Ališauskas backs independent Church probe into crimes against minors

Lithuania’s Bishops’ Conference has announced plans to investigate crimes against minors in the Church, a move former ambassador to the Holy See Vytautas Ališauskas described as “a considerable challenge, but also a great hope,” LRT reported.

“The question is whether there is the determination and willingness to ensure that the commission operates as independently as possible,” Ališauskas said. “So far, I would say the wording is adequate. I do not see an attempt to evade the issue.”

The investigation’s procedure has not yet been finalised. The Church plans to consult the Holy See, with a response expected within six months.

Ališauskas said the Church would inevitably play an active role in the investigation by opening its archives and providing other possible sources. He added that the Church was a specific organisation that investigators needed to understand.

“People who have no understanding of what the Church is or how it functions cannot simply come in,” he said. The key issue, he argued, was not whether the Church could investigate itself, but whether it would ensure that the commission was genuinely independent.

He also welcomed statements by bishops that the person who had suffered, rather than the institution’s reputation, should be the priority. In his view, this was an important and unusually strong statement in the official discourse of the Lithuanian Catholic Church.

Giedrius Tamaševičius, a Vilnius University professor and member of the public initiative “Svarbus reikalas”, said commission members should inspire confidence and be experts in their fields. He listed psychotherapists, professional historians and child-rights specialists among the possible members.

The commission should also include experts in canon law and people familiar with the Church’s structure, he said. Although experience from other countries could not simply be transferred to Lithuania, it remained important, as did cooperation with the Holy See, which had accumulated extensive experience from investigations conducted around the world.

Tamaševičius said local Church communities had also become increasingly involved over the past two months by raising questions and discussing the investigation.