Sex and the city. The Vatican city, that is. The city of the religion where priests took a vow of celibacy and got away with raping children. With the papal conclave 48 hours away, Dan Rivers reported from CNN live on a case involving a cardinal who will be part of the conclave, Cardinal Calcagno. He protected a pedophile Father Geraudo who started raping an altar boy in 1981 at least once a week and continued for 5 years. That boy was Franceso Zanardi, who spoke to CNN. He said he was not the only victim from amongst his classmates but he is the only one who is determined to seek and find justice.
Zanardi grew up very conflicted and became addicted to heroin in his 20’s.
It was only after he went to rehab and had counseling that he realized he took
drugs because of the abuse. That’s when he decided to find out how Geraudo had
been able to get away with raping him for so long. Zanardi’s fight for the truth
has exposed a trail of protection that leads directly to then Cardinal
Ratzinger – who subsequently became Pope Benedict XVI.
Zinardi discovered that in 1980 a letter sent from an archbishop to bishop
Calcagno of Savona clearly shows that
the church was aware of Geraudo’s crimes more than 3 decades ago. In 1980 he
was reported for abuse of minors, but he was simply moved from parish to
parish. He even set up and ran a home for troubled children in a church
rectory.
In 2002 Geraudo confessed that he was a pedophile and even that wasn’t
enough for the church to throw him out. Then in 2003 bishop Domenico Calcagno
wrote to Cardinal Ratzinger who was then the enforcer of church doctrine, asking
for advice on what he should do about Geraudo.
“As far as possible” Calcagno said
he intended to avoid letting Geraudo have responsibilities that would bring him
into contact with children. His letter was accompanied by a church dossier on
Geraudo, and Calcagno said “nothing has been leaked to the papers, no
complaints have been filed with the police”.
The church was clearly only concerned with its image and protecting its
priests. The victims weren’t mentioned in any of the documents and of course no
efforts were made to identify them and help them. Neither Ratzinger nor
Calcagno made any moves to defrock Geraudo or investigate. Two years later
Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI.
In 2005 Geraudo was sent to a Catholic scout camp in Piedmont, where he
abused another boy. He was convicted for this crime, but he only received a one
year suspended sentence. It was only in 2010 that the church forced him to
resign, even though he had admitted to being a pedophile 8 years earlier. When
Bishop Calcagno had become Cardinal, he was accused of having protected the
pedophile. The church’s response was “the accusations regarding Cardinal
Domenico Calcagno when he was bishop of Savona in Italy were investigated by
both the church and by the legal system, by the judge and the accusations were
without foundation.”
Cardinal Calcagno, who is taking part in the conclave to elect the next
pope, declined to comment. Francesco Zanardi took a petition to the Vatican
demanding that Calcagno be disqualified from the papal conclave, but he was
turned away by plain clothes police. But
Zanardi is not giving up. His case has been taken up by SNAP (Survivors Network
of Those Abused by Priests), a pressure group representing people abused by
priests. But the vote takes place tomorrow. So that’s two Cardinals that the
world knows protected pedophile priests. Calcagno and Mahony.
Neither of them is considered to be Pope
material, but that they have a say makes a mockery of the whole process. That
Ratzinger protected Geraudo if only by default, makes a mockery of the position
of Pope. It’s the victims who speak and
the journalists who help them who are the real heroes of this story that seems
to never end. Francesco Zanardi
represents the Italian abuse network Rette L’Abuso. He also reports for
vaticancrimes.us and has worked in collaboration with the Protect Your Children
Foundation. Last year he went on a hunger strike in Rome to protest abuse by
clergy.
