By John R. T. Lamont
In the light of new revelations about sexual abuse in the Church,
many Catholics are asking how the situation that these revelations have
disclosed can possibly have come about. The first question that occurs, a
question of long standing, is; why did bishops deal with sexual abusers by
concealing their offences and moving them to new assignments, rather than by
removing them from ministry? No sufficient answer has yet been given to this
question. It has now been made more pointed by a further question; how did
Theodore McCarrick get appointed as Archbishop of Washington and Cardinal, and
even become a principal drafter of the American bishops’ policy on sexual abuse
in 2002, when his own involvement in sexual abuse was widely known in clerical
circles and had been made known to the Holy See?
These things did not happen because of the
law of the Church. Until November 27, 1983, the law in force in the Latin
Church was the 1917 Code of Canon Law. Canon 2359 §2 of this code decreed that
if clerics commit an offense against the sixth commandment of the Decalogue
with minors under sixteen years of age, they are to be suspended, declared
infamous, deprived of every office, benefice, dignity, or position that they
may hold, and in the most grievous cases deposed.
This canon was replaced by
Canon 1395, §2 in the 1983 Code, which states that 'a cleric who in any other
way has committed an offence against the sixth commandment of the Decalogue, …
with a minor below the age of sixteen years, is to be punished with just penalties,
not excluding dismissal from the clerical state if the case so warrants.’ The
1983 Code addressed offences of the kind committed by Cardinal McCarrick with
Canon 1395 §2, which states that ‘A cleric who in another way has
committed an offense against the sixth commandment of the Decalogue, if the
delict was committed by force or threats or publicly or with a minor below the
age of sixteen years, is to be punished with just penalties, not excluding
dismissal from the clerical state if the case so warrants.’ These canons do not
present these punishments as options; they require that such offences be
punished by ecclesiastical authority. So our question now becomes; why did
ecclesiastical authorities break the law by not enforcing these canons?