The Quest for Truth in Sexual Abuse Cases: A Moral and Legal Duty

(February 08, 2012) No strategy for the prevention of child abuse will ever work without commitment and accountability, said Archbishop Charles Scicluna, Promoter of Justice in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, while addressing at the major international conference on the Church’s paedophilia crisis held during this week in the Rome's Gregorian University which is scheduled to end on Thursday. He added that love for the truth must be expressed in love for justice and in the resulting commitment to establishing truth in relations within human society. He emphasized the need to establish the facts with a spirit of fairness in every case. This is the task assigned to the delegate in a preliminary investigation and this must be the basis of every judgment, of every decision, in every case. He insisted that as a participation in truth, justice too has its own splendour that can evoke a free response in the subject, one not merely external but arising from the depths of one’s conscience. Further he said that those who administer the law must strive to maintain an attitude of complete openness to the demands of truth, for, respect of the Truth generates confidence in the Rule of Law and disrespect for the Truth generates distrust and suspicion. He stressed the fact that the Ecclesiastical law is concerned with protecting the rights of each person in the framework of the duty of all towards the common good. In this context the recent teaching of the Church on the subject of sexual abuse of minors by clerics shows that safety of children is a paramount concern for the Church and an integral part of its concept of the “common good, he said. He concluded with the words of Pope Benedict XVI that truth will make us free and the honest quest for truth and justice is the best response we can provide for the sad phenomenon of the sexual abuse of minor by clerics.