What I liked — and didn't like — about Pope Francis' talk at Vatican summit on sex abuse

By Paul Muschick
Allentown Call
February 25, 2019

https://bit.ly/2EdKUkz

Pope Francis at the Vatican on Sunday, the last day of a global child protection summit for reflections on the sex abuse crisis within the Catholic church. Francis vowed to tackle every case of sexual abuse by priests, comparing pedophilia to "human sacrifice."

The papal summit that wrapped up at the Vatican on Sunday to address sex abuse in the Catholic church went where I expected it would. Nowhere.

It was just more talk. We must take this problem seriously, Pope Francis said. We’re going to do this. We’re going to do that.

So do it already.

The longer the church delays taking action, the harder it gets to have faith that it ever will appropriately address this plague. Talk is cheap.

By calling together leaders from around the world to meet for four days, Francis set high expectations. He should have been ready to implement a concrete plan of action, and called on the global leaders to publicly endorse it. Instead, the weekend was full of more mea culpas. During his concluding address, Francis just rattled off a host of talking points.

There was plenty of time to prepare. The Pennsylvania grand jury investigation that brought this issue back into the spotlight in the U.S. was released six months ago. The pressure has mounted since, with other states launching similar probes. There have been scandals in Chile, Australia and Honduras, too.

The church no longer can address them one-by-one. It needs to take a hard stand.

What should it be doing?

For starters, any clergy — a priest, a bishop, a cardinal — proven to have looked the other way when confronted with abuse allegations should be banished from the church. It goes without saying that those who commit the abuse should be banished, too.

There should be a global requirement to report allegations to law enforcement. And the Vatican should open its files so the world can get a better grip on just how extensive the abuse, and any cover-ups, really are.

The lack of action is especially disappointing because bishops in the United States were prepared to take action in November, until Pope Francis told them not to.

At a convention in Baltimore, bishops were prepared to vote on creating a commission, to include lay experts, that would review complaints against bishops; to enact a code of conduct for bishops; and to finalize how to permanently remove bishops who are found to be abusers.

I anticipated that such proposals would be taken up at the Vatican last weekend, and expanded globally. But they weren’t.

Instead, the pontiff just pontificated more about the problem and the need for the church to address it. He made it a point to note that child sex abuse is a worldwide scourge in many settings, including within families.

I hope that wasn’t an attempt to downplay what has happened within his church family, for generations.

Yes, child sex abuse sadly occurs in a lot of places. The summit at the Vatican should have limited its discussion to how it has occurred within the church.

“We are thus facing a universal problem, tragically present almost everywhere and affecting everyone,” Francis said during his closing remarks Sunday. “Yet we need to be clear, that while gravely affecting our societies as a whole, this evil is in no way less monstrous when it takes place within the church.”

I was heartened by one thing the pope said. He noted the priesthood in general has been tainted by the scandal — and the majority of priests have done nothing wrong, yet may potentially face distrust because of the “shameful conduct” of others.

They also are victims of this wickedness.

“In the name of the whole church, I thank the vast majority of priests who are not only faithful to their celibacy, but spend themselves in a ministry today made even more difficult by the scandals of few (but always too many) of their confreres,” Francis said. “I also thank the faithful who are well aware of the goodness of their pastors and who continue to pray for them and to support them.”

What’s important now is for the church to follow through on the commitments it made over the weekend for how it will start to take a harder stance against this problem.

According to the Associated Press, the Vatican is expected to issue a new child protection policy for the Vatican City State. Despite having instructed all the world's bishops' conferences to enact a policy eight years ago, the church headquarters didn’t.

That’s pretty telling about how seriously the Vatican has taken this problem. It thought it was above the law it imposed on others.

The Vatican also will issue a guidebook for bishops about how to investigate and prosecute abuse cases. Regional or continental task forces will provide assistance, as some dioceses in poor countries don’t have the legal resources on hand.

The Associated Press reported that it appears the Vatican will be re-evaluating the use of “pontifical secret” in abuse cases, so victims can learn the outcomes of their cases. And new “clarifications” are expected about implementing a 2016 law on holding bishops and religious superiors accountable when they cover up abuse.

Those all are sensible steps — baby steps.

The church needs to do more. We’re tired of waiting.