The leader of the Association for survivors of clergy pedophilia: “I fear that the compensation will not arrive”
VATICAN CITY. The time limit of the report on pedophilia in the Church announced by the new president Zuppi “makes no sense” according to Francesco Zanardi, president of the Rete L’Abuso association, himself a victim in the past of a priest. “It may be discriminatory to analyze only recent situations”, he objects, “thus leaving out the many crimes prior to 2000 and above all a system that defended itself with silence and the transfers of abusive priests”.
What significance do the initiatives announced by Cardinal Matteo Maria Zuppi have?
«The news coming from the CEI is not big. And they are not positive, in the sense that it is the first episcopal conference that will discriminate – as I said directly to Zuppi – from victims who were abused more than twenty years ago. Did the Archbishop of Bologna show the intention of great openness towards women, a shared sensitivity on war, and then discriminate the victims of pedophilia of the clergy? He surprised me negatively. The report is going to be a whole lot wrong. Many raped people kicked, they have never even reported to the dioceses and the judiciary and the abuses have been prescribed. I already imagine how many hundreds of harassment will be missing from the reports as even the dioceses do not have that data. I believe this is a tragedy. We don’t see any real turning points. “
What did he expect?
“A real collaboration of the Church with the judicial authority”.
What do you mean?
«Start the automatic” transfer “of complaints and convictions in the ecclesiastical sphere to the Italian judicial authorities. The Church must open the archives and give them to the state. But there is no trace of this. Today, in fact, both the State and the Church leave these poor survivors of abuse to drift. This reality is unique in Europe “.
Now what are you asking of the Church?
“What we have always invoked: not to express a mea culpa or self-justification, but to take charge of the old victims by compensating them, as has happened in the rest of the world. Instead I fear that this will not happen. There was not even talk of compensation, only of closeness, help. There are sick victims, like me who have a psychosomatic tumor due to abuse: I do little with proximity. There are survivors who suffer from very serious physical and psychological pathologies (1600 are assisted by Rete L’Abuso). As a reference model we have all the other states in which inquiries with external commissions have been carried out, most recently France. Italy is the only country that goes outside the box, and this is absurd ».
But does he have no hope?
«Zuppi opened a dialogue window: he invited me to meet, to make myself heard, to indicate specific cases. I will go to him because if there is a possibility of dialogue, it is not me who closes the door in his face. We will see if it will improve the scenario. But I am very disappointed by the CEI ».
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