Charles Jude Scicluna (born 15 May 1959) is a Canadian-Maltese prelate of the Catholic Church who has served as Archbishop of Malta since 2015. Both as a curial official and since becoming a bishop, he has conducted investigations into sexual abuse by clergy on behalf of the Holy See and led a board that reviews such cases. He has been called "the Vatican's most respected sex crimes expert".
He held positions in the Roman Curia from 1995 to 2012, when he was appointed Auxiliary Bishop of Malta. Since November 2018, Scicluna has been an Adjunct Secretary of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, the curial body responsible for dealing with clerical sexual abuse cases on minors around the world.
Education and priesthood
Scicluna was born to Italian parents in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, on 15 May 1959. His family moved to Qormi in Malta when he was 11 months old. In Malta, he attended St. Edward's College. After secondary school, he studied at the Major Seminary there. He went to the University of Malta in 1976 and obtained a Doctor of Laws (LLD) degree in civil law there in 1984. After completing his seminary studies and earning a Licentiate of Sacred Theology (STL) in pastoral theology at the Faculty of Theology in the Seminary at Tal-Virtù, he was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Malta by Archbishop Joseph Mercieca on 11 July 1986. In 1991 he also obtained a Doctorate of Canon Law (JCD) at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. His thesis supervisor was Raymond Burke and he presented it to Professor Urbano Navarrete Cortés, SJ; both later became cardinals. Scicluna later said: "They wanted me to stay in Rome, in the Apostolic Signatura, but the archbishop called me back to Malta."
Between 1990 and 1995, he was defender of the bond and promoter of justice at Metropolitan Court of Malta, Professor of Pastoral Theology and Canon Law at the Faculty of Theology and Vice-Rector of the Major Seminary of the Archdiocese. His pastoral activities included service at the parishes of St. Gregory the Great in Sliema and Transfiguration in Iklin. He served as chaplain to the local Convent of St. Catherine.
Curial service
In 1995 he began his 17-year Holy See career, first as Deputy Promoter of Justice at the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura and then beginning in 2002 as Promoter of Justice in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith under Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. He also taught as Invited Professor at the Faculty of Law at the Pontifical Gregorian University. Between 1996 and 2007, he promoted the cause of the canonization of Saint George Preca.
As Promoter of Justice, he was credited with constructing the 2010 universal norms that extended the Church's statutes of limitations on reporting cases of sexual abuse and expanded the category of ecclesial crimes to include sexual misconduct with a disabled adult and possession of child pornography. He provided a brief history of the activities of the CDF with respect to abuse cases in a June 2010 interview.
In 2005, Ratzinger tasked Scicluna with collecting testimony about the founder of the Legionaries of Christ, Rev. Marcial Maciel, amid allegations of abuse.
At a prayer service for priests in St Peter's Basilica in May 2010, Scicluna addressed the clerical vocation and said:
He went on to quote the gospels on the corruption of the young–"Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea" (Mark 9:42)–and then quoted Gregory the Great's exegesis of that verse's meaning for priests: