Pope urged to deal with bishops who fail to protect kids

U-T San Diego
April 15, 2015

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2015/apr/15/pope-urged-to-deal-with-bishops-who-fail-to/

Pope Francis, left, greets cardinals and bishops at the end of his weekly general audience, in St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican, Wednesday, April 15, 2015.

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The issue of holding bishops accountable for failing to protect children from sexual deviants arrived squarely on Pope Francis' agenda Wednesday as his point-man on sex abuse raised the case of a controversial bishop appointment in Chile.

The head of the pope's sex abuse advisory board, Cardinal Sean O'Malley, urged the pope and his other cardinal advisers to take up bishops' responsibility to protect children — and the need to punish them when they fail to do so — during one of their periodic meetings Wednesday.

The Vatican said O'Malley's aim was to "come up with appropriate procedures and modalities to evaluate and adjudicate cases of 'abuse of office' in this area, especially by people in positions of responsibility within the church."

O'Malley tabled the agenda item at the request of four members of the advisory board who traveled to Rome over the weekend for an emergency meeting with O'Malley over the appointment of Bishop Juan Barros in Osorno, Chile.

Victims of Chile's most notorious abuser, the Rev. Fernando Karadima, say Barros witnessed their abuse decades ago and did nothing, and then defended Karadima against their claims when they came forward later. They say that makes him unfit to lead a diocese where he'd be responsible for protecting kids.

Barros has been met with unprecedented opposition from lay faithful and even priests and deacons in the diocese.

The Barros case isn't a classic one of bishop accountability since Barros was never Karadima's superior. Rather, he was a protege of the charismatic and popular priest who was sanctioned by the Vatican in 2011 for abusing minors.

Barros has denied wrongdoing and said he only learned of Karadima's abuse from 2010 news reports. The Vatican has defended the appointment.

At the end of their meeting with O'Malley, commission members said that the process itself of appointing bishops must involve evaluating a candidate's understanding of and commitment to protecting children.