Philipp Spörry, former Chancellor of the canton of Valais in Switzerland, published an article on Kath.ch, the official website of the Swiss Catholic Bishops’ Conference, in which he critically analyzes the issue of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church and the role and influence of the media in it, presenting it as a challenge for the Church.

The article begins by referring to a study carried out by the University of Zurich, commissioned by the Swiss Catholic Bishops’ Conference. It is a study on sexual abuses committed in the Roman Catholic Church in Switzerland since 1950. The study reports 510 accused individuals and 921 victims.

The publication of the investigation, says Spörry, brought about a radical change: “From a period of cover-up and concealment, we moved into a phase of suspicion towards the clergy. Allegations of abuse became more frequent and the ecclesiastical institutions reacted by removing the accused from their ecclesiastical functions,” he says.

Although the Bishops’ Conference decided to be transparent and to take charge of the abuse cases and to compensate the victims, this attitude did not fully restore the confidence of the media and social networks in the Bishops’ Conference.

Pressure from the media and social networks

In the face of a widespread suspicion of clerical guilt, there are people who emerge to exploit this fact with an agenda of their own. Spörry states that “clerics can be disqualified as perpetrators of abuse on the basis of mere...

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