One of the most diabolical aspects of the abuses in the Church is that its language functions as a kind of Esperanto of crime. It moves with the same patterns between countries. The methods and the stories are disgustingly similar. Giorgio Babicz, 38, began his ordeal when he was just 11 in the city of Lublin, in Poland. The priest who took a fancy to him, after a thousand tricks to grope him under the pretext of consolation for his father’s absence, was transferred to Italy and convinced him to go after him. Son of a broken family, with an alcoholic and violent father, everyone agreed that this loving priest offered a good way out for the little one. Giorgio was plunged into a life sentence by that priest, who subjected him to countless abuses in the parish of Santa Maria Oliveto, in the humble region of Molise. His story, like most of the other 360 he has accounted for the association Rete L’abuso in Italy for the last 17 years, it ended in the worst way for him. They are few compared to the actual estimate. And they are almost never compensated in any way. But the transalpine country, a lantern in the fight against this plague, is also beginning to face the need to come to terms with its past.
The priest who abused Giorgio, protected by superiors who ended up denouncing the victim for alleged defamation, had him subjected to an ordeal for years that included sleeping with a dog in the next bed while he masturbated. He did until he was of age and rebelled. Until he decided to leave with a thousand traumas in tow. “He must have looked for someone else, because he saw that he was talking on Skype all day with someone who was in Poland,” he recalls by phone this Wednesday afternoon. Today he lives in Milan, with his mother, who returned from Poland after seeing how her son plunged into a storm of alcohol, substances and therapies. He has a thousand problems, the consolation of a daughter and the support of the Rete L’abuso association, the only one in Italy that brings together victims of systemic sexual harassment by the Catholic Church in Italy.
Estimates of the possible number of victims in Italy are by far among the highest in Europe. Francesco Zanardi, abused as a child by a Savona priest and president of the association, which has just launched the #ItalyChurchToo initiative (Italian Church too) to try to shake the static board, believes that they could be around one million cases in the last 70 years. On the association’s website there is a map designed with the cases registered in the last 17 years: 360, of which 163 are finally convicted. All others are still open or have been archived. “They are all proven cases, with the photo of the priest,” says Zanardi. “Italy has more than twice as many priests as France, so we think the figures may be much higher (the French Episcopal Conference put them at 300,000). But a commission like the French one is not enough, there are victims who must be compensated. We do not want just an inventory of numbers, but that justice is done, ”he points out.
Italy has lived with its back to this phenomenon in recent decades. The proximity of the Vatican and the Church’s involvement in the country’s political and social customs have made this battle marginal. The only parliamentary interpellation, proposed by Senator Matteo Mantero in 2017, today a parliamentarian of the left-wing group Potere al popolo!, fell on deaf ears. “I was only the political spokesperson for the association. They have been documented for years. They have brought to light the few cases that have been admitted or investigated in Italy. But they are just the tip of the iceberg,” he notes. But there was also silence in Parliament. “After five years we still haven’t had an answer. It is not mandatory to receive it. Parliamentary questions are put to a large group, at the discretion of the ministries. And the most uncomfortable have no answer. But it’s been too long. It is a very sensitive issue. In Italy there is a veil of omerta (code of silence) about this phenomenon, although more is beginning to be talked about. And the voice of the associations is essential to break that wall. Why does it exist? Because there is a strong Catholic matrix in the country, and because unfortunately in our country the issues of social rights are dealt with with great difficulty because there has been a lot of interference from the Church and the Vatican to keep them out of the public debate.
The resistance of the dioceses
This week, for the first time, something has begun to move. Magazine Left it has activated a file that counts the cases; the BBC has broadcast a documentary on the matter; and the president of the Italian Episcopal Conference (CEI), Gualtiero Basetti, has opened the door for the first time to an investigation into cases of abuse in recent decades. The problem is that until the elections are held at the top of the Church next May, nothing will move. “He wants to make an internal commission. He asks the dioceses for cases, but the dioceses give the cases they want. And they would not compensate the victims. In May there have to be elections in the CIS, I doubt that things will change. The problem is that the Italian bishops do not want to stir up this hornet’s nest”, says Zanardi.
The Italian Episcopal Conference has a lot of influence within the Vatican. The organization of prelates today has five bishops in its permanent council accused by the victims of a cover-up. According to Rete L’abuso, the only association with reliable statistics in Italy, about 300 cases have been known to date and there are about 140 priests convicted since 2000. There has been no ecclesial commission of inquiry and a number well below actual cases have been tried in ordinary courts. The central demand of the victims in Italy, beyond moral and economic reparation, is very clear: the Church must establish the obligation to transfer all the cases heard by the dioceses to ordinary justice. The advances in Spain, the other Catholic-influenced European country that had done the least until now, have reinvigorated the battle waged by the victims in Italy. The impression, however, is that politics is still a long way from supporting this fight.
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