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Pope John Paul II Addresses Sexual Abuse by Priests

Aired March 21, 2002 - 13:13   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.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Pope John Paul II has broken his silence on the sex abuse scandal that right now is rocking the U.S. Catholic church. From Rome now, our bureau chief Alessio Vinci on what the pope had to say today.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALESSIO VINCI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): ... expresses his opinion on world events openly from the window of his study overlooking St. Peter Square.

But he chose his annual letter to priests around the world to address the delicate issue of sex abuse by clergymen. The content of the letter was outlined to the media by Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, head of the congregation for the clergy. The issue of sex abuse buried at the very end of the 22-page letter.

In the letter, the pope says: "As priests, we are personally and profoundly afflicted by the sins of some of our brothers who have betrayed the grace of ordination." Adding that: "The scandal was casting a dark shadow of suspicion over all priests."

Reporters were allowed to ask follow-up questions, but Cardinal Hoyos preferred to answer them by simply reading a prepared two-page statement. He essentially said the Catholic church has never neglected the problem of sexual abuse and always defended public morality and common good. He also argued there are no statistics comparing pedophilia among clergymen to other social groups.

"About 3 percent of the American clergy would have tendency to abuse minors, and 0.3 percent of the total clergy would be pedophile," says Hoyos. "I'd like to see," he says, "statistics regarding other social groups and how much they have paid to victims."

The Roman Catholic church has already paid hundreds of millions of dollars around the world to settle sex abuse cases. But senior Vatican officials say it is time for those who are proven guilty to pay out of their own pockets.

"The economic aspect has burdened local churches," says Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone. "Also," he says, "for a strange juridical approach, which calls for the church as an institution to pay for an illicit act committed by a single person." (on camera): And other Vatican officials begin to admit privately that the funds available to pay compensations are not unlimited, worrying that more and more alleged victims would sue the church, primarily to seek financial compensation.

Alessio Vinci, CNN, Rome.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HEMMER: We're joined now by the man who first reported about the pope's letter yesterday. You did it live here on CNN. John Allen is back with us, the Vatican correspondent for "The National Catholic Reporter." He is live once again in Rome. John, it's good to have you back on this afternoon.

The pope today referred to, and I will quote and use his words, he referred to "a mystery of evil." What is the suggestion in that phrase that was included in that paragraph that we found today?

JOHN ALLEN, VATICAN CORRESPONDENT, "NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER": Well, I think it's worth noting first that this was an indirect reference to sexual abuse crisis in the American church, that is to say the pope did not refer to this problem by name. Although the language was certainly clear enough, and Vatican officials told us privately that's how we ought to read it.

I think the reason the pope chose to include that phrase is that he wanted to stress that, you know, this mystery of evil is an old concept in Catholic theology, which means that the temptation to sin is eternal, and it afflicts all people, not just priests. So I think the pope wanted to stress that there is sort of a profound spiritual root to the problem that the American church is facing, in addition to the administrative and legal dimensions of the problem.

HEMMER: John, he also offered a statement of defense of sorts, you know, the Vatican only believes about 2 or 3 percent of all priests have this affliction -- and I would assume, and I'm not sure what reaction you have gathered on this, but this is a welcomed statement by many members of the clergy?

ALLEN: Yeah, I think that's where (UNINTELLIGIBLE). First of all, it was not the pope to site that figure, it was Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, who is the Vatican's chief officer for clergy. And I have to tell you that the press conference this morning in which that statement was made was for many of us a somewhat surreal experience. We were invited to pose questions, and of course we did so, trying to raise the questions that are on the minds of American Catholics, such as is the church going to adopt a zero tolerance policy for priests accused of abuse, will there be pressure on Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston to resign -- these questions were collected, and then Cardinal Castrillon refused to respond to them, and instead read this prepared statement, the gist of which, as your setup piece indicated, was that it is a very low number of American priests who are engaged in this sort of sexual misconduct.

I think it's worth putting on the record that we learned this afternoon that that is a study that is a decade old, and is based on research done in the archdiocese of Chicago, so strictly speaking, it's not a national study. And I think all that means is certainly these numbers and what conclusions you draw from them are going to continue to be debated.

HEMMER: John, about a minute left here. The Vatican also made mention of previous examples when the pope has spoken out about something similar to this. However, we all know this was the first response to the American situation right now. Can you recall examples of when the pope did address this issue, maybe not necessarily in the U.S. but elsewhere?

ALLEN: Yeah, I can actually give you a direct American example, which was in August of 1993. There was another wave of revelations about sexual abuse by priests cresting through the American media. The pope happened to be in Denver, and before 18,000 people in the McNichols (ph) Arena in Denver, he referred to the suffering and scandal caused by the sins of some ministers at the altar. And in a couple of other occasions that year, directed specifically at the United States, he referred to how heart sick he was, and in fact at one point indicated he had been moved to tears.

More recently, this past November, the pope sent a message to the church in Oceania, which is the Australian and the Pacific Islands, in which he said that sexual abuse by clergy is a profound contradiction to the teaching and witness of Jesus Christ. So these statements are familiar.

HEMMER: John, thanks. Always a pleasure talking to you, well informed. John Allen there, live in Rome, on the latest of what came out of Vatican City today. Many thanks, John.

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