By Indira A.R. Lakshmanan, Globe Staff, 5/19/2002
Hong Kong's police superintendent, Shirley Chu Ming-po, who is leading
investigations into the cases, said police are having trouble getting
information from the church, including the names of victims and the whereabouts
of accused clergy members. ''It seems the church has been protecting its reputation and priests rather
than the victims,'' Chu said. Police also say authorities are seeking legal advice about whether they can
force the church to hand over written confessions that suspected clergy provided
at church hearings, admissions that the church says were made with the
understanding they would be kept secret. But in a rare interview late last week, Bishop Joseph Zen said that the
church was under no legal obligation in Hong Kong to report sexual abuse to
police, and that it wants to resolve the problems internally to avoid public
embarrassment for victims. ''We surely are concerned about children and we do everything to prevent
harming more children. But we don't have any duty to denounce'' those accused,
Zen said. ''We also have to respect the right of victims and parents.'' The Most Rev. Lawrence Lee, chancellor of the diocesan board, said that while
he believes the church has a moral obligation to report abuse to authorities,
''it's not necessarily in the best interests of the people involved.'' Lee said one victim in a confirmed case of abuse does not want to pursue the
issue with police, ''but police told us they still need to talk to the victim,
so we are faced with a dilemma. We have consulted lawyers, and they said people
have the right to withhold information from police.'' The diocese has been thrown into turmoil by reports in local newspapers two
weeks ago that the church knew about three cases of child abuse by priests in
the 1990s but did not report them to police. Church leaders have announced a
''zero tolerance policy'' on future abuse, but have not removed a priest who
recently admitted that he sexually abused a teenage boy. Of the three cases handled internally, Lee said, one priest was asked to
leave the priesthood. Another was deported to his home country, where the
offense was allegedly committed, but was allowed to continue as a priest there.
The third was suspended, is undergoing therapy, and will not have contact with
minors. Since the scandal broke, five more people have come forward alleging sexual
abuse of minors. Several of these instances supposedly occurred in the 1960s or
'70s at Catholic schools or camps. Zen and Lee raised doubt about some of those
charges, saying they had investigated at least one of the cases and found no
evidence. Hong Kong, a former British colony of 6.4 million people, has 307 priests and
314 parochial schools serving 250,000 local Catholics and about 140,000 Catholic
migrant workers, most of them from the Philippines. Despite its relatively small
numbers, the church has a high profile; numerous civil servants, legislators,
and business executives were educated in Catholic schools. Local Catholics have expressed shock over the allegations, and some say they
can no longer trust priests with their children. But many more appear to have
rallied around the diocese, insisting that pedophiles represent a small fraction
of the priesthood. Zen said the issue had been blown out of proportion, and suggested that there
is a ''conspiracy of prosecution'' to tarnish the church's image, thereby
undermining its credibility on issues unpopular with authorities, such as the
church's support for mainland Chinese migrants, whom the government is trying to
expel. Officials dismissed the suggestion that they were trying to smear the
church. ''The government has no intention, no policy to make the church look bad,''
said the chief secretary, Donald Tsang, the second-ranking official and a
Catholic. The police investigations have ''absolutely nothing'' to do with the
church's opposition to the government on the migrant issue, he said. Still, some Catholics seem reluctant to believe that priests could abuse
children. Fiona Szeto Siu-man, 27, a lifelong Catholic who works as a hotel
communications manager, said she was shocked to learn that ''our church would
have such bad clergy,'' but ''confident that the church will handle this kind of
thing more seriously and openly, to show they are willing to face the
problem.'' Globe correspondent Peggy Leung assisted in this
report.