Catholic Church Sex Abuse Scandals - People’s Pope Lacks Leadership

Irish Examiner
May 24, 2018

https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/views/ourview/catholic-church-sex-abuse-scandals--peoples-pope-lacks-leadership-844721.html

As well as being a likeable and accessible Church leader, Pope Francis exhibits all the characteristics of an exemplary human being.

Unlike Benedict, his immediate predecessor, Francis comes across as warm, gracious and truly humble, with a capacity for empathy than not even John Paul II displayed.

Yet his papacy continues to be haunted by clerical sex abuse scandals, largely because he is still unable to grasp the enormity of the problem.

He has yet to respond in any meaningful way to the criminal conviction in Australia of the archbishop of Adelaide, Philip Wilson, the most senior Catholic in the world to be found guilty of concealing child sex abuse.

Earlier this year, he accused victims of Chile’s most notorious paedophile of slander during a visit meant to help heal the wounds of a sex abuse scandal that has cost the Catholic church its credibility in that country.

He later apologised but his remarks caused great pain to the victims.

He is to be credited for setting up in 2014 the Vatican commission to protect children and for being vocal about the abuse scandals. But proof of the Catholic Church’s seriousness in tackling the problem will be revealed by action and not just words.

It appears that Francis wants to be the People’s Pope. That takes more than kissing babies. It requires strong leadership to root out, once and for all, the scourge of clerical sex abuse.