UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism
Jerry Slevin
* Pope Francis’ advisory sex abuse commission is orchestrated by disgraced Boston Cardinal Law’s former canon lawyer, Fr. Robert Oliver. It met for the first time at the Vatican with all 17 of its members this weekend. It has touted its predictable empty promises of action on unaccountable bishops in a press statement released Monday (2/9/15). The pope’s illusory, even farcical commission is now, in effect, being exposed as little more than another of the Vatican’s Machiavellian political ploys — a classic stall tactic in the form of an extremely unfocused, open ended, conflicted, slow and understaffed “study commission”.
* The pope’s “main accomplishment”, after stalling on the abuse scandal for two years, apparently has been to get two brave, but inexperienced, abuse survivors, Marie Collins and Peter Saunders, to publicly state, after seeing up close the planned procrastination, that they will cooperate with the farce for a further two years, a major mistake. Please see “Peter Saunders & Marie Collins Should Quit Pope’s Abuse Commission, No?“, here,
* Marie Collins and Peter Saunders, very brave and active survivors, appear to be trying their best, but from my professional perspective, they both are being exploited. They would have more impact, it appears to me, if they resigned now. I certainly hope they do. They are giving this farcical commission by their presence a legitimacy that the commission has not earned on its merits, and likely as currently structured never will earn. This likely could have serious negative repercussions for other abuse survivors worldwide, including quite desperate ones in bankrupt USA dioceses, especially Milwaukee and Minneapolis. A lot is at stake for all of them, as well as for millions of defenseless children worldwide, with this commission.
* Most importantly, Pope Francis has inexcusably to date failed to appoint to the commission respected canon lawyer, Tom Doyle, a Dominican priest in good standing and the world’s top expert on curtailing priest child abuse. Fr. Doyle and the pope both worked, at different times within a few years of each other, under the same Cardinal, Pio Laghi. Why is Tom Doyle being overlooked? What is the pope afraid of ? Why have Marie Collins and Peter Saunders failed during their many press briefings to demand that Tom Doyle be added to the commission?
* It is clear that Marie Collins and Peter Saunders are outmatched by Francis, Oliver and their many high priced advisers, et al. These two survivors have already done damage by naively announcing publicly they will give their survivors’ seal of approval to Francis for another two years — clearly a major tactical error on their part.
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