A call has come from with­in the Catholic Church for trained sec­u­lar au­thor­i­ties to be the ones to make a de­ter­mi­na­tion on whether or not al­le­ga­tions of sex­u­al abuse against priests are suf­fi­cient­ly found­ed in re­al­i­ty to war­rant in­ves­ti­ga­tion and pos­si­ble pros­e­cu­tion. Mon­sign­or Stephen Ros­set­ti, a psy­chol­o­gist who ran a cen­tre for ten years in the Unit­ed States at­tempt­ing to cure priests of their abu­sive pat­terns of sex­u­al be­hav­iour, told a con­fer­ence on the sub­ject in the Vat­i­can Tues­day that priests, like al­co­holics, lie, con, ma­nip­u­late when con­front­ed with al­le­ga­tions of sex­u­al abuse.

"There are false al­le­ga­tions to be sure and it is crit­i­cal to re­store a priest's good name when he has been cleared, but decades of ex­pe­ri­ence tell us that the vast ma­jor­i­ty of al­le­ga­tions-over 95 per cent-are found­ed," Mon­sign­or Ros­set­ti told re­porters at a news con­fer­ence in Rome. To bet­ter en­sure that the al­le­ga­tions against the priests are ex­posed to peo­ple who are not dis­posed to pro­tect­ing the church and fel­low priests, Mon­sign­or Ros­set­ti says trained civ­il au­thor­i­ties, not bish­ops, should make de­ci­sions hav­ing heard the al­le­ga­tions. The Vat­i­can is de­cid­ed­ly against go­ing civ­il, pre­fer­ring to leave it to the dis­cern­ment of bish­ops to de­cide on whether or not to go for­ward with the al­le­ga­tions. Sure­ly, while the Vat­i­can has re­spon­si­bil­i­ty over the priests with­in the church, sex­u­al abuse of young boys by men (what­ev­er their vo­ca­tion) falls square­ly with civ­il au­thor­i­ties. There­fore, the mon­sign­or, based on his un­der­stand­ing of abu­sive priests and his knowl­edge of psy­chol­o­gy, prefers pro­fes­sion­als to make the de­ter­mi­na­tion.

The re­cent his­to­ry of such abuse with­in the Catholic Church with the cov­er­ing up of al­le­ga­tions and the shift­ing of priests from parish to parish give cre­dence to the view that the bish­ops are like­ly to dis­miss claims sim­ply to avoid the church slid­ing in­to fur­ther ridicule. It is of­ten dif­fi­cult to re­sist the weight of ev­i­dence com­ing from his­to­ry about the pos­si­bil­i­ty of cur­rent be­hav­iours fol­low­ing the past. Mon­sign­or Ros­set­ti had pow­er­ful sup­port for his con­dem­na­tion of abu­sive priests from an­oth­er mon­sign­or, Charles Sci­clu­na, at the same con­fer­ence, the lat­ter blast­ing bish­ops for "their dead­ly cul­ture of si­lence" re­lat­ing to sex­u­al abuse in the church.

And he warned bish­ops that they can be re­moved from the priest­hood if they fail to re­port such abuse. It is a crime in canon law to show ma­li­cious or fraud­u­lent neg­li­gence in the ex­er­cise of one's du­ty, Mon­sign­or Sci­clu­na told his broth­ers in the faith. How­ev­er, the con­fer­ence took the de­ci­sion to al­low bish­ops' con­fer­ences around the world to come up with abuse poli­cies by May of this year. It is a de­ci­sion which seems to rule out the push for civ­il au­thor­i­ties to make de­ci­sions on whether or not al­le­ga­tions can be tak­en fur­ther. What could oc­cur as a re­sult of a re­fusal to open up that part of the process to law en­force­ment, at least ini­tial­ly, is that par­ents can be­gin to by­pass the bish­ops with com­plaints re­ceived from their chil­dren.

On the sec­u­lar front, Mon­sign­or Ros­set­ti gives good ad­vice to par­ents, teach­ers and oth­er adults in au­thor­i­ty over chil­dren when he says they should chose to be­lieve young chil­dren when they make such al­le­ga­tions. Too of­ten there are in­stances in which par­ents and guardians dis­be­lieve chil­dren when they com­plain about sex­u­al abuse, es­pe­cial­ly when the adults are loved and trust­ed ones. Be­liev­ing, in­quir­ing fur­ther and tak­ing mat­ters to the civ­il au­thor­i­ties are not find­ings of guilt, but rather seek­ing to dis­cern truth. As it is well known, such vi­o­la­tions of chil­dren's hu­man rights of­ten scar them for the rest of their lives.