Faced with any difficulty, there is a human instinct to blame the most recent big event – and dream of a now just past “happy time.”

It is a human temptation – and it is often a false lead.

Perhaps the worst example in Catholicism is to see the scandals of sexual abuse by clergy – a horror story that seems to affect the whole world-wide church – as somehow a result of the changes begun with Vatican II (1962-65).

However, the recent opening of the Pius XII archives to historians – to investigate his connections with Nazi Germany – show that the problem of sexual abuse of children is as old as the archives that can be investigated.

The fact is: the problem is much older than Vatican II and its attempted reforms of clerical education.

Bishops’ assumptions contradicted

That many bishops, often when examining seminaries or communities in recent decades, have either hinted or stated that the abuses are a result of “new ideas” is simply not based on facts as seen in archival documents.

Hitler’s envoy and the Vatican

On May 11, 1939, Hitler sent Prince von Hessen for a secret meeting with Pius in Rome.

Hessen raised the point that there had been a series of much-publicized trials of priests and monks in Germany for “moral” crimes such as child abuse. Indeed, hundreds of clergy had been charged.

The hint was that if Pius would play ball, such trials could stop.

That there were such trials in Germany and Austria, and hundreds charged, is not disputed. The traditional Church answer was that this was part of a massive slander campaign by the Nazis to discredit a brave Church that had read out Pius XI’s letter Mit brennender Sorge on March 21, 1937.

Now the shine has gone off such a heroic interpretation.

Pius XII’s concerning response

Pius XII replied to the envoy that “such cases happen everywhere … some remain secret, others are exploited. Whenever we are told of such cases we intervene immediately.”

And, a year earlier, he, as Secretary of State, had sent an order to the Archdiocese of Vienna that they should burn all archives concerning abuse cases by clergy.

Read about it

The most comprehensive account is in David I. Kertzer, The Pope at War (Oxford University Press, Oxford 2022), pages 62–65 and 501.

But other historians have also been busy.

A report from Germany in 2018 found that abuse cases went back, at least, to 1946.

Scoping the problem

It has been a ‘cheap shot’ – a mix of false information and ‘the good old days’ syndrome – that has blamed an ecumenical problem for the abuse crisis.

That it is such a long-standing problem, and so widespread – in Pope Pius XII’s words: ‘such cases happen everywhere’ – means that we have to face a far deeper crisis than many bishops have publicly wished to admit.

A first step would be to open all archives to historians.

Let’s see the problem in all its ugliness.

Openness and transparency is like disinfectant.

• Thomas O’Loughlin is a presbyter of the Catholic Diocese of Arundel and Brighton and professor-emeritus of historical theology at the University of Nottingham (UK). His latest book is Discipleship and Society in the Early Churches.
• Flashes of Insight is an international publication. The editorial policy is that spelling reflects the country of origin.
• His latest book is “Shaping the Assembly: How Our Buildings form us in Worship“.