Previously unreleased audio recordings of the apostolic commissioner of the Sodalicio reveal the logic with which part of the Roman apparatus continues to handle sexual abuse cases: the Church’s institutional priority above the victims. Bertomeu himself even compares this principle to “the law of the Third Reich”.
InfoVaticana today publishes two audio recordings of Mons. Jordi Bertomeu, an official of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith and one of the principal instructors of sexual abuse cases within the Church. This Spanish priest is part of the core of the Roman apparatus that decides how some of the most sensitive canonical proceedings against clerics accused of sexual abuse are investigated, channeled, and resolved, and for years he has acted as one of the trusted operational figures used by Rome in cases of major international impact. He has been a trusted man of Pope Francis, continues to be so under the current pontificate, and works at a very high level within the dicastery led by Cardinal Víctor Manuel “Tucho” Fernández under the wing of Archbishop Charles Scicluna.
The audios contain a coherent, repeated, and extraordinarily clear explanation of how sexual abuse is understood from within part of the ecclesiastical structure precisely charged with combating it. And what Bertomeu explains, with a clarity as stark as it is unusual in a high-ranking ecclesiastical official, is that the Church’s ultimate priority remains protecting itself and shielding itself from scandal even in the context of sexual offenses committed by clerics.
He also speaks with unusual frankness. He explains that the Church does not have sufficient resources, that victims “also have redress in the civil sphere,” and that, above all, the institution must protect itself. In other words: the victim can turn to the State; Rome must focus on preserving the Church.
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