WASHINGTON (DC)
VICE news
By VICE News
September 23, 2015
One of the world’s oldest and largest support groups for survivors of clergy-perpetrated sexual abuse today blasted the pope after he commented that US bishops showed “courage” in handling a string of Catholic Church abuse scandals over decades, while failing to apologize to victims on behalf of the church.
The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), which has about 20,000 members, criticized Pope Francis over his choice of words, particularly the “great sacrifice” he said bishops have made in facing “difficult moments in the recent history of the church in this country without fear of self-criticism and at the cost of mortification.”
“[The pope’s] remarks today confirm what we’ve long said and suspected: this pope, like his predecessors, is doing and will do little if anything to bring real reform to this continuing crisis,” SNAP said in a statement Wednesday after the pope delivered his speech in Washington DC. “Those who care about kids must focus on secular authorities, not church figures, however popular they may be.”
In March, a new report released by BishopAccountability.org raised troubling questions about Pope Francis’ complicity in the sexual abuse scandal that has plagued the Catholic Church for more than a decade.
The report, titled “Pope Francis and Clergy Sexual Abuse in Argentina,” focuses on the pope’s stint as archbishop of Buenos Aires from 1998 to 2013, and includes a database with links to public documents and media reports about 42 priests in Argentina previously accused of sexual misconduct. Specifically, the report focuses on five cases of sexual abuse by priests in which it alleges that the then archbishop “knowingly or unwittingly slowed victims in their fight to expose and prosecute their assailants.”
Although Francis has been outspoken on a litany of other issues, he has remained surprisingly silent on the topic of clergy sexual abuse. In his 2010 book, On Heaven and Earth, the future pope claimed his priests never misbehaved during his tenure as archbishop of Buenos Aires.
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