Pope Francis and the Abuse Scandal

By Jerry Slevin
The Christian Catholicism
December 8, 2013

http://christiancatholicism.com/pope-francis-and-the-abuse-scandal/

It is puzzingly to me as a lawyer why Pope Francis has mainly addressed the priest child abuse scandal privately with groups of bishops or through others like Cardinal O’Malley. It may be that Francis is trying to distance the papacy from legal responsibilty for bishops and priests who violate child protection laws. It is too late legally, in my view, to do that with respect to bishops clearly. And only Francis can internally deal with unaccountable bishops under Church precedents at present.

Given Francis’ evident and admirable interest in victims of injustice, this has been surprising to me. Francis has now begun responding publicly, but indirectly, through his Council of Cardinals to address the child abuse crisis, as Cardinal O’Malley just reported. Will this be enough to deal with the scandals most Catholics overwhelmingly think Francis must address effectively as a top priority? Let’s hope so.

Unfortunately, Francis and O’Malley have had an uneven record here, see: http://www.bishop-accountability.org/statements/2013_12_05_Doyle_O_Malley_Vatican_Commission.htm

The Vatican is also facing new scandals, some of which have Vatican fingerprints on them, such as in Minneapolis, involving such media attractions as a female ex-Chancellor and a priest brother of President Obama’s top aide, see: http://minnesota.publicradio.org/collections/catholic-church/

But fortunately Francis as pope can really make a fresh start if he wants to. Catholics will support him if he acts boldly with justice, as well as mercy. If not ?

The new abuse commission must be independent, focused and transparent; otherwise, it will just add to Catholics’ distrust. At a minimum, it must make bishops accountable and offer survivors justice and healing.

It must also deal with the related problem of the growing priest shortage in many countries. Currently, bishops often recruit and retain questionable priests who abuse children due frequently to staffing pressure. Increasing the potential priest pool is a must, whether by having married or women priests.

Otherwise, bishops will be pressed to retain more predatory priests and the vicious cycle of abuse, expense, disillusionment, scandal, etc., will just continue and even grow