GlobalPost
Jean MacKenzie
March 12, 2014
It’s official: Pope Francis is a rock star.
Rounding off a remarkable first year this month atop the Catholic Church, the man once called Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio has gone from a relatively obscure Argentine cleric to one of the most recognizable brands on the planet.
In addition to taking his place in the Rolling Stone magazine’s pantheon of pop-culture icons he was named Time’s Person of the Year and now features prominently in Rome’s graffiti as Super Pope, the White-Caped Crusader.
“He brings a spirit of hope,” says Sister Simone Campbell, head of Network, a US Catholic social justice lobbying group. “Hope and change.” …
But that may not be enough to calm the critics.
A recent report by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child took the Vatican to task for its slow and flawed response to the Church’s sex-abuse scandal. Priests have molested thousands of children over decades, their actions covered up by the clergy hierarchy.
“The committee is gravely concerned that the Holy See has not acknowledged the extent of the crimes committed, has not taken the necessary measures to address cases of child sexual abuse and to protect children, and has adopted policies and practices which have led to the continuation of the abuse by and the impunity of the perpetrators,” reads the report.
In other words, the UN sees little change from the early days of the sex abuse scandal, which was exposed by The Boston Globe in 2002.
As the Globe put it: “For decades church leaders kept horrific tales of abuse out of the public eye through an elaborate culture of secrecy, deception, and intimidation. Victims who came forward with abuse claims were ignored or paid off, while accused priests were quietly transferred from parish to parish or sent for brief periods of psychological counseling.”
Despite Francis’ more open attitudes, very little progress has been made in the area of predatory priests, insists Barbara Blaine, president of the Survivors’ Network for those Abused by Priests (SNAP).
“The Church only ever did the right thing when it was forced to by external circumstances,” she said in a phone interview. “They cared much more for the reputation of predators than for the welfare of children.”
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