ROME
BBC News
As Pope Francis completes his first year in office, David Willey reports from Rome on the changes that have taken place in the Vatican and the Catholic Church.
Back in 1978 – which went down in history as the “year of the three Popes” – I remember meeting a gregarious American priest and journalist who drew up a pithy job description for the leadership of the Catholic Church on the death of Paul VI. “We need a happy, holy man, who smiles!” he said.
Well, we got just such a man in Papa Luciani, the Patriarch of Venice who charmed the world with his breezy manner and his simple, endearing smile in the 33 days he reigned as Pope John Paul I before his sudden death – most likely from a heart attack.
Dark plots
Conspiracy theorists leapt to the conclusion that he might have been poisoned because some Vatican cardinals feared that he planned revolutionary changes in the running of his Church. …
Some deep wounds suffered by the Church as a result of clerical sexual abuse scandals in many countries are still festering, however, a year after Pope Francis’s election.
True, he has set up a new committee to oversee local guidelines set up by alarmed bishops’ conferences around the world and to ensure better care for the victims of predator priests.
But Francis has apparently turned a deaf ear towards those clamouring for a real zero tolerance policy by the Vatican.
A Polish bishop recently employed as the Pope’s ambassador to Santo Domingo, who was accused by authorities there of sexually abusing children, has been given asylum and protection from extradition proceedings.
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