Africans quietly confront Church scandal

FROM 2008 TO 2010, the Catholic Church was shaken by a series of staggering revelations of acts of pedophilia committed by its priests.

Street 89, a French Media outlet, reported that "overall, in a few weeks, there were some 170 complaints of sexual abuse in Germany alone, covering two thirds of the dioceses. Such revelations were in addition to those that rocked the American church in recent years and that of Ireland, where the number of complaints exceeds 14,000..."

"We are deeply ashamed," declared Pope Benedict XVI during his visit to the USA in 2008. "The Church will do everything possible to heal the wounds caused by pedophile priests and ensure that such acts do not recur," he added.

Since then, bishops have been accused of stalling some cases and shuffling problem priests around while the Vatican averted its eyes.

On May 16, 2011, however, after years of hesitation, the Vatican weighed changes to church law that will make it easier to deal with the abuse problem. The Vatican ordered the bishops to bring to justice members of the clergy suspected of abuse and to prevent them from exercising a ministry harmful to minors.

The frenzy of international media reports that followed the revelations generally overlooked cases of sexual abuses concerning the Catholic Church in Africa; however, the continent is far from exempt from such practices.

"I know that the Church in Africa suffers from the same evils,” said Buti Tlhagale, the Archbishop of Johannesburg, in reference to the painful scandals in the Church of Ireland, Germany and the USA.

"The bad behavior of priests in Africa has simply not been exposed by the media with the same prominence as in the rest of the world,” he said during a homily in April 2010, reported by Le Nouvel Observateur.

This was confirmed by the group Secularism is a Women’s Issue (SIAWA) in their May 16th 2010 entitled, “Pedophilia and the Catholic Priest: A Taboo in Africa”.

Because of the strong social taboo and lack of publicity, pedophilia among African clergy seems like less of a problem. A Congolese priest of the Theology Faculty of Kinshasa challenged this theory, however.

"Within the Church, we are not allowed to speak," he said. The situation is embarrassing and does not play the game of transparency. Hypothetically, there have been cases in Africa.

Until very recently, despite the Pope’s recognition of the "deep shame" and "gravely immoral behavior", and an acknowledgment that priests and bishops had resigned and victims were compensated, very little was done to bring to court and punish the clerics.

This was because parts of Catholic Canon law, according to expert Nicholas Cafardi on npr.org, “requires sufficient proof of guilt and a trial to protect the rights of the accused.”

That canonical system was seen by many bishops as too complicated to use, Cafardi said.

This reluctance to denounce clergy abuses knew few exceptions in Africa. In May 2010, it was reported by afrik.com that in Uganda, the minister of Ethics and Integrity Nsaba Buturo James called the people of his country to fight against Catholic priests whose moral values were “more than doubtful”.

This was after Father Santos Constantino Wapokura, a 45-year-old priest, was charged with abuse of two young girls to whom he transmitted the HIV AIDS virus. The Ugandan government urged the court to take up the case.

The Catholic Church in Kenya also investigated the case of four young men who claimed to have been sexually assaulted by an Italian priest officiating at the children's home a few years ago.

One particular case made more noise than others. Five years ago, Father Francois Lefort Ylouses, a French priest who officiated in Senegal in the 1990s was finally sentenced in 2005 to eight years of imprisonment and fined 134,000 Euros for sexual assault, rape and attempt of bribery on six children under 15 years of age.

Afrik.com also reported that the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zimbabwe have experienced similar events in recent years. According to the head of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of Southern Africa, in total, nearly 40 cases of sexual abuse of minors, spreading over a period of 14 years were reported to authorities on the African continent.

But still, the concept of pedophilia struggles to find a place in African public discourse.

"Everybody agrees that it is possible to find a priest having an affair with a woman, but nobody would understands what he seeks in a young boy. This means that no child will be trusted if he said a priest touched him," said Felix Ametepe Koffi, a former Togolese pastor, now in Burkina Faso.

APF , another French Media outlet, in his reports on that Monday said that “In a "circular", the Overseer of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal William Levada, advocated the development of a "clear and coordinated procedures" to be applied against "sexual abuse of minors" and calls the bishops to complete these procedures within one year”.

Vaticanist Bruno Bartoloni described Cardinal Levada's letter as "a historical novelty.” Karine Lalieux, the Chairman of the Belgian Monitoring Committee on Sexual Abuse, welcomed the Vatican's "clear position", even if it was very late in coming.

As far back as 1996, however, the Conference of Catholic Bishops of Southern Africa (South Africa, Botswana and Swaziland) had already taken a similar stand by establishing a protocol defining the procedure for complaints of child sexual abuse committed by clergy. Le Nouvel Observateur reports that this protocol drew in 40 complaints of sexual abuses since 1996, most of which occurred years before.

In the U.S., several associations that had previously spoken out against the Vatican warned that the latest efforts were "a smokescreen" and that the zero tolerance promised by Benedict XVI is not found in the text of the guidelines.

“Contrary to what most commentators believe, the Vatican's new guidelines do not require in any way that priests suspected of sexual abuse be brought to justice,” commented Ricardo Gutierrez on www.lesoir.be.

Gutierrez claims that the new rules mean only that the Church must report the facts to local authorities in those places where the law already requires such disclosure.

SNAP, the American Association of Victims of pedophile priests, also seized on this gap, arguing that the document "does not include punishment for bishops who do not violate their own guidelines."

SNAP also complained that it will take another year for the measures to be refined, and lamented that the protocols did not arrive early enough to actually prevent children from being victims of rape.

"Many of those who regarded the priests as models feel betrayed, ashamed and disappointed,” said Buti Tlhagale, Archbishop of Johannesburg.

"The image of the Catholic Church is in ruins...As leaders of the Church, we were unable to criticize the immoral behavior of members of our respective communities,” he held, adding: "We're paralyzed."

The question now is whether the new guidelines can or will put an end to that moral paralysis that has perhaps irreparably damaged so many lives and the reputation of the Church itself.