Dear Pope: Do You Shake Your Head and Wonder?

Dear Pope Francis:

I am sure that there must be some nights that you can’t sleep because you are carrying a load heavier than most of us can even imagine. But I can only assume that some nights are especially hard.

A few months ago, Monsignor Tony Anatrella told new Bishops that they did not have a duty to report allegations of the sexual abuse of children to law enforcement. Not only did this instruction contradict your current policy of requiring reporting, but your Commission for the Protection of Minors was not even involved in the training.

As soon as it hit the news, Cardinal O'Malley, who chairs your Pontifical Commission on the Protection of Minors, came out asserting strongly that Bishops have a moral obligation to report disclosures of the sexual abuse of children to law enforcement. It will not be a surprise to you that Cardinal O'Malley’s position is one that I strongly support for all clergy in all faith communities.

And then there’s Cardinal Pell, who is now one of your closest advisors at the Vatican. In March, asserting that he was too ill to leave the Vatican and travel to Australia, Pell gave four days of video-link testimony to the Australian Parliamentary Commission, which is investigating child abuse in institutions serving children. Pell acknowledged that he had dismissed allegations of "plausible" complaints of child sexual abuse when he served there, beginning in the 1970s. Pell’s hometown, Ballarat, has been scarred by a rash of suicides by abuse survivors, where at least five pedophiles clerics were working during Pell’s tenure there. In his testimony, Cardinal Pell finally acknowledging how wrong he got it. It will be interesting to see how he will respond to his people who are asking him to “Come Home” to Australia. They want to have a little chat.

Last week, Monsignor Tony Anatrella was back in the news. The consulter to the Pontifical Council for the Family and the Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers has been accused by at least four former seminarians of sexual abuse. There have been reports about Anatrella since at least 2001, and about his abuse going back as far as 1987.  French seminaries and monasteries sent young men who appeared to have gay proclivities to Fr. Anatrella for “therapy.”  His methods included telling them they weren't gay and then engaging in mutual masturbation with them.

Not only is he very wrong about adequate responses to child sexual abuse, he is thoroughly homophobic.  He was known as the “Vatican Expert on Homosexuality” and was key to the Catholic Church’s refusal of gay seminarians. Now he may also be a serial predator, engaging in sexual boundary violations with young clients sent to him for therapy.

Are there some days when you just shake your head and wonder if there are any competent, ethical leaders whom you can trust to guide the church forward in addressing this longstanding, tragic pattern of abuse by priests? I shake my head and wonder every day.

I know that you have been signaling change, but there are too many men in leadership in the Church who were part of the system that focused on protecting the institution, rather than living out its mission of love and compassion. Maybe it’s time to clean house. Removing men like Pell and Anatrella from their positions of power would be more than a signal of change—it would be part of fulfilling your promise to survivors, their families, and the rest of your flock that there will be consequences for abuse and inaction, no exceptions.

And if it helps, please know that you are not alone in this. There are many of us, in various faith communities, who also have sleepless nights and wonder if the arc of the moral universe really does bend towards justice.

Your Sister in Christ,

Rev. Dr. Marie M. Fortune
www.FaithTrustInstitute.org
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