"Why Don't You Don't Rise to the Occasion?" Clergy Sex Abuse Advocate Asks of Vatican Conference

WESA Radio
February 23, 2019

https://www.wesa.fm/post/why-dont-you-dont-rise-occasion-clergy-sex-abuse-advocate-asks-vatican-conference

The Roman Catholic Church must repair the "systematic failures" that enabled sexual abuse to take root around the world, and bishops should start policing each other's behavior, leading cardinals said on Friday.

Cardinals Blase Cupich of Chicago and Oswald Gracias of Mumbai spoke on the second day of a conference of some 200 senior church officials convened by Pope Francis to confront what he has called the scourge of sexual abuse by the clergy.

"This past year has taught us that the systematic failures in holding clerics of all rank responsible are due in large measure to flaws in the way we interact and communicate with each other," Cupich said.

Various aspects of the sexual abuse crisis made 2018 the worst year for the pope since his election in 2013.

Related: A new chapter, with the same old words, in the Catholic child abuse scandal

In Chile, all of the country's 34 bishops offered their resignations over a nationwide scandal; Francis' trip to Ireland shined a new light on decades of abuse in the once staunchly Catholic nation; and a damning report by a grand jury in Pennsylvania revealed that priests had sexually abused about 1,000 people over seven decades in that US state alone.

Last week, Theodore McCarrick, once a powerful cardinal in the US Catholic Church, was dismissed from the priesthood after the Vatican found him guilty of sexual abuse of minors and adults over decades.

The church had "to confront the past grave and callous errors of some bishops and religious superiors in addressing cases of clergy sexual abuse, and the discernment to understand how to establish just accountability for these massive failures," Cupich said.

Phil Saviano is one of the survivors of Catholic clergy abuse and is an activist and established the New England chapter of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. His character is also featured in the Oscar-winning film, "Spotlight." He spoke with The World's Carol Hills from Rome about the Vatican conference.