Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God Page #9

and mentality

and ethos of the hierarchy.

This idea that there are enemies

out to destroy the church,

and do whatever you can to keep

ammunition away from them.

For centuries the Vatican

has been accustomed

to.. to show to the world

always that it is perfect.

So, you understand that the Vatican

is terrorized that in Italy

you could have, also,

thousands of sex abuse cases,

which, up to now,

have been hidden.

Throughout Italy,

news of victims is often drowned

out by more powerful voices.

The signal from

Vatican Radio is so strong

that Romans can often hear Sunday

mass on their electric doorbells.

But when it comes to

stories about sex abuse,

there is a deafening silence on

Italy's national networks.

I think, for Catholic journalists,

it has been a very difficult time.

My responsibility is a reporter.

I have to try to tell the truth,

I don't work for the Catholic church.

I work for a Catholic publication.

We're not in the

business of being cheer

leader for the Holy Seal,

or to the bishops,

but I still hear some of the old

Monsignori in the Vatican,

saying,

"Oh, boys have always done this,"

"in all-male environments,

it's normal."

And, I mean,

"This wasn't abuse, these kids,"

"they were interested,

and it's rites of passage."

I mean..

Even in 2011.

One bishop made the statement,

"Little boys heal."

"They will get over it."

In reference to a priest

who had marauded

a number of young boys,

10, 12, 13-year-old boys.

Ahh.. anally raping them, and thing

like that. You don't heal from that.

In most instances, your life is

never the same. It's ruined.

I realised that the Vatican was in

control of every priest and every nun,

every bishop

and every cardinal,

and they were all under oath,

they couldn't talk about it.

I couldn't stand seeing the church

tell everyone to keep quiet,

and not talk about it.

Terry, having written to

Cardinal Sodano,

on that, I felt we

could build a case.

Jeff said, "Your letter to the

Vatican was very powerful",

"and I'd be honored

to represent you."

I immediately agreed,

and signed the paperwork.

When they left, I said to my wife,

"Jeff is going to help me

sue the Vatican."

"He's going to get things in

motion."

I love Jeff for that.

Jeff Anderson & Associates

filed a lawsuit

against the Vatican

on Terry's behalf.

The suit named Pope Benedict, the

current Vatican Secretary of State,

Cardinal Bertone, and the former

Secretary of State, Cardinal Sodano.

What we implore the Vatican

to do in this lawsuit,

and what we need them to do,

is to act.

That is, to disclose the secrets,

the evidence of the crimes

that they have,

the identities of the offenders,

and the bishops, archbishops

and cardinals

that have been complicit

in those crimes, worldwide.

As a result of Terry's lawsuit,

documents were uncovered

revealing the role of Rome

in the worldwide sex abuse scandal

that caught the attention

of the New York Times.

These documents seemed

to turn the whole story

that we'd been writing all

these years, on its head.

Up until then, what we thought was

that American bishops were at fault.

With these documents,

for the first time,

we saw communication

between American bishops

and in particular the office run by

then-Cardinal Ratzinger,

in which the American bishops

are pleading

with officials in the Vatican,

repeatedly,

saying, "Help us get this

priest out of the priesthood."

"The victims are asking us

to defrock him."

And the response from the Vatican is

to have compassion for the priest,

and almost no thought

at all about the victims.

And you see that in these documents.

I was completely unprepared

for the reaction.

I had no idea

how big the story was.

I got hate mail, I got hate phone

calls that were anti-Semitic.

The New York Times,

and me personally,

we were accused of being

anti-Catholic.

This is being driven

by Jeffrey Anderson,

teaming up with the New York Times,

going back half a century.

The alleged abuse took place

in the 1950s.

The Vatican didn't find

out about the case until 1996.

Ratzinger goes ahead and

orders an investigation,

and during that two-year period

while they are investigating,

Father Murphy dies.

Now what exactly was

Ratzinger supposed to do?

Where is the wrongdoing?

It appeared to me that Mr Donohue

didn't even read the story.

The victims, and their advocates,

met with Archbishop Cousins in 1974.

And there were representatives

of the Vatican in that meeting.

They were introduced to

two men who said

they were from the

Papal Nuncio's office.

There was a way that

the Vatican was informed

of that case, as early as 1974.

The Murphy case was reinforced

Jeff Anderson

in his role as the Vatican's

pubic enemy number one.

By 2010 he had filed over 1500

lawsuits against the Church.

Supporters of the Vatican portray

him as a money hungry sheist

caching in on

the pain of the victims

And victims see

the lawsuits he brings

as the only way they can hold the church

to account for what it has done.

Deny, minimize, and blame.

And so they now blame

the media,

they now blame

the lawyers,

they now even blame

the survivors.

In 2011, Jeff Anderson & Associates

attempted to serve legal papers from

Terry's lawsuit, to the Vatican.

The FedEx package was returned,

with the Vatican's comment marked,

"undesired and unwanted".

Forcing Anderson's next attempt

to be made through the

US State Department.

The church claims to be,

and is recognised as, a state.

States have immunities,

states have their own law.

They are severely disordered,

and that's why they abuse.

Geoffrey Robertson is

a human rights lawyer,

and the author of the book

The Case of the Pope.

He seeks to hold

the Pope accountable

for crimes against humanity,

and to demolish the diplomatic

immunity of the Vatican.

The Vatican is not really a state.

It's a tiny little

religious enclave in Rome.

It doesn't have a people.

There are no Vaticanians.

No-one gets born in the Vatican,

except by accident.

It's a group of celibate

religious figures.

It's got no army, no soccer team,

none of the attributes of statehood.

Yet it has this power because

of an historical anomaly.

In 1929, Mussolini made an alliance

with the man who became

Pope Pious XI.

The church supported Mussolini's

one-party, fascist state,

in return for being given

the attribute of statehood.

It is the creation of a state

for the Catholic Church,

by fascists.

This fence is the border

of the country

that is known as the Vatican.

178 countries now acknowledge

the Vatican as a state.

Politicians like to go

and meet the Pope.

They like to have

the blessing of the Pope,

to encourage their voters.

But the Pope poses a problem.

According to Canon Law,

the Pontiff cannot be judged by

any civil or religious authority.

He is beyond the law.

It will be, I think,

an important task,

to work out how to bring

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