UNITED STATES
Vox
Updated by Brandon Ambrosino on July 8, 2014
Pope Francis compared pedophiliac priests to a “sacrilegious cult” on Monday. The statement was part of a homily Francis delivered to six victims of clerical sex abuse that he’d invited to a private mass inside the Vatican. After his message, he held 30-minute one-on-one conversations with each victim.
Thousands of minors were abused by Catholic clergy between 1950 and 2002, a 2004 report from John Jay found. In some cases, high-ranking Catholic officials knew of this abuse and either failed to report it to the authorities, or — more shockingly — covered it up. Andrew Sullivan said this revelation “shell-shocked” the Church, and claimed that “many Catholics [would] never feel the same way they once did about this institution.” When Francis took over St. Peter’s throne, many had high hopes that he’d be the Pope to once and for all deal with this evil.
Francis has taken several opportunities to address the crisis. Along with Monday’s meeting with abuse victims, he’s also created the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors to advise him on how best to remedy past wrongs and prevent further abuse.
Critics, though, say what he’s doing isn’t enough. Earlier this year, a statement released from the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP) accused Francis of failing to live up to his own promises of reform: “On church governess, church finances, and simple living, [Francis] acts. On the rape of children he talks.” And on Monday, in response to his latest outreach to victims, SNAP slammed Francis for “refusing to act” in any meaningful way beyond “public relations coups.”
I interviewed experts on this issue and read through several public statements and remarks to see if they had any recommendations for Francis on how to deal with sexual abuse more effectively and immediately. Here are four changes they are calling for.
1) Focus first on prevention
Most agree that the Vatican’s focus should be on preventing further molestations from happening. In a statement released July 5, SNAP argued that “wounded adults can heal themselves but vulnerable kids can’t protect themselves.”
Thomas Plante, a PhD in clinical psychology and author of Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church: A Decade of Crisis, 2002-2012, agrees that the focus should be on the future. “The important issue here is” he told me in an email, “What is the Church actually doing to prevent potential sex offenders from entering seminary and being ordained as priests now?” Many of the sex crimes that have been made light occurred decades ago, said Plante, which makes it difficult for the Church — and even civil authorities, with statutes of limitations — to effectively deal with the crimes. Moving forward, Plante says the Church ought to be “hyper-vigilant about screening applicants to religious life, and making sure all state-of-the-art policies and procedures are followed to ensure kids are safe in the Church.”
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