http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/2006/05/21/t11.html
MALTA TODAY
News • 21 May
2006
Under
lock and key – the Church’s sex abuse investigations
Matthew Vella
The Church’s
investigations into sexual abuse by priests are destined to
gather
dust in the curial secret archives unless civil authorities
intervene to unlock the
information on cases of sexual abuse which were never
reported to the police.
Police will not act upon “rumours or public information”
with respect to
investigations by the Curia Response Team on priests
accused of sexual abuse,
unless victims take their case straight to the police.
A spokesperson for the ministry of justice and home affairs
told MaltaToday the
police are empowered to act on “reports, information and
complaints”. The ministry
did not answer as to whether the police have ever demanded
information from the
Curia on its investigations into sex abuse by priests.
But despite media reports on the Curia Response Team’s
handling of sex abuse
cases in the church, the police will still not take action
on anonymous reports or
information unless these are flagrant offences.
In January 2006, a Nadur priest fled from Gozo to the
United States after
complaints of alleged child sex abuse by the priest were
referred to the Curia for
investigation. Nadur archpriest Mgr Salvu Muscat had
confirmed he referred
complaints to the Curia from parents whose children they
claimed had been
sexually abused by the priest.
In April, MaltaToday’s Lenten survey revealed that 88 per
cent of respondents
believed the Church should report cases of sexual abuse
involving priests to the
police, expressing disagreement with its controversial
policy of dealing with sex
abuse internally.
Yet there is no
legal obligation for such information to be taken to the
police, legal
sources said. “If anything there is a moral obligation, but
nothing to oblige the
Church authorities from handing over any information to the
police.”
In an interview with MaltaToday (pages 22, 23) Bishop
Emeritus Nikol Cauchi
says the response team gives victims the chance to tell
their stories while giving the
alleged abuser the chance to tell his version. “Whoever
wants to report these
cases to the police is as free as the wind. We make this
clear to anyone reporting
abuse.”
He said the Church always leaves it up to the individual
who makes the
denunciation to decide whether to report the case to the
police. “When the
Response Team issues a report showing that there is proof
that the abuse
occurred, we refer the matter to the Vatican and we act
according to the instructions
we receive.”
The secret world of the Church’s investigations into sex
abuse by priests can only
remain a closed affair: the Curia’s handbook on procedures
makes no reference to
reporting allegations to the civil authorities.
It is only the responsible bishop to decide whether or not
those found guilty of
abuse by the Curia Response Team are to be placed under
administrative or
judicial process to impose a penalty.
Despite police being empowered to ask for information to be
disclosed regarding
an offence, observers remain baffled by the lack of
interest from the civil authorities
in the Curia Response Team’s investigations. The church’s
handbook on sex
abuse in pastoral activity says that any person in
possession of reliable
information “is strongly encouraged to disclose such
information to the competent
Church authority”.
It is the delegate appointed to investigate allegations who
informs “of the method”
through which accusations may be referred to the Church and
to public authorities.
Even if the accused does admit to the allegations,
delegates conducting the
investigation are to meet up with the parents and victim to
“offer pastoral support
and care”. It is the accused’s Ordinary to decide whether
to initiate any form of
administrative or judicial process, or to resolve equitably
the question of damages,
leaving much doubt as to how justice is served to victims
of sexual abuse by
priests.
However, the case will remain secret and under the Curia’s
confidential
investigations if victims do not approach the police.
And the conclusions to
the case will remain kept in the secret curial archives
where
they are bound to never see the light of day unless civil
authorities intervene.
mvella@mediatoday.com.mt
Links:
www.maltatoday.com.mt/2006/01/22/t1.htm
www.maltatoday.com.mt/2006/03/12/t12.htm
© Malta Today 2006
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http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,222717,00.html
FOX NEWS
Maltese Diocese Opens
Investigation of Priest Who Admitted
Relationship With Foley
Friday , October 20,
2006
ROME — A Roman
Catholic diocese has opened an investigation of a priest
who
said he fondled and shared saunas while naked with
Mark
Foley when the former
U.S. congressman was a boy in Florida.
In interviews in the past two days, the Rev.
Anthony
Mercieca, 69, who is
now
with a diocese on an island off Malta, has given different
details about his
encounters with Foley four decades ago.
On Wednesday, he told the Sarasota (Fla.) Herald-Tribune by
telephone that he
massaged the boy in the nude, was naked in the same room on
overnight trips
with him and had gone skinny dipping with him. On Thursday,
he told The
Associated Press that he was naked in a sauna with Foley.
Also Thursday, he told WPTV of West Palm Beach, Fla., that
he touched Foley
"once, maybe."
In all of the interviews, he denied having sexual
intercourse with Foley.
"It's not something you call, I mean, rape or penetration
or anything like that, you
know," he told the TV station in a telephone interview. "It
was just fondling."
Foley, a 52-year-old Florida Republican, resigned from
Congress last month after
the release of his sexually explicit computer messages to
young male pages.
After Foley's resignation from Congress, his lawyer said
that Foley was an
alcoholic, gay and had been molested as a boy by a
"clergyman." Foley's civil
lawyer, Gerald Richman, said the alleged abuser was a
Catholic priest whose
name he shared with Florida state prosecutors.
A statement from the diocese of Gozo, a small Mediterranean
island off Malta,
said that its bishop, Mario Grech, contacted the
Archdiocese of Miami on Thursday
evening seeking further information about the case. The
statement, issued late
Thursday, said the diocese had learnt of the case for the
first time in the
international press.
"In the light of all this ... Bishop Grech will instruct
the response team to investigate
these allegations according to the policies established by
the Maltese
Ecclesiastical Province with regards to cases of sexual
abuse in pastoral activity,"
the statement said. "Grech will pass all information he
receives pertaining to this
case to the response team as he has done in similar cases."
The Maltese Church instituted the team in 1999 to deal with
any sexual abuse
allegations.
The statement said the team would present the bishop with a
report, and that
Grech promised to cooperate. It did not say whether
Mercieca was still serving as
a priest on Gozo, where he regularly hears confession and
celebrates Mass in the
cathedral, one of two main churches on the Mediterranean
island.
It also did not say whether it would investigate anything
other than Mercieca's
recent statements about Foley.
Gozo, 60 miles south of Sicily, has a population of about
32,000 and is one of
Malta's three inhabited islands — filled with vacation
homes and holiday resorts.
"Bishop Grech, conscious of the gravity of pedophilia,
reiterates that he will
cooperate with those responsible for investigating such
cases so that justice is
done to the victims, the perpetrators are reformed and the
common good is
safeguarded," the statement said.
The Sarasota Herald-Tribune published an interview with
Mercieca on Thursday in
which the priest described several encounters that he said
Foley might perceive as
sexually inappropriate.
Among the activities described by Mercieca in the newspaper
were massaging
the boy in the nude, skinny-dipping together at a secluded
lake in Lake Worth, Fla.,
and being nude in the same room on overnight trips while he
was a priest and
Foley was a parishioner.
Mercieca later told The Associated Press in Rome by phone
that the report was
"exaggerated."
"We were friends and trusted each other as brothers and
loved each other as
brothers," Mercieca said in the AP interview. Asked if
their association was sexual,
the priest replied: "It wasn't."
Mercieca told the AP that he and Foley would go into saunas
naked when he
was a priest in Florida and Foley was a parishioner, but he
said that "everybody
does that."
Sarasota Herald-Tribune Executive Editor Mike Connelly said
Thursday the story
is accurate, including the reference to a night in which
Mercieca said he was in a
drug-induced stupor due to a nervous breakdown and couldn't
clearly remember
what happened.
"The reporter talked to the priest four times yesterday and
carefully reviewed his
account, especially of the one night," Connelly said. "The
story accurately reports
what the priest said."
Mercieca had worked at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Lake
Worth in 1967,
according to church records. Foley would have been 13 at
the time.
A spokesman for the state attorney's office in West Palm
Beach, Mike
Edmondson, said that an e-mail from Foley's attorney was
received late
Wednesday identifying the alleged abuser. He said the
e-mail was being
forwarded to the Archdiocese of Miami. Edmondson said law
enforcement action is
over, unless other alleged victims come forward, because
Foley's attorneys have
said that the politician doesn't want to prosecute.
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Copyright 2006 FOX News Network, LLC. All rights
reserved.