We can’t move on if people are left behind

Juan Carlos Cruz insists on the need for everyone to speak out and help survivors — believing them, accompanying them, making reparation — to ensure “the scourge of abuse will never happen again.” The new Pilot Annual Report from the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors offers guidelines for believing victims of clerical sexual abuse, accompanying them, making reparation, and ensuring that abuse never happens again, says Juan Carlos Cruz, himself a survivor of clerical sexual abuse. The following is an abridged version of the interview with Juan Carlos Cruz ahead of the publication of the Report. The full text can be found on: https://www.vaticannews.va/en/vatican-city/news/2024-10/juan-carlos-cruz-we-can-t-move-on-if-people-are-left-behind.html.

Good morning. Thank you for joining us at Vatican Radio today. You’re part of the Commission, which will be releasing its Annual Report on safeguarding. It’s the first ever annual report. In a word, can you tell us, what does the Report say to victims, survivors of clerical and other abuse in the Church?

Well, I’m a victim myself, so I can… I can’t speak for every survivor or victim survivor, but to me, it’s finally something that has some sort of accountability for survivors, some sort of guideline. Also, guideline is… it’s not strong enough. But it’s this thing of believing victims, accompanying them, reparations, and the promise of never doing it again. That to me is words that normally you didn’t hear in church circles.

What will this say to different victims? You will find — and everybody knows this — but you will find victims from A to Z. Victims that have been, in general, tremendously hurt. [Their] lives destroyed.

What I want is that this Report brings accountability. Everybody that has worked on it has put their heart, mind, intelligence, resources to do the best job we can. I know that it is never enough, but hopefully being the pilot… we are already working on the second one, which I personally have asked that we need to engage consistently — not that we haven’t before because we’ve engaged with victim survivors throughout — but more deliberately with groups who criticize the Commission and groups who want to talk to the Commission. So not [to] be afraid ever of victims.

And to me, what really worries me, though, is the amount of bishops around the world who still ignore this and the amount of survivors, victims that are walking around the world, and we see them and that they are invisible to… withholding their pain and sometimes even committing suicide. I’ve had friends that have committed suicide, and it just pains me. These people that pass as invisible when a Church, people have destroyed their lives.

So, I wouldn’t be in this Commission if I didn’t believe in it, if I didn’t believe that Pope Francis is incredibly sincere on this, that he takes it seriously, that this is not a pr exercise. And I hope that many survivors see that. But I would understand also that some don’t. But I, personally — I’m speaking about myself — but I think my colleagues in the Commission are the same. I will never stop fighting for survivors. Never. Even if they kick me out.

I want to follow up on that a little bit. I think the Church has made some real strides in safeguarding. We look at genuine statistics that show that incidences have decreased tremendously in the past few years. But at the same time, the Church perhaps speaks a little less about accountability and transparency. From your perspective and experience, what would accountability and transparency look like? How can the Church improve?

Well, just follow the meaning of the word transparency and accountability. I mean, that is still murky… and that is still… nebulous. And there’s parts of the world where it’s more transparent, and people are more accountable, but there are many more parts of the world where people are not accountable and victims are ignored.

Nobody should wander this world, asking for justice, for the harm they’ve been... without it being their fault. Nobody should be walking this world begging for justice. That is absolutely against everything the Catholic Church preaches.

Yet many in the Catholic Church allow that to happen. And to me, that’s inconceivable. I understand that many survivors around the world are extremely angry and will find anything that you try to do not appropriate. I myself get comments or emails from survivors saying that I work for the devil. And I understand that. And it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t hurt me, but I understand where it’s coming from.

And so — not to be a martyr here or anything, because I’m far from that — but I truly believe that we all have some way of contributing for this scourge to leave the Church first in the example of Pope Francis. In my case, being close to him, I really know that this matters. Then, working with everybody in the Commission, that’s in there, that also feel the same way that I do, [that] it matters and want to do more now, that we should talk more to survivors. And this Report might not be perfect in that sense. Absolutely. But we need to do more and more.

And people get scared. Especially some curial folk get scared when we say this is the tip of the iceberg, but we in the global North, you see accountability. You see transparency, even though there are places that are very civilized and you still see horrific things. But the global South — South America, Central America, Mexico, the African countries, Asian countries, the Philippines — there’s no data. You still hear bishops saying, oh, well, that’s a problem in the North. You know how this started first: “Oh, this was a US problem.” Then it jumped to Ireland. Then it jumped to, “Well, this is a global problem,” and bishops everywhere should be extremely worried about this.

We cannot move on if you leave people behind. I was just at an act of reparation in Madrid, where I now live, organized by Cardinal José Cobo, the Archbishop, and a group of survivors and victims. I had a knot in my throat because I’ve been to many [of these events] because I’m in the Commission. They invite me to many things, you know of reparation, and some of them, many times, they’re like, okay, I’m saying the right words and you know that it’s okay. It’s let’s, you know, when Cardinal Ezzati in Chile wanted to sort of do a something of a pardon, you know, and, and all that. He thought the best thing would be to put a plaque with my name and other names in the church where our abuse happened. That’s an insult. We don’t want to be famous because of that. That’s an insult. And some people are dumb enough to think that way.

But when you see what Cardinal Cobo has done, where they say we are not moving on until everybody has been heard, that’s something the global Church should listen to.

And I hear also bishops and cardinals unfortunately say, “Haven’t priests suffered enough? Can we not just move on from this?” Well, what happens to all the victims that walk around? You know, there’s victims that have the means to hire a lawyer. There’s victims that have the education to figure out what path to take. But there’s thousands of victims who are poor. Remember the nuncio in the Dominican Republic who went to the poor kids, abused them, and gave them a dollar. And, you know, where are those kids? What happened to those kids?

And this is spread around the world, and we need to keep working on this. Without hesitation. Without fear.

And with all the power and the energy that Pope Francis is giving the Commission and every institution that works on safeguarding, I’ve seen incredible improvements, but there’s a lot to do. And like it or not, it’s still the tip of the iceberg.

I’d like to ask one final question. This is one more stage in the Church’s ongoing response to abuse. Are there one or two things that you would ask the Church to do immediately moving forward?

I would say, follow what the report says.

The Commission has worked very hard to sort of this… this justice aspect of truth, accompany, believe, repair, and the promise of never happening [again].

The conversion that they say — not the survivors, but the Church. Right? To me, that is extremely important. Don’t take this lightly or don’t wait till a new pope comes or…

We will never heal if we don’t address these things head on. We will never heal. It’s this example that I always put and other people put: It’s like, okay, you have a tumor and you operate and you take the tumor out, but you have to check that it has not metastasized through the body. And this has metastasized.

And if you want a more evangelical example, Saint Paul says we’re all members of one body. And if one finger hurts, it hurts the whole body. So, we’re all in this together.

I’ve always thought that I know so many good people in the Church. Actually, I know that there’s many more good people in the Church, but at the same time, those that are bad do a very good job in being bad. And if those good ones don’t speak up, we’re going to let the bad ones win. So, it’s really important that everybody speaks up and helps survivors, believes them, accompanies them, [makes reparations], and hopefully the scourge of abuse will never happen again.

This transcript has been edited for clarity.

By Christopher Wells