem also touches some priests. It is a small percentage, for example, according to official statistics, in the USA priests abusing the under-aged amount only to 0.3 percent of all cases like that. Certainly, it does not diminish the seriousness of the problem. Especially in Church every act like that undergoes punishment. As Benedict XVI noted, clerical pedophilia is a crime done not only on body but also on soul. It concerns final issues as it often leads to killing faith and is a real danger for salvation of soul and eternal life. It is worth reminding about the words of Benedict XVI, who said in 2010, when going to Fatima, that Church is suffering from persecutions, not from outer opponents but from inner enemies, who are hurting it from inside. Pope meant priests who are called up to lead people to eternal life, whereas they are committing rapes on their bodies and souls, and, finally, they are killing faith. Thinking about them, the senior Pope quoted Jesus’ words in the recent text about pedophilia in Church: ‘And who would become the reason for a sin among the littlest ones who believe, it would be better for him to tie a millstone around his neck and be thrown into the sea’ (Mt. 8.6). Awareness of how destructive spiritually the sin of clerical pedophilia is, made John Paul II and cardinal Joseph Ratzinger decide in 2001 that the Congregation of Faith Teaching should investigate crimes done by priests. For, Church has a duty of providing faith with legal protection. Their decisions were reflected in ‘Delicta maiora contra fidei’ – the first document in history of the Holy See which faced up the problem of pedophilia among priests. Anyway, Church has been the only institution in the world till today, which is pursuing a fight systematically in order to purify itself from those committing this kind of crime. Whereas , it is not happening in other groups in which the scale of the problem is much higher. Facts prove that the process initiated in 2001 by John Paul II is still being continued. Next decisions made about this issue by Vatican are appearing together with acquired knowledge and growing awareness of the scale of this phenomenon. The recent events prove that moew definite actions are needed. Proceeding in pedophilia issues should be very precise, effective, consistent and explicit. Controlling suspected priests, accused of this kind of acts or sentenced for committing them cannot be fiction. It is necessary to resign from ‘culture of secret’ domineering today, which makes discretion and keeping silent be perceived as an act of concealing. Bishops should reflect on the words of Benedict XVI who mentioned ‘unsuitable procedures used for defining whether candidates for priesthood and life in a religious order meet requirements; insufficient human, moral, intellectual and spiritual formations in seminaries or noviciates (…). In this context the senior Pope referred to his book published in 2005 in which he definitely prohibited accepting homosexuals to seminaries and allowing them for priestly ordination; he meant ‘people who show deep homosexual tendencies or support the so-called ‘homosexual culture’’. The results of surveys conducted in the USA, Australia, Belgium or Germany show a giant over-representation of people of homosexual tendencies among culprits of clerical pedophilia. Similar data were outlined by a report presented by the Polish Episcopate this year. The film of the Sekielski brothers ‘Only do not tell anyone’ confirms this rule. It proves that culprits of abusing the under-aged are not pedophiles in most cases, but homosexuals committing pedophilia acts. We should make logical conclusions from this knowledge and implement law introduced by Benedict XVI, which, unfortunately, is often ignored. However, it is necessary to put God in the first place and make Him the central reference point for personal, professional and community life. Otherwise He will be often replaced by a little man with his big ‘ego’.Translated by Aneta Amrozik
Niedziela 21/2019 (26 V 2019)