United against paedophilia” “

“The Catholic Church intends vigorously to crack down on paedophilia and hence to collaborate in the work already begun by the various administrations (justice, education, family…) and by numerous associations”, declared Bishop Jacques David of Evreux in a statement to SirEurope, referring to various recent cases that have sent shockwaves through the Church in France: according to a survey conducted by the French Episcopal Conference in 2001, 118 priests were placed under investigation for paedophilia, 30 were condemned, of whom 11 imprisoned and 21 have already completed their sentence. The response of the French bishops to the threat is a dossier with the title “Combating paedophilia – Points of reference for educators”. Coordinated by Bishop David, it brings together the reflections of theologians, experts in pastoral care and youth apostolate, teaching staff in seminaries, jurists, psychiatrists, sexologists and journalists, to “contribute to the detection and prevention of such acts, while at the same time preserving a climate of trust indispensable in any life of society”. Destined to be widely distributed in diocesan structures, Catholic institutes and movements of lay apostolate, the 52-page document is aimed at providing “simple information on the very complex reality of ‘paedophilia’”. “The education of children and adolescents is based on trust. That trust is destroyed by acts of paedophilia, which profoundly destabilize the victims and, in their consequences, the whole of our society”: so begins the message with which the archbishop of Bordeaux and president of the French Episcopal Conference Jean-Pierre Ricard introduces the document. In the majority of cases, the child victims of sexual abuse know their aggressor very well, someone who normally forms part of his/her own family or school environment. The horror of the situation determined by sexual abuse has ‘disastrous’ effects – emphasizes the dossier – which are well documented by the human sciences and which need a lengthy process of recovery and reconstruction of the personality. The problem – in the view of the French bishops – is therefore to understand how a ‘healthy relationship’ should be characterized and how an educator, to whatever sphere he belongs (school, parish, family, various associations, etc.), should respond to the requisites of a service to young children performed with dedication, competence and good intentions. The recognition of “aggressive” personalities in terms of paedophile profile is one of the most difficult tasks, since paedophiles are often neurotics with “variable” psychological structures, in which the psychopathological aspects are disguised or camouflaged under a veil of normality. The document, however, emphasizes the “warning signals” that should in some way be possible to recognize even in persons who are at times “beyond suspicion”: these include such tell-tale signs as the absence of team work, habitual silence about some issues, a person’s tendency to surround himself always with the same children, the passage from one institution to another without apparent motive, and the largesse with which presents are showered on the children themselves. According to the French bishops, the situations potentially at risk of paedophile attention need to be carefully analyzed, acting and “reacting” with suitable measures, beginning with the clear enunciation of the principles of Christian morality. The most difficult part in the process is represented by the collection of confidences from the children in question, when there is a well-founded suspicion that the relation with the educator is “at risk”. As far as the aspect of the reconstruction of the personality is concerned, the document of the French bishops proposes a number of approaches both with regard to the child victims of sexual abuse and their adult aggressors, taking into account and reaffirming the principle of the need in each case to apply the existing laws and disseminate knowledge of them, even for preventive purposes. The most challenging aspect of all, in the light of the Gospel message, is that of “forgiveness” which – in the view of the French bishops – should be reproposed as part of the educational action as a whole. Luigi Crimella