UNITED STATES
Vox
Brandon Ambrosino
When it comes to its record of dealing with sex abuse, “the Church deserves to be raked over the coals,” according to Catholic journalist Thomas Reese. A 2004 John Jay report found that thousands of minors were sexually abused by Catholic clergy between 1950 and 2002. More shocking is the fact that some high-ranking officials knew of the abuse but did not remedy the situation, either by stripping the abusers of their priesthood or by turning them over to the proper civil authorities.
When Francis took office, many people looked to him to correct the Church’s handling of sex abuse. In a 2012 interview, before he was Pope, he made it clear that Church leadership should “never turn a blind eye” to sex abuse, even when coming forward with such information risks “damaging the image of an institution.” He said it’s a “stupid idea” to quietly relocate an abusive priest to a different parish, since “the priest just takes the problem with him wherever he goes.” He also said pedophilia is not a result of, nor is it linked to, celibacy: “If a priest is a pedophile, he is so before he is a priest.”
In December 2013, Francis announced the creation of a Vatican committee aimed at fighting sex abuse in the Church, and working with victims and their families. On March 22, 2014, Francis named 8 people to the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors. Of the members, four are women, and one — Marie Collins — is an abuse survivor. The group also includes Cardinal Sean O’Malley, archbishop of Boston, the city in which the US sex abuse crisis story originally broke in 2002.
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