Since I have been involved in InfoVaticana, I have been able to observe something very clerical, very typical of certain ecclesiastical environments, which is deeply worrying. There exists in part of the clergy—in every single level of the hierarchy—a nearly automatic tendency to think that every time we denounce abuses, serious inconsistencies in life, or even cases of pedophilia, what lies behind it is not an honest attempt to purify the Church, but a conspiracy.
For some, any public accusation against a priest who has committed abuses or who has led a life incompatible with his ministry does not stem from a real concern for the victims or a desire to clean the Church. There always has to be a hidden interest. There always has to be a strategy. It always has to be part of some Machiavellian plan against someone.
We, InfoVaticana, are accused of participating in that kind of campaign. As if every denunciation we publish were a piece in an internal power war within the Church. As if everything obeyed calculations, alignments, or settling scores.
There emerges a profound misunderstanding on the part of many clerics. Perhaps because they live too long within ecclesiastical dynamics where everything is interpreted in terms of influence, balances, and internal struggles. A world where every move seems to be part of a silent race toward curial power or certain positions within the ecclesial structure.
But there is something that many of them do not seem to understand, and that parents understand perfectly: In everything related to minors, abuses, and pedophilia, parents are not driven by conspiracies. We are not driven by the Church’s internal wars or rivalries between sectors. What moves us is the scandal and the responsibility. When a case of abuse or gravely scandalous conduct appears, what is sought is something very simple: that it be investigated, that responsibilities be clarified, and that it never happen again.
That is why it would be advisable for some to understand that when we denounce certain cases from InfoVaticana, we are not participating in any strategy against anyone. Behind many of those denunciations there is something much simpler: parents and mothers, faithful, Catholics who do not participate in that game of ecclesiastical intrigues.
We care exactly zero about the ideology of the priest who commits an abuse or engages in gravely scandalous conduct. It doesn’t matter if he is conservative or progressive, if he belongs to one sensitivity or another within the Church. If anything, when the person involved belongs to circles with which one feels closer, the denunciation is even more painful. But also more necessary.
Because the real world does not function as some sacristies seem to imagine. In certain clerical environments, everything is interpreted as if the Church were a permanent chessboard in which every scandal is a move against someone. As if everything consisted of eliminating rivals in an endless game where each one tries to survive without anything compromising coming to light.
“What do they have against this one?” “What do they have against the other?” “It must be part of a campaign.” That reflex says a lot about the mentality of the one who formulates it.
But it would be advisable for some to understand something very basic: there is no conspiracy. What there is is an increasingly clear demand on the part of many faithful. We want a purified, transparent Church that is diligent when behaviors incompatible with the priestly ministry appear.
A Church without omertá, without cover-ups and without half-measures. And when we denounce abuses or gravely scandalous conduct, we do so exactly for that: not to participate in any internal war, but so that the Church stops reacting as if every scandal were a power problem, instead of a problem of truth, justice, and protection of the most vulnerable.