ROME
Crux
By John L. Allen Jr.
Associate editor October 4, 2014
ROME — In his latest expression of concern for Christians and other minority groups in the Middle East, Pope Francis this week summoned all his ambassadors in the region to a special meeting in Rome to discuss “initiatives and actions at all levels.”
The gathering builds on earlier gestures by Francis, including his May 24-26 trip to the Middle East and his June 8 peace prayer in the Vatican gardens with the Israeli and Palestinian presidents. It comes ahead of a projected late November trip to Turkey in which the pontiff hopes to travel near the Iraq border and to meet refugees from the self-declared ISIS caliphate.
Certainly the Christians of the Middle East could use the help. The recent trauma in Iraq and Syria involving ISIS is merely the latest instance of a slow-motion death spiral for Christianity across the region. …
Accountability for sexual abuse
News this week that Bishop Robert Finn of Kansas City-St. Joseph, Missouri, is facing a Vatican investigation has sparked speculation that Pope Francis might be on the brink of a step forward in accountability for the Church’s child sexual abuse scandals, by disciplining a prelate not for the crime of abuse, but for the cover-up.
Finn is the lone US bishop to be criminally convicted for failing to report a suspected abuser to police, making him a symbol of what critics see as a lack of accountability for making the Church’s official “zero tolerance” policy stick.
I wrote a Crux piece this week describing the Finn review as potentially the most important step Francis will ever take on the sexual abuse front, precisely because accountability is the central bone of contention for many victims and advocacy groups with the way the Church has responded to the abuse crisis.
Here I’ll offer three other observations.
First, if Finn is removed or otherwise sanctioned, critics likely will intensify their press for Pope Francis to tackle other cases.
Americans may want to see him impose retroactive discipline on Cardinal Bernard Law, who resigned in Boston at the peak of the abuse scandals there in 2003, and was brought to Rome by Pope John Paul II and given a largely ceremonial Vatican post. Others may point to retired Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles, who drew fire in 2013 when internal Church records released as part of a lawsuit suggested that Mahony and aides had tried to keep accusations against abuser priests quiet.
Still other Americans may raise the situation of Archbishop John Nienstedt in Minneapolis-St. Paul. In July, a 120-page affidavit was made public by Jennifer Haselberger, a former canon lawyer and victims advocate who claims she was ignored, marginalized, and bullied for trying to warn superiors in the archdiocese about abuser priests. In a deposition as part of a lawsuit, Nienstedt acknowledged withholding information on accused priests, saying he had done so on the advice of aides.
The Irish may wonder if Francis will do something about retired Cardinal Sean Brady, who came under fire for his role in the Brendan Smyth case. Smyth abused at least 20 children between 1945 and 1989, and it would later emerge that Brady and other Church officials conducted an investigation in 1975 in which they learned of the abuse but didn’t report it.
Belgians may cite a discrepancy in the fact that while Finn is facing investigation, retired Cardinal Godfried Danneels of Brussels is a special guest of the pope at this month’s synod. Some Belgians fault Danneels for his handling of a scandal surrounding retired Bishop Roger Vangheluwe, who in 2010 acknowledged having sexually abused two nephews over the course of a 15-year period while serving first as a priest and then as bishop.
As revelations surrounding the affair rolled out, a taped conversation came to light between Danneels and one of Vangheluwe’s victims in which the cardinal appears to pressure him to keep quiet about the abuse and to allow Vangheluwe to retire without incident. Two priests came forward to say they had tried to warn Danneels about Vangheluwe in the 1990s, but he had not taken action.
Italians undoubtedly will point to Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the former Secretary of State under Pope John Paul II and still the dean of the College of Cardinals. In 2010, another cardinal, Christoph Schönborn, publicly accused Sodano of blocking an investigation against the late Fr. Marcial Maciel Degollado, founder of the Legionaries of Christ. The order eventually acknowledged that Maciel had been guilty of a wide range of sexual abuse and misconduct.
One could go on multiplying examples, but the point is that critics around the world will insist the accountability challenge doesn’t end with Finn.
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