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CNN Live Today

Vatican Summit Draws to Close

Aired April 24, 2002 - 14:09   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.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Well, their two-day summit is wrapping up, and we are expecting a statement soon from the 12 American cardinals, who have been meeting in Rome. They have indicated that they may adopt a zero-tolerance policy for priests who molest children.

CNN's Jonathan Mann has been covering this summit. He too is waiting for the outcome of this. John, what can you tell us? Have you heard any new news?

JONATHAN MANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, I have heard some news about when this might happen. You are right. We are expecting it soon. We were, in fact, expecting the statement about 40 minutes ago by my watch, and the last word I have had is that it's probably another 30 minutes away now, a longer delay than we had reason to expect. We have had no explanation. None has come to my about why the cardinals that we were expecting to hear from have been slow to actually appear before the press.

We are expecting still, though that several of them will talk about their conversations over the last two days, conversations that led up to the drafting of a form of communique that is itself to have been drafted just a short time ago. We will find out if, in fact, that turned out to be the problem that caused delay.

The cardinals came here, of course, trying to respond to the terrible crisis in the U.S. church, the sex abuse scandal that has shaken the faith of so many people. And in their conversations, they were originally, we were told, disagreeing about how severely to deal with the priests who have, in fact, committed these abuses. Some people have felt that those priests, and over the years in fact that has been the practice, that those priests could be helped. They could be treated. They could be reincorporated into the church. Others within the church and especially among victims and their families say that it has to be much more severe than that, and that policy -- a zero-tolerance policy has been called one strike and you're out.

Well, a short time ago, Cardinal William Keeler of Baltimore spoke about that idea -- here is what he told us.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARDINAL WILLIAM KEELER, BALTIMORE: I am not sure that the language of the baseball field is going to do the trick for us. What I say is if there is credible allegation of abuse, and if that allegation is sustained then by investigation -- there has to be some investigation looking at it -- then the individual who is accused should not be in a position ever to do harm to a little one.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MANN: So does that mean that a priest who commits that kind of offense could continue to be a priest if isolated from children? We don't know. The general principle, the consensus, seems to be clear from what we are being told by the individual cardinals who have emerged from the meeting, but the specifics and the specifics in this case are so important to so many people are still unknown. That's why we are waiting to see this final communique to get an opportunity to hear from the priests and question them more closely, an opportunity once again, Kyra, that we are now told is at least 30 minutes away -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: All right. Another 30 minutes, we do wait. Another question to you, Jonathan. You know, so much talk about homosexuality and pedophilia, child molestation, do you think the talks will go beyond this and talk about family and children?

MANN: At least one of the cardinals came to the Vatican hoping that the discussion will be much wider than just about the criminality of sexual offenses committed against children. But we have not had any clear indication that that's been the case, not to my knowledge at least.

There are a lot of issues that bear on this particular, terrible scandal more or less directly. Very few people believe that homosexuality is the cause of sexual abuse of children. Heterosexuals abuse children as well.

But there have been some people within the church who want this case, want this episode to be an opportunity to speak out against the presence of homosexuals in the priesthood, and every indication is that there are a great many homosexuals among those who wear the Roman collar. There are people who want this case, this episode to be the occasion of a discussion of priestly celibacy, who feel that if priests were married and had more normal intimate and sexual lives, that this kind of scandal wouldn't have happened.

Once again, it's not clear from psychologists that that's the case either. There are people who say that this should be the occasion to talk about the ordination of women in the priesthood. One of the things I am most curious about is to find out just how wide- ranging the discussions were today, and how many of those issues may have come up.

PHILLIPS: I we are all looking forward to finding that out. Jonathan Mann standing by live in Rome there, as we wait for outcome of that summit with the pope and the cardinals.

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