The case of Father Walter Rozario bears all the hallmarks of denial, cover-up and silencing victims seen in the West. 
The investigation by ucanews.com into the disappearance of a priest from Bangladesh that uncovered evidence of sexual abuse follows a well-trodden path.
It’s one that has been travelled in country after country for 30 years — in the United States, Canada, Ireland and Australia and now on full display in Chile.
It runs like this: there is a pattern of “grooming” where the sexual predator flatters and indulges his proposed victim into submission; advances are made by the predator on his target; fear and paralysis is the response of the target and often their families, and so often silence.
If church authorities are informed or learn of the events, there is puzzlement followed by inertia often with a failure to listen or take seriously the complaints about a cleric or religious; a pattern of cover-up where the predator is defended or worse still, they are moved to other parts of the diocese or the country or even out of the country; the circling forces of the police are at the extremes: they are either complicit with the powerful church or out to score a conviction at almost any cost.
Its latest instance in Asia is the allegations against Father Walter Rozario in Bangladesh.
Underpinning the process is something far more serious and widespread in its deleterious effects: the hierarchy of the church intent on preserving its “good name” at the expense of victims of abuse; a hierarchy always ready to find in favor of its officers and to demonize any people who call its performance into question; a culture that puts the institution ahead of the people in its care.
The most outstanding example of this pattern of behavior in the church was Pope St. John Paul II in his handling of the founder of the Legion of Christ. An abuser of adolescent males and young men who maintained his pattern for decades, Marcial Marciel was known to be a predator in the 1950s. He also had two families — one in Spain and one in his homeland of Mexico. He even brought his children to Rome to meet John Paul, introducing them as his “nephews and nieces.”
Marciel was eventually exposed and deposed by Joseph Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict XVI. Though never de-frocked, he was condemned by the Vatican investigation and sentenced to a life of “prayer and penance” for his crimes. Ratzinger did this against strong opposition from powerful cardinals, especially Angelo Sodano, and John Paul himself.
Sodano has been the most influential person in the selection of the now discredited college of bishops in Chile. Its church is now seen to have a poisonous culture buttressed by a self-serving executives.
That just about sums up the clericalism Pope Francis sees as a fundamental problem in the church. It’s like a poisonous gas that spreads invisibly with lethal effect.
The subcontinent is prime territory for the cultivation of a clericalist culture that nourishes sex abuse and cover-ups. It’s a region where a rigid society wide caste system is still alive and well and Catholic hierarchies make all too neat a fit with it.
Of course the clerical structure and culture are not just present in Catholicism in the subcontinent (or anywhere else). The recent conviction of a rapist guru reported by UCAN demonstrates that. Identical patterns of secrecy and cover-ups are found in Hinduism but especially in Buddhism and Islam in other parts of Asia.
The monastic life of Buddhist monks in Thailand is a mirror image of the worst excesses of Catholic criminality. Lies, deception, theft, embezzlement and serial abuse along with completely inadequate leadership and no accountability or transparency in processes of assessment are the order of the day in Thailand, Myanmar, Sir Lanka and probably Laos and Cambodia.
Put simply, religions can’t or won’t and invariably don’t manage their own internal affairs with any competence. It is only through external intervention to set things right that justice is done and seen to be done.
The pathetic, unconvincing and frequent institutional defense — that exposing the corruption brings comfort and provides a weapon for attacks on religions by their enemies — provides unwittingly an even bigger weapon when the scandal is revealed beneath the cover-ups.
After a torturous 30 years across Western countries, Latin America provides the latest instances. It will happen in Asia but can be at least be ameliorated by urgently enacting transparent and independent structures of accountability.
The Catholic Church has learned the hard way over the last 30 years that there is no escape from scrutiny and accountability, however energetically local churches seek to handle matters internally or deny the reality and cover up criminal behavior.
The Catholic crisis of clerical sexual abuse has been misnamed. It is a crisis of episcopal incompetence. Too often, clerics have been made bishops over the last three and more decades for their orthodoxy rather than their ability as people managers, communicators of the Gospel, and their appreciation of the major issues the Church faces in their culture. Instead, reinforcing the “correct” Rome-approved doctrines has had primacy.
But all is not lost as the Universal Church moves to the appointment of more “pastoral” bishops that Pope Francis says “have the smell of the sheep.” A great deal has been learned over recent decades about how to handle — in a responsible and transparent way — the inevitable corruption that besets the church’s governance and management.
The Vatican set a deadline of the middle of 2016 for every bishops’ conference in the world to have protocols, processes, including legal and canonical processes, and other resources to address and respond to instances of clerical sexual abuse such as counseling services and suitably resourced seminary training programs.
Asian bishops need to listen, learn and act as quickly as they can.
This article was published by La Croix International on the 13th of June 2018.
Father Michael Kelly SJ is the English-language publisher of La Croix International and La Civilta Cattolica.
Father Michael Kelly is an Australian Jesuit who directed the Catholic Church’s news feature and commentary service, UCA News, 2008-2018. He is the publisher of the English editions of La Croix International and La Civilta Cattolica, the 170 year old Jesuit publication of the Italian Jesuits.
Comments
4 responses to “MICHAEL KELLY SJ. Bangladesh wake-up call on sexual abuse for Asia’s bishops.”
“The monastic life of Buddhist monks in Thailand is a mirror image of the worst excesses of Catholic criminality. Lies, deception, theft, embezzlement and serial abuse along with completely inadequate leadership and no accountability or transparency in processes of assessment are the order of the day in Thailand, Myanmar, Sir Lanka and probably Laos and Cambodia.”
I have to question this blanket statement and wonder why Father Kelly wants to paint Buddhists as black as his own church.
Having spent a lot of time in Thailand and Burma (and some in Laos and Cambodia) over the last 30 years, my impression is quite different.
A web search for sex abuse in Buddhist monasteries does not give many results. There are number of results for sex abuse of children and adults by monks in the Tibetan tradition and in Bhutan.
A similar search for Catholic Church, well you know what that gives.
In Thailand now there is case of a high profile monk accused of financial crimes, he is like a Jimmy Swaggart of Thailand.
Buddhist monasteries are a thing unto themselves, they are truly independant, not like the Catholic Dioceses who pretend to be independant when it suits them.
So, there can easily be monks and Sayadaws (Abbots) who become political (Burma and the Rohingya, Burma and “The Saffron Revolution”)
The Supreme Patriarch and The Sangha Council of Thailand and the Department of Religious Affairs in Burma do not really have control over individual monasteries.
Another thing I don’t see are Sayadaws living in huge expensive houses or owning their own beach house.
When the well known respected monk “Sagaing Sayadaw” (as he is known) visited Yangon he would stay in a humble room at my friend’s uncle’s house. His monastery is a very basic assemblage of small buildings in Sagaing.
His critique of his own church is fairly convincing, but unless Father Kelly can provide evidence of his claim that Buddhists are as bad as the Catholics, he should withdraw it and say sorry.
Until lots of Bishops and Cardinals are locked up – facing the courts and their accusers in the process – not a single Bishop or Cardinal will ever again be trusted. The taint, the stench if I might use that word – will lie on every high office bearer in the church – and on most of the lower ranking parish priests and orders – of nuns and monks, too. It’s time for transparency and accountability – for oversight by the parishioners themselves if the hierarchy refuses to do so. A few CCTV cameras in the dark corners of the churches and institutions might help out in this process.
Mick, agree completely about the episcopal failings, but what can we expect when they’re all selected through a process which is about, as you say, “reinforcing the ‘correct’ Rome-approved doctrines”, and Francis can’t possible apply his own mind to all the vacancies for some 3,000 dioceses throughout the world. The review of protocols and processes relating to clerical child sexual abuse will achieve little without the introduction of accountability, transparency and inclusiveness for all Church decision makers, particularly diocesan bishops and the Vatican curia. This must include mandatory regular diocesan assemblies, representative diocesan pastoral councils, annual planning and reporting, and the appointment of women to head 50% of Vatican dicasteries, all informed by a new respect for the people of God and the sensus fidelium. Such proposals will be seen as radical only by those who have been totally acculturated to the established autocratic and unChristlike status quo.
This grossly negligent and incompetent state of affairs has the smell of rotting fish but needs the smell of the sheep. Before this transition can occur it needs public acknowledgement on a massive scale, public humbling actions on a massive scale, public rituals of lament and sorrow and remorse on a massive scale, at the same time as rituals of love and blessings for all The men , women and children who bear the brunt of such unbearable betrayal, shame and failure of the institutions that promised to protect them, nurture and support them in their vulnerability. These institutions need to experience vulnerability and powerlessness … and need to let trustworthy others scrape and scrub clean any rotting fish smell before any smell of sheep can be sniffed and encountered. There is a long way to go for the smell of rotting fish to become the smell of sheep. Just go to a market and talk to the fishmongers and butchers or women in the kitchens of life.