Sábado, 11 dic (RV).- A propósito de la documentación del Departamento de Estado de EE.UU. hecha pública por Wikileaks, el padre Federico Lombardi, director de la Oficina de prensa de la Santa Sede, al ser interpelado por la agencia de noticias Ansa sobre estos documentos ha precisado que:
“Sin entrar en la evaluación de la extrema gravedad de la publicación de una gran cantidad de documentos reservados y confidenciales y de sus posibles consecuencias, la Oficina de Prensa de la Santa Sede observa que una parte de los documentos hechos públicos recientemente por Wikileaks se refiere a las relaciones enviadas al Departamento de Estado de EE.UU. por la embajada estadounidense ante la Santa Sede”.
“Naturalmente –añade el Padre Lombardi– tales relaciones reflejan las percepciones y las opiniones de quienes las han redactado, y no pueden ser consideradas expresión de la misma Santa Sede, ni citaciones precisas de las palabras de sus oficiales. Su credibilidad, por lo tanto, debe ser evaluada con reserva y con mucha prudencia, teniendo en cuenta esta circunstancia”.
Por su parte, el Embajador de Estados Unidos ante la Santa Sede ha hecho pública una Nota condenando «enérgicamente la divulgación de lo que se alega como información clasificada del Departamento de Estado».
«Sin comentar el contenido o la autenticidad de dicha información», el embajador estadounidense ante la Santa Sede escribe que «el presidente Obama y su administración realizan una firme política exterior que se centra en la promoción de los intereses nacionales de Estados Unidos y que, en ámbito mundial, se propone impulsar la solución de los desafíos más complejos de nuestro tiempo: como estabilizar la economía mundial, derrotar el terrorismo internacional, detener la propagación de armas catastróficas, defender los derechos humanos en todo el mundo, así como hacer frente al cambio climático y la protección del medio ambiente. Valores que son valores universales».
«La embajada de los Estados Unidos ante la Santa Sede participa con el Vaticano en los esfuerzos que se realizan para impulsar el diálogo interreligioso de forma activa, por el bien común, añade la misma Nota, que termina asegurando que, así como en todo el mundo, también en la Santa Sede, este país trabaja y colabora para alcanzar objetivos importantes, confiando en que las relaciones impulsadas por el presidente Obama, por la secretaria de Estado Hillary Clinton, y por los diplomáticos estadounidenses soportarán este desafío».
Bishops’ Expert on Prevention of Clergy Abuse of Minors Offers Ten Points for Protecting Children
Sexual molestation is about the victim Child sexual abuse can be prevented Warning signs of abuse can be spotted
WASHINGTON—The Catholic bishops’ expert on preventing clergy abuse of minors, Teresa Kettelkamp, offered ten tips for child safely to mark Child Abuse Prevention Month.
During April, child protection staff in dioceses nationwide reexamine and publicize efforts for child protection. This has been a key effort of the church since 2002, when the U.S. bishops adopted theCharter for the Protection of Children and Young People, in response to clergy sexual abuse of children.
Kettelkamp, executive director of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) Secretariat for Children and Young People, developed the list after reviewing what the Catholic Church has learned in facing the clergy sexual abuse problem. The ten points follow.
Sexual molestation is about the victim. Many people are affected when a priest abuses a minor, but the individual most impacted is the victim who has suffered a violation of trust that can affect his or her entire life. The abuser, the family of the abused, and the parish community are all affected by this sin and crime, but the primary person of concern must be the victim.
No one has the right to have access to children. If people wish to volunteer for the church, for example, in a parish or school, they must follow diocesan guidelines on background checks, safe environment training, policies and procedures, and codes of conduct. No one, no matter who they are, has an automatic right to be around children or young people who are in the care of the church without proper screening and without following the rules.
Common sense is not all that common. It is naive to presume that people automatically know boundaries so organizations and families have to spell them out. For example, no youth minister, cleric or other adult leader should be in a child’s bedroom, alone with the child.
Child sexual abuse can be prevented. Awareness that child sexual abuse exists and can exist anywhere is a start. It is then critical to build safety barriers around children and young people to keep them from harm. These barriers come in the form of protective guardians, codes of conduct, background evaluations, policies and procedures, and safety training programs. The residual effects of having been abused can last a lifetime. Those who have been abused seldom “just get over it.” The sense of violation goes deep into a person’s psyche and feelings of anger, shame, hurt and betrayal can build long after the abuse has taken place. Some have even described the feeling as if it has “scarred their soul.”
Feeling heard leads toward healing. Relief from hurt and anger often comes when one feels heard, when one’s pain and concerns are taken seriously, and a victim/survivor’s appropriate sense of rage and indignation are acknowledged. Not being acknowledged contributes to a victim’s sense of being invisible, unimportant and unworthy; they are in some way “revictimized.”
You cannot always predict who will be an abuser. Experience shows that most abuse is at the hands of someone who has gained the trust of a victim/survivor and his/her family. Most abuse also occurs in the family setting. Sometimes the “nicest person in the world” is an abuser, and this “niceness” enables a false sense of trust to be created between abuser and abused.
There are behavioral warning signs of child abusers. Training and education help adults recognize grooming techniques that are precursors to abuse. Some abusers isolate a potential victim by giving him or her undue attention or lavish gifts. Another common grooming technique is to allow young people to participate in activities which their parents or guardians would not approve, such as watching pornography, drinking alcohol, using drugs, and excessive touching, which includes wrestling and tickling. It is also critical to be wary of age-inappropriate relationships, seen, for example, in the adult who is more comfortable with children than fellow adults. Parishes can set up rules to guide interaction between adults and children.
People can be taught to identify grooming behavior – which are the actions which abusers take to project the image that they are kind, generous, caring people, while their intent is to lure a minor into an inappropriate relationship. An abuser may develop a relationship with the family to increase his credibility. Abusers might show attention to the child by talking to him/her, being friendly, sharing alcohol with a minor and giving the child “status” by insinuating that the child is their favorite or “special person.” Offenders can be patient and may “groom” their victim, his or her family, or community for years.
Background checks work. Background checks in churches, schools and other organizations keep predators away from children both because they scare off some predators and because they uncover past actions which should ban an adult from working or volunteering with children. If an adult has had difficulty with some boundaries that society sets, such as not driving while intoxicated or not disturbing the public peace, he or she may have difficulties with other boundaries, such as not hurting a child. Never forget that offenders lie.
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Keywords: Catholic bishops, Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, sexual abuse, child abuse prevention month, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, USCCB
This report was commissioned by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and was based on surveys completed by the Catholic dioceses in the United States. The surveys provided information from diocesan files on each priest accused of sexual abuse and on each of the priest’s victims. That information was filtered, so that the research team did not have access to the names of the accused priests or the dioceses where they worked. The report presents aggregate findings. The dioceses were encouraged to issue reports of their own based on the surveys that they had completed. BishopAccountability.org has collected many of those diocesan John Jay reports. Please see our note on how the following Web version of the John Jay report was created, and on the two versions of the report that are available.
“The sexual and physical abuse of children and young people is a global plague; its manifestations run the gamut from fondling by teachers to rape by uncles to kidnapping-and-sex-trafficking. In the United States alone, there are reportedly some 39 million victims of childhood sexual abuse. Forty to sixty percent were abused by family members, including stepfathers and live-in boyfriends of a child’s mother—thus suggesting that abused children are the principal victims of the sexual revolution, the breakdown of marriage, and the hook-up culture. Hofstra University professor Charol Shakeshaft reports that 6-10 percent of public school students have been molested in recent years—some 290,000 between 1991 and 2000. According to other recent studies, 2 percent of sex abuse offenders were Catholic priests—a phenomenon that spiked between the mid-1960s and the mid-1980s but seems to have virtually disappeared (six credible cases of clerical sexual abuse in 2009 were reported in the U.S. bishops’ annual audit, in a Church of some 65,000,000 members).”
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