An Italian bishop goes rogue and blows the whistle

More cracks are appearing in the teetering edifice of Italy’s once invincible Catholic hierarchy.

For the first time ever, it seems, a bishop has gone to the country’s civil authorities to denounce priests and religious brothers accused of sexually abusing minors. And by doing so, he’s broken ranks with the men who lead Italy’s other 225 dioceses.

His name is Bishop Giovanni Nerbini.

The chrism oil from his episcopal ordination was barely dry when Nerbini, who is bishop of the Diocese of Prato just 16 miles (25.5 km) north of Florence, contacted police in late December to report abuse allegations against nine members of a controversial religious community called the Disciples of the Annunciation.

The bishop took the action on his own initiative since – amazingly – neither the State of Italy nor the Vatican requires clerics to report sexual abuse to civil authorities.

Unprecedented action

Nerbini’s retired predecessor, Bishop Franco Agostinelli, had already learned of the alleged abuse early last summer, but he reported it only to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which opened an administrative penal process.

It is not clear what prompted Bishop Nerbini to go to the cops in Tuscany.

But it seems he did so shortly after the Vatican’s Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life informed him in a Dec. 16 letter that it had suppressed the Disciples of the Annunciation.

The group was set up in the Diocese of Prato in 2005 and recognized canonically as an association of the faithful in 2010.

But just three years later, diocesan officials had launched the first of two investigations into the religious community. The Vatican would mandate the second investigation in 2018.

During neither of these periods of “canonical visitation” was there ever a hint of sex abuse. At least, that’s what Church authorities are claiming.

The Vatican congregation listed other reasons for suppressing the group.

These included (but were not limited to) a dwindling number of members, defiance of diocesan authority and “serious perplexities about the founder’s style of governance and his suitability for this role”.

In simpler terms, the Vatican-led investigation found that the group was like a cult run by a charismatic leader.

Strange things happening in a strange religious community

The man who founded the Disciples of the Annunciation is Gilioli Gigli, a 73-year-old priest and former member of another obscure religious order in Verona.

He went to Prato sometime in the early 2000s and in January 2005 established his fledgling new community with the express permission of the bishop at the time, Gastone Simoni, now close to 83 years old.

Don Gigli gathered young men from various parts of the world into his group.

The charism of his new community was to “incarnate the ‘Here I am, Lord’ that the Virgin Mary spoke to the Archangel Gabriel” at the Annunciation.

Members would profess a fourth vow in addition to those of poverty, chastity and obedience – the vow of abandonment to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Their apostolate was to guide young people in serious vocational discernment, “form and save the family of today, ever in greater crisis”, and “sustain and help religious and diocesan priests faithfully live their vocation”.

The Disciples of the Annunciation thrived early on, but it did not take long before members started leaving. The community was in crisis, prompting diocesan authorities and, eventually, the Vatican to step in.

An alleged abuse victim steps forward

Again, there was never any mention of sexual abuse of minors. Until last spring.

That’s when a man in his 20s told a priest that various members of the Disciples had sexually abused him and one of his brothers between 2008 and 2016 when they were still minors.

The priest advised the man to report the alleged assault to Bishop Agostinelli. He did not do so until June.

But by that time Pope Francis had already accepted the bishop’s resignation and had named Giovanni Nerbini – still just a parish priest – as the new leader of Prato diocese.

Nonetheless, Agostinelli sent the abuse allegations to the Vatican’s doctrinal office, which is standard protocol.

Meanwhile, the 65-year-old Nerbini, who had been working in a parish and serving as vicar general of another Tuscan diocese (Fiesole), was finally ordained to the episcopate.

That was on June 30. But it was not until Sept. 7 when he was officially installed as Agostinelli’s successor.

Bishop Giovanni: parish priest and late vocation

Nerbini has an interesting background. Tuscan born and raised, he was a schoolteacher for the first sixteen years of his professional life. He then entered the seminary in 1989 at age 35.

When he was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Fiesole in 1995 he was just a few weeks shy of his 41^stbirthday. They call that a late vocation.

His entire 24 years of priestly ministry has been parish work, though he was also given extra duties as diocesan vicar general in 2015.

And people say “Don Giovanni” has not lost the parish priest’s common touch. At his installation in Prato he said, “I know my place here – it is to be in the middle with the priests and people of this diocese.”

The newly installed Bishop Giovanni wasted no time on the case against the Disciples of the Annunciation.

He met with the alleged victims and the accused, discovering and verifying more information.

He also made sure the canonical investigation, which Church authorities maintain were unrelated to the abuse allegations, was proceeding expediently.

Few people knew of his decision to report the abuse claims to the civil authorities.

That came to light on Jan. 29 after local magistrates announced they were investigating nine members of the suppressed religious community – among them, five priests, including the founder.

Bishop Nerbini called a televised press conference the same day and confirmed that he was the one that contacted the civil authorities.

He had done so several weeks earlier.

The Church will fully cooperate with Italian authorities

The bishop said the magistrates had concluded the first phase of their investigation and pledged the Church’s full cooperation in the ongoing probe.

“I will not hide my pain and my deep concern and I’d like to hope that the accusations are not true,” he told reporters.

“But I want to say clearly that the primary interest of the Church of Prato is to find out the truth. For this reason, I hope the magistrates, in the interests of everyone, are able to complete their investigation as soon as possible,” Nerbini said.

These two short statements, which seem so normal and right, were like a thunderclap.

At least in Italy where the established institutions of Catholicism and even the wider society have been extremely hesitant to open a public conversation over sexual abuse, whether that be at the hands of priests, teachers, coaches, physicians or close relatives.

The culture of omertà (a strict silence) as a way to deal with unspeakable or shameful things still has a powerful influence on the collective Italian mentality.

Last year at the San Remo music festival, a wildly popular event that is televised over a number of days each February, organizers rejected one of the groups that had auditioned for the competition.

The song they were to present was about a little girl who was sexually abused by an older man.

San Remo’s producers categorically denied that the rejection was because of the topic of the song. They said it was due to the quality of the artists.

But their decision generated heated debate and it made many people in the country squirm.

Italians – especially those who wear the Roman collar – just don’t talk about such things.

At least they didn’t used to.

What’s at stake

Bishop Nerbini may have opened a whole new chapter on this front. And some of his confreres in the episcopacy must be scared to death at the prospect.

Because, for many of them, death is exactly what’s at stake.

Death to clerical privilege and immunity. Death to the silence that protects the perpetrators. Death to the mystique of the sacred, which too many clerics still cultivate and wield as a holy power to control others.

Giovanni Nerbini has gone rogue and broken the longstanding policy of bishops in Italy to allow no one but themselves to investigate crimes inside the Church.

Hopefully, more existing bishops will break ranks as he has done. And, hopefully, Pope Francis will appoint some more new bishops that will do the same.