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CNN Live At Daybreak

Priestly Pedophilia Not Just American Problem Says Vatican

Aired March 20, 2002 - 05:34   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: The head of New York's Archdiocese is breaking his silence about charges of child molestation by a Roman Catholic priest under his leadership. Cardinal Edward Egan says he is confident that the child sex abuse cases were handled appropriately when he was bishop of Bridgeport, Connecticut back in the 1990s.

"The Hartford Courant" reports that during that time, charges by 26 plaintiffs against six priests in the diocese were kept secret and that many of the priests were allowed to continue working. Egan calls sexual abuse an abomination, and he says he's preparing a letter for the diocese explaining how it responds to such accusations.

Criticism of Egan is just the latest episode in a growing debate over how the Catholic Church has dealt with pedophile priests. The problem of sexual misconduct in the priesthood exists not only here in the United States, though.

Our Rome Bureau Chief Alessio Vinci reports on how the Vatican is responding.

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ALESSIO VINCI, CNN ROME BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): Inside the Vatican walls, the problem of clergymen accused of sexual misconduct is hotly debated, with church officials trying to contain the damage. "It is evident the pedophilia case exists. And with today's media coverage, the case becomes immediately public domain," says Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone. "The church is worried about the problem," he says, "but also worries about the scandals provoked by news reports."

But pedophilia scandals involving priests happen in many parts of the world, not just in the United States, where the media seem to pay greater attention and the local churches are more open to debate.

JOHN ALLEN, "NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER": There was a case in France recently where a bishop actually received a sentence -- a suspended sentence -- of three months for failure to exercise sufficient oversight over a sexual abuser. There's a case in Poland today of an archbishop who has been accused of sexual misconduct by seminarians.

VINCI: And the Vatican can no longer ignore the issue. Pope John Paul II has recently distributed a series of new guidelines requiring bishops to report probable cases of sexual misconduct directly to the Vatican, where a church tribunal made up of priests only would hear the case. But the rules impose strict secrecy on any investigation. And observers say the process fails to produce a uniform solution.

ALLEN: At the moment, the pressure is certainly growing both on the U.S. bishops' conference and on the Vatican to put in place certain uniform principles having to do with things like zero tolerance for abusers of children, having to do with a necessity of reporting to police and to civil authorities allegations of sexual abuse of children.

VINCI: What the Vatican refuses to discuss is priestly celibacy, saying there is no proven link between pedophilia and celibacy. Pointing out there are many pedophiles who are married.

(on camera): So far, the Vatican's strategy to deal with the problem has been to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to settle various sex abuse cases around the world. Mainly hoping to keep the issue out of the public eye. But this strategy on two fronts: it hasn't kept the issue secret, and it hasn't solved the problem either.

Alessio Vinci, CNN, Rome.

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