UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter
Brian Roewe | Mar. 12, 2014 NCR Today
A U.S.-based group that operates a clergy sex abuse database has accused Pope Francis of remaining silent on clergy sex abuse during his time as archbishop of Buenos Aires, Argentina.
The group BishopAccountability.org published Wednesday morning what it has called the first comprehensive analysis of Francis’ abuse track record while he was Archbishop Jorge Bergoglio. The documents span the 15 years (1998-2013) he served as the head of the Buenos Aires church, as well as his time as president of the Argentine Episcopal Conference (2005-2011) and includes information on 42 accused Argentine clerics.
Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of BishiopAccountability.org, said during his first year as pope, Francis has repeatedly attacked corruption in the church’s finances but has “basically ignored” the abuse scandal.
“Does Francis have the will to resolve this catastrophic problem?” Doyle said in a press release, pointing to Francis’ March 5 comments to an Italian newspaper that the church “is the only one to be attacked” despite the prevalence of child sexual abuse in other institutions.
“Studying his record as archbishop will help us better understand his underlying approach,” she said.
The documents’ release comes just one day before the one-year anniversary of the start of Francis’ pontificate. In the last week, critics have begun to raise further questions of his response to clergy sex abuse after the comments he made last week.
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