Fr Anthony Paganoni: confronting the crisis II

Every year the Vatican publishes the Annuario Pontificio, a remarkable collection of data concerned with almost every aspect of the Church life.

Several local churches, particularly in the English speaking world, have
been developing ever more sophisticated tools to assess issues such as
the level of participation in Sunday Mass.
Australia is no exception: on the basis of statistical evidence,
resulting from several Church Life Surveys, the International
Congregational Life Survey and the regular Mass Count, the level of
participation of Catholics in parish affairs and attendance at Mass is
now well-known.
I still remember the remark made by an Australian Bishop, who, after
canvassing the latest findings and being saddened by a slightly
diminished level of participation, said: “Where is the good news in all
this?”
At least we know that the Mass Count gives us an indication that the
numbers at Mass are definitely shrinking, but that does not prevent us
from believing that the quality of worship should not improve.
 Hard and cold statistical data need to be taken several steps further.
Statistics are like a door, opening up spaces of inquiry into human
behaviour: its extent, geographical spread and impact. What was inferred
when The Record introduced the word “pandemic” about the sex abuse in
the world in one of its recent issues devoted to sex scandals in the
Church?
It was simply uncovering what several reports to the United Nations have been revealing:
l The Report of the Independent Expert (Paulo Sergio Pinheiro) for the
United Nations Study on Violence against children (A/61/299), while
acknowledging that the global problem remains “hidden, unreported and
under-recorded”(II, A, p 8), speaks of hundreds of millions of abuse
cases reported to the United Nations agencies: Unicef, WHO and the ILO.
This particular report highlights two immediate needs:
1 In view of the importance of multi-sectoral coordination in addressing
violence against children, I recommend that the General Assembly
request the Secretary-General to appoint a special representative on
violence against children, to act as a high-profile global advocate to
promote prevention and elimination of all violence against children,
encourage international and regional cooperation …
2 The special representative should disseminate and promote the
recommendations of the Study in different international, regional and
national forums … (p 33).
The widespread dissemination of these sources appears to be critically
urgent. In the case of the abuse of children, at the moment, if we are
to believe extensive media reports, the Catholic Church and, to a lesser
degree, some Protestant Churches, should sustain the blame for an
unacknowledged world-wide pandemic.
In the case of the Catholic Church, which, over the last two decades,
has been under constant surveillance by the international media, we can
speak of roughly several thousand (about 3,000, to be more precise)
reported cases annually for a community which represents 18 per cent of
the world population.
On the basis of credible information, I have no doubt that the problem
of the mistreatment of adolescents in the world is by far more acute and
widespread than the one existing within the Catholic community.
If some Church leaders have been accused and found guilty of covering up
and malgovernance, what should one say about the inexplicable silence
in relation to the millions of cases that have been revealed in several
United Nations Reports?