UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism
Jerry Slevin
President Obama’s scheduled visit with Pope Francis next Thursday (3/27) is apparently already paying some dividends on curtailing priest child abuse. Apparently to head off potential public pressure from Obama, Francis has after a year as Pope finally just announced the initial members of his child abuse prevention Commission. While the Commission’s undetermined mandate does not appear to include holding bishops accountable for protecting priest abusers, it may be enough to head off President Obama’s raising the abuse issue strongly and publicly next Thursday.
Per the Vatican Radio release (3/22): “Pope Francis has instituted the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors whose task will be to advise the Holy Father on ways to prevent abuse and provide pastoral care for victims and their families … Members of the new Commission announced Saturday by the Holy See’s Press Office, include four men and four women who will be tasked firstly, with drawing up the Statutes of the Commission, defining “its tasks and competencies”.
”The members of the Commission include: French psychologist Catherine Bonnet; Marie Collins, an Irish victim of abuse; British Professor Sheila Hollins, a specialist in mental health; American Cardinal Sean Patrick O’Malley; Italian jurist Claudio Papale; Poland’s former Prime Minister and Ambassador to the Holy See, Hanna Suchocka; and the Jesuits Humberto Miguel Yanez, a moral theologian and former pupil and collaborator of Jorge Mario Bergoglio in Argentina and Hans Zollner, vice-rector of the Pontifical Gregorian University and Chair of the Centre for Child Protection at the University’s Institute of Psychology. Other members will be added to the Commission in the future, chosen from around the world.”
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With respect to next week’s scheduled Vatican meeting and the upcoming US Congressional elections, please note that Pope Francis recently held after almost a year his much anticipated meeting with his select council of eight cardinals, with Boston’s Cardinal O’Malley as the US representative. The meeting reportedly focused on Francis’ top priorities: (1) consolidating his worldwide control over his childless male hierarchical subordinates, and (2) reviewing his efforts to clean up sordid Vatican finances in order, among other goals, to minimize Vatican cardinals’ potential criminal liability exposure for financial misdeeds.
At the same time, Francis and his media echo chamber have increasingly tried to claim counterfactually and inconsistently, apparently to avoid potential legal liability for covering up for priest child abusers, that popes do not control local Church officials. Other Vatican challenges, including addressing pressing issues affecting child protection, responsible family planning and respecting gay persons’ rights, have continued mainly simmering on Francis’ back burner, if not already precluded by his often inconsistent utterances.
The announcement of the eight abuse Commission members, with no specific mandate at present, may be enough, however, to defuse this issue publicly before Obama’s meeting on Thursday with Francis.
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