Introduction
In the contemporary politics, religion plays a crucial role, as both-a public and political actor and implants a certain set of values in believers. Religion as a public actor is incorporated in organisations, institutions, groups and associations, which is widely active in the political spheres of western countries.
These religious groups also express their viewpoint on political issues, the organised and established religious groups in the civil society and the religious entrepreneurs attempt to mobilise people, they sometimes attempt to launch political campaigns too.
Both European and non-European societies are simultaneously witnessing a profound transformation of their political landscapes.
The western society has begun to draw the line between religion and politics since the last two decades, the Boston Globe investigative journalism report on priests sexually abusing children played a significant role in construing this narrative
Today, the separation between religion and politics is more or less radically challenged, as is the nature and substance of democracy. There have been recent speculations that the distinction between religion and politics has just been a facade, and both institutions are still working together.
One concern that has emerged is related to the role of religion in national or international identities and many such theories related to this have come out.
These debates also concern the individual citizen’s identity,
Religion plays an empirical role in shaping the lives of people.
From role of religion in education to defining a cultural identity, religion not only plays an important role in building a nation but it also determines the national identity of a state.
Role of religion in public or private matters has ever enlarged and keeps on evolving.
Since religion plays an important role in contemporary societies’ politics and public spheres, it is also imperative to understand the impact and adverse effect of unchallenged or unparalleled power of religion on society.
The Catholic Archdiocese of Boston sex abuse scandal was part of a series of Catholic Church sexual abuse cases in the United States that revealed widespread crimes in the American Catholic Churches. In early 2002, The Boston Globe used their investigative journalism skills that led to the criminal prosecutions of Roman Catholic priests on the charges of sexual abuse of minors by Catholic clergy. First noted incident of chid molestation was in 1976 due to which Fr. John, a respected member of the cleric was held in the police station for a little time for abuse of children.
This incident signifies the power of Catholic Church and negligence of authority as the assistant district attorney of the area reached police station of Boston and persuaded stationed police officer to release fr. John and not to let the press get wind of what has happened which further hushed the investigation.
Fr. John went forward and molested more than 100 children in six parishes over three decades after his release, it could all have been stopped if his political influence wouldn’t have saved him in 1976. These journalist started investigating believing that it was this one priest who was corrupting the whole institution but with the help of Phil Saviano who heads the victims’ rights group Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), the team was able to widen their search to thirteen priests.
In their investigation spotlight, team of Boston globe found a pattern in the diary issued by archdiocese, this diary is a record of every priest assigned a parish and it also shows those who are on leave of any kind. The four abusive priest spotlight knew about were marked as ‘sick leave’, the team suspected that more priest marked on leave in these diaries are abusive priests. They also learnt through Richard Sipe, a former priest and psychotherapist who worked at trying to rehabilitate pedophile priests, that his findings suggest that there are approximately 90 abusive priests in Boston (6% of priests).
Then the team created list of 87 suspects, then began to find their victims to back up their suspicions, out of 87 suspected priest 45 were confirmed by Eric Macleish who was the lawyer for the victims of this sexual abuse, he used to close cases for the victim who did not want to go public with their case.
Michael Rezendes (member of stoplight team)also came in contact with Mitchell Garabedian another lawyer who worked on the sexual abuse of minorities by priest case. Mr. Garabedian had become very paranoid about this case as church had used it’s political influence to delay court hearings, they also withdrew names of victims before the court proceedings were held to persuade victims to stay quiet but with the persistence of Michael Rezendes, Mitchell told Micheal about the sealed record that he had filed in the court that can be publicly availed and he also told Micheal that these documents had the evidence that Cardinal Law was made aware of the abuse and they ignored it. Priests had and have molested kids. These documents were imperative as without the proof Boston Globe would have been charged with a defamation suit. When Mitchell tried to get these documents he was not able access it as the political influence of church helped them get those documents sealed. Boston Globe had to win a case to get access to these legal documents and then print them with complete facts.
The Globe’s coverage encouraged other victims to come forward with allegations of abuse, resulting in numerous lawsuits.
Further investigations and allegations by numerous victims revealed a pattern of sexual abuse and cover-ups in a large number of states across the United States. What was first considered to be a few isolated cases of abuse turned into nationwide scandal, then a global crisis, for the Roman Catholic Church.
Ultimately, it became clear that priests and other members of religious institution under the Catholic Church had sexually abused minors on a large scale that the cases reached into the thousands over the years. Although the majority of cases were reported in the United States, victims have also come forward in many other countries like Ireland, Canada, Australia and New Zealand and many more.
One of the most aggravating facts about this scandal was that even after knowing about the sexual abuse of minors by the priests of the Church, the local archdiocese and other higher members, they did not take any action but instead covered the scandal and sent the priests to a theurapatic institution in Baltimore and marked them on “sick leave” in the record and the crime continued.
One of the main cases in this scandal was about John Geoghan. He was accused of sexual abuse involving more than 130 children. Charges were brought in Cambridge, Massachusetts concerning accusations of a molestation that took place in 1991. Geoghan was laicised in 1998 meaning that he was stripped of his ministry and lost the status of being a member of the clergy. He was found guilty in January of 2002 of indecent assault and battery for grabbing the buttocks of a 10-year-old boy in a swimming pool at the Waltham Boys and Girls Club in 1991 and he was also sentenced to nine to ten years in prison. The trial included testimony from the victim and from a psychiatrist, Dr. Edward Messner, who treated Geoghan for his sexual fantasies about children from 1994 to 1996.
The trial also included the testimony of Archbishop Alfred C. Hughes who testified that he had banned Geoghan from the pool after a complaint that he had also been talking about religion conversion there. The most recent settlement proposed is $65 million for 542 victims. The settlements are being made because of evidence that the archdiocese had transferred Geoghan from parish to parish despite warnings of his behaviour. Geoghan was charged in two other cases in Boston’s Suffolk County. One case was dropped without prejudice when the victim decided not to testify. In the second case, two rape charges were dismissed by a judge after hotly contested arguments because the statute of limitations had run out.
The reaction of the church on the scandal
Recently, a conference was held on protection of minor rights in catholic church, this meeting was headed by pope Francis. In this conference two speakers highlighted the fact that how times have changed and further, embolden victims to come forward to say their story. They also cited 2015 film- spotlight to signal towards the role of these pop culture artefact that help in setting up narrative that motivates people to come forward.
Some of the people who are part of the church were distressed due to this incident because it was not only beliefs of the people but the faith of devotees too that was shattered when the sex abuse scandal broke out.
Sister Veronica Openibo, a Nigerian nun spoke at the conference for protection of minority rights that “How could the clerical Church have kept silent, covering these atrocities? The silence, the carrying of the secrets in the hearts of the perpetrators, the length of the abuses, and the constant transfers of perpetrators are unimaginable”, some priests and nun demanded for this decried culture of mediocrity, hypocrisy, and complacency inside the Church, and this culture of silence inside the church should stop to re-establish it’s image and credibility around the globe.
On the other hand, One cardinal blamed the Jewish media for the crisis, the media outlet denounced and launched a smear campaign against Cardinal Bernald Law (archdiocese of Boston), who was disgraced for the role the played in protecting abusive priests.
The archbishop of the Vatican City who is a prominent member and face of the religion, he blamed the sexual revolution, gave it as a excuse for clergy to carry out this abuse, in the defence of priests he also said that the children had somehow led priests into temptation. Vatican officials call media coverage of abuse cases false, defamatory and slanderous which is completely absurd.
Effect of scandal
The child sex abuse scandal puts the Catholic Church in a unfavourable position. People, especially the catholics started to lose their belief in the church and the church lost much support. According to reports, after this scandal one in three catholics holds an opposed position. The conviction of an Australian Cardinal for child sexual abuse, the defrocking of an American Cardinal for the same, and publication of the numbers of American priests charged with the abuse of minors have made the Church suspect to many Americans. However the main element which blew up the scandal and made people hold an unfavourable position against the Church was the cover-up that they provided for the predator priests in the scandal. Positive views of the Church have gone down in the last few years. In a September 2015 CNN Poll, 60% held a favourable view of the Catholic Church, while only 30% were unfavourable. After that, there have been more incidents of sexual abuse, as well as the release of Spotlight, which tells the story of the Boston Globe’s investigation team of clerical abuse in Boston’s Catholic Archdiocese. While other religions have also faced abuse accusations like this, many Americans currently view the situation in the Catholic Church as worse than that of other religions. More than one third of the Americans believe that sexual abuse is more common in the Catholic Church than it is in other religions.
Conclusion
Since the beginning, religion and politics have gone hand in hand with each other as they both are built on the basis of people’s believes. Religion has been claimed to be “the source of some of the most remarkable political mobilisations of our times”. In other words, the religion is an important political tool, it also plays an imperial role in influencing people thus, it gets politicised.
The people hold their belief in the religious institutions of the country and their leaders, for example the Archbishop.
In order to gain the confidence of the people, the political parties tend to ally with the aforementioned religious institutions and take their help. Not to mention, this creates a large vote bank for the political leaders or parties. This is primary reason that has lead to the politicisation of religion.
This merger between the religion and the politics also gives the religious institutions and their leaders some sort of power over the political leaders, thus explaining the high influence of religion in politics. This influence of religion over politics later helps to cover scandals just like this. The interference of religion and politics in each other also sometimes leads to the victimisation of political parties and leaders. As the faith of people lies in the religious institutes, religious group sometime use it in their power to manipulate the political decisions. The political parties have to endure this as they cannot afford to lose the confidence of the people. This power that the religion holds over politics leads to major threats against secularism and helps religious institutes to cover scandals just like this one and fool the judicial system of the country.
Moreover, politicians also fear that if the interest of religious groups are not addressed, favourable policies are not introduced projected for certain religious group in manifesto is not given weightage then these religious groups can form separate religious entity due to which political leaders who is associated with this group or the person had support of these groups but was not directly associated with the certain religious may incur heavy losses in there vote bank, it could also lead to the rise of these religious group to power and current leaders could be loss trust therefore can get dethroned from the chair. Similarly, religious groups fear that if they will not engage in political action that is going around then they would not be able to combat the persecution faced by the religious groups, if religious leaders are not able settle differences with the state then the religious leader fear that they might loose there power and social standing as people would start changing there religious believes because of the communal threat that they face.
The interaction between politics and religion does not leave either one intact. While we now think of secularism as the separation of powers between the state and religious institutions but these two pillar or institutions can never be completely separated, the conditioning of these institutions to collaborate for there selfish welfare gives refuge to scandal like these, this type of religious nationalism further dents and has effected lives of thousands of innocent children.
References:-
Frankovic, K. (2019, February 28). How the child sex abuse scandal impacts the Catholic Church – and Catholics. Retrieved from https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/2019/02/28/how-sex-abuse-scandal-impacts-catholic-church
Donadio, R. (2019, February 25). The Catholic Church’s Sex-Abuse Scandal Was Driven by Outsiders. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2019/02/catholic-churchs-sex-abuse-scandal-was-driven-outsiders/583489/
Green, E. (2019, February 14). Seán O’Malley, a Pope Francis Ally, on the Catholic Church and Sex Abuse. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/02/sean-omalley-pope-francis-catholic-church-sex-abuse/582658/
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