UNITED STATES
America

February 29, 2016 Issue
The Editors

Whatever the merits of the decision, the optics of removing one of the two survivors of clerical sexual abuse serving on the Holy See’s Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors were not good. Peter Saunders, the founder of the U.K.-based National Association for People Abused in Childhood, was given a leave of absence following a 15-to-0 vote of no confidence by the 17-member commission (with one abstention) at a meeting in Rome on Feb. 6.

Mr. Saunders had been an outspoken critic of the church’s ongoing efforts to prevent and respond to the abuse crisis; he claimed in the press that Pope Francis had gone back on a promise to attend the commission meetings and criticized the pope’s controversial decision to appoint Bishop Juan Barros, accused of covering up the sexual abuse crimes of a Chilean priest, to…