UNITED STATES
dotCommonweal
Mollie Wilson O’Reilly March 21, 2014
On Wednesday I was part of a panel discussion on the occasion of Pope Francis’s one-year anniversary, featuring Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston, moderated by Ken Woodward, and hosted by the American Bible Society. It was really more of a group interview than a discussion — after Cardinal O’Malley spoke about the spiritual side of Francis’s papacy, the other panelists, Matt Malone of America and Rusty Reno of First Things, and I took turns asking him questions but didn’t talk much to each other (not onstage, anyway).
If you were there, thank you! I spoke to a lot of audience members afterward and truly enjoyed meeting you all. For those who couldn’t make it, if I find out about a recording or a transcript of the event, I will certainly let you know. In the meantime I am grateful to Beth Griffin’s report for Catholic News Service for capturing the highlights.
The Cardinal, as one of the eight men named by Pope Francis to his personal advisory council, is very well positioned to give an insider’s view of Francis’s plans. You probably won’t be surprised to learn that he was, for the most part, too discreet to do so. I put to him some of the questions that were on my mind and yours: I noted that many people, including myself, were disappointed with the pope’s recent remarks on the sex-abuse crisis in that he did not make any reference to the question of accountability for bishops and administrators who mishandled cases of abuse, despite the role that lack of accountability has played in the scandal and in damaging the church’s credibility. So, I asked Cardinal O’Malley, do you have any sense of whether that issue is on the pope’s radar (I think that’s how I put it), and what he might plan to do about it? His answer, as Griffin transcribes it:
The pope is anxious to launch a committee for child protection, which is coming soon, and has recently spent a lot of time on the abuse issue, Cardinal O’Malley said. “His love for people and his sense of God’s mercy is something that energizes everything he does and he brings that also to the way he looks at the sex abuse crisis.”
The cardinal acknowledged he is “trying to be of service to the Holy Father in this area” because he has more experience than the other cardinal advisers.
That last bit was in response to a follow-up question from me about whether the pope would be asking O’Malley for advice about who should serve on that committee. Anyway, Griffin did not leave out any significant detail that I can recall. The question of accountability was left largely unaddressed, although it’s possible to read the cardinal’s reference to love and mercy as a hint that we shouldn’t be holding our breath waiting for Francis to start firing people.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.