Continuing my interview with CNN’s Gary Tuchman about this Saturday’s documentary on the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal (What the Pope Knew<\/i>, Saturday @ 8:00 PM [ET]), I asked him if it was difficult obtaining interviews with both the victims and the Vatican itself. <\/p>\n
JWK: <\/b>Were the victims eager to talk with you?<\/p>\n
TUCHMAN:<\/b>
\nNot eager. As you saw in the documentary, there were some 200 deaf boys
\nwho were molested as children. One of the deaf men just decided to file
\na suit. It was painful for him. He was anonymous when he filed the
\nsuit. He was ashamed. Here’s a grown man who had never been able to
\nhear. He could barely speak. His life had been hell. And, all of a
\nsudden, he feels like he is doing something to his life that is
\nextremely valuable. He’s filing suit because he’s found out about these
\ndocuments too and he realized nothing was done when it could have been
\ndone.<\/p>\n
And, he wasn’t eager to talk. He wasn’t even eager to use
\nhis name in the suit but he realizes now, after we talked to him, that
\n(that was) an important thing for him to do.<\/p>\n
JWK: <\/b>You
\ninterviewed Vatican Prosecutor Monsignor Charles Scicluna as part of
\nthis program. What kind of cooperation did you receive from him and
\nfrom the Vatican as a whole?<\/p>\n
TUCHMAN: <\/b>Monsignor Scicluna
\nis the Vatican prosecutor in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the
\nFaith which is where Cardinal Ratzinger worked before he was pope. He
\nwas the head of the Congregation. <\/p>\n
He was a very gracious man.
\nIt took us a while, frankly, to get a high-ranking Vatican official to
\ntalk with us. They were weary, as they have every right to be. We
\nexplained what we were doing — that it was going to be a hard-hitting
\nlook, but fair, and that’s why we wanted their response. So, we’re
\ngrateful he talked to us and he was a very nice person who appears to
\nbe very dedicated to getting rid of the miserable, selfish molesters
\nwho may still be out there.<\/p>\n
JWK:<\/b> Is there a sense that there are still more molesters out there? <\/p>\n
TUCHMAN:<\/b>
\nThere’s definitely more out there. We hope it’s not as high of a rate
\nas it was in the 1980’s and 1970’s and before that. We have every
\nreason to believe it’s not as high of a rate because of the awareness
\nof it. More People are paying attention to it but you’d be a fool to
\nthink there aren’t any. <\/p>\n
And, indeed, in our hour documentary
\nwe talk about a priest in India who is wanted in the United States for
\nallegedly molesting a girl. The United States wants him extradited —
\ntoday — and the Indian authorities will not extradite him. He claims
\nhe’s innocent. He certainly deserves a day in court. In any other
\n(organization) you’re temporarily taken off the job while the
\ninvestigation is going on if you’re an accused molester. But the
\nCatholic Church is not insisting upon that. So, it shows you there is
\nstill some undone business.<\/p>\n
JWK: <\/b>The program, I think, is very fair — but may I ask what your religion is and how it may have affected your expectations?<\/p>\n
TUCHMAN:<\/b>
\nCan I just say that I am observant and I am a believer? Religion and
\nfaith is a very important part of my life and my family’s life. <\/p>\n
JWK:<\/b>
\nYou present a complicated portrait of Pope Benedict — as a man who, as
\nhead of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, seemed more
\nobsessed with clamping down on dissent than abusive priests. But after
\n2001 or so he seemed to have a change of heart and was more aggressive
\nin the pursuing the cases. <\/p>\n
TUCHMAN:<\/b> What I hope had
\nhappened is that there is increased realization among the high-ranking
\nofficials in the Catholic Church that the religion is important and the
\nreputation of the Church is important but what’s most important are the
\nchildren within the Church and, perhaps, that wasn’t given as high a
\npriority in the past and is getting a higher priority now. I think
\nthat’s wonderful for the children.<\/p>\n
JWK:<\/b> You say in the documentary that Cardinal Ratzinger wasn’t the villain in this story but he wasn’t the hero either. <\/p>\n
TUCHMAN: <\/b>One
\nof the arguments is that the way the Church is structured is it’s the
\nPope who can make the big decisions. John Paul had the power in the
\nearly eighties. He could have done what Pope Benedict did in 2001 and
\nhe didn’t.<\/p>\n
The question is Cardinal Ratzinger was very close to
\nhim in the 1980’s and there’s no indication that Cardinal Ratzinger
\nsaid to John Paul (that) I think we need to be more aggressive about
\nthis. <\/p>\n
In the early part of the 2000’s you still had important
\nbishops and archbishops around the country blaming the news media for
\nthis. To Cardinal Ratzinger’s credit he’s now acknowledging (Church
\nresponsibility). His quote is this has been, quote, “born from the sin
\nwithin the Church.” It used to be blamed on enemies of the Church on
\nthe outside but he’s acknowledging that and that’s an important
\nacknowledgment. <\/p>\n
JWK:<\/b> What was Pope John Paul II’s responsibility? Was he lax? Or did he not know — until, perhaps, the very end?<\/p>\n
TUCHMAN: <\/b>Journalistically
\nwe can’t say. We don’t know. It seems unlikely he didn’t know because
\nof everything that was going on in the eighties and nineties and the
\nletters being sent to the Vatican. But it’s certainly possible he
\ndidn’t know. Even in big companies bosses are sometimes shielded from
\nbad news. <\/p>\n
We don’t know the answer because popes don’t do
\ninterviews. Not only do we not know from John Paul but we don’t even
\nknow from Benedict necessarily. We can’t draw a conclusion because
\nBenedict didn’t talk to CNN. Not that there’s anything bad to be drawn
\nfrom that because popes don’t do television interviews. That’s
\nunderstood.<\/p>\n
But if Monsignor Scicluna or another high-ranking
\nofficial didn’t talk with us — if no one at the Vatican would talk to
\nus — I think it would be fair for a viewer to draw a negative
\nconclusion. But he did. So, therefore, we do have the response from the
\nVatican and he’s not saying anything the the Pope wouldn’t approve. <\/p>\n
JWK:<\/b>
\nOne criticism, even among Catholics, is the idea that the Church seemed
\nto feel it could handle allegations of child sexual abuse internally. <\/p>\n
TUCHMAN: <\/b>There’s
\nno question about that. The public and police were not told about these
\nchild molestations that we feature in our documentary and that wouldn’t
\ncut it anywhere else. <\/p>\n
Looking at it in the most sympathetic
\nway to the Church, the feeling was, based on the the faith, that
\npastoral counseling and treatment and prayer could cure these priests.
\nBut what was neglected to be thought about was (that), even if you
\ncured the priest, you still have the child who’s damaged for life and
\nthat wasn’t considered. Hopefully today it’s being considered a lot
\nmore.<\/p>\n
Tomorrow: The Conclusion<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Continuing my interview with CNN’s Gary Tuchman about this Saturday’s documentary on the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal (What the Pope Knew, Saturday @ 8:00 PM [ET]), I asked him if it was difficult obtaining interviews with both the victims and the Vatican itself. JWK: Were the victims eager to talk with you? TUCHMAN: Not…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":225,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,12,13,1,14,6,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-catholic-church","category-christianity","category-journalism","category-media","category-pope-benedict-xvi","category-television","category-vatican"],"yoast_head":"\n