VATICAN CITY
SBS (Australia)
Pope Francis has declined to renew the mandate of the Vatican’s conservative doctrine chief, tapping instead a deputy to lead the powerful congregation that handles sex abuse cases and guarantees Catholic orthodoxy.
In a short statement issued on Saturday, the Vatican said Francis thanked Cardinal Gerhard Mueller for his service. …
Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI selected Mueller, his fellow German, to lead the congregation in 2012.
Benedict had taken a hard line against clerical sex abuse during his time as prefect of the congregation himself, and later as Pope, defrocking hundreds of priests accused of raping and molesting children.
It was also Benedict who insisted bishops around the world send all cases of credibly accused priests to the congregation for processing, since bishops had for decades moved pedophiles around from parish to parish rather than sanction or report them to police.
During Mueller’s tenure the sex abuse caseload piled up as more and more victims came forward from Latin America, Europe and beyond.
Last year, Francis confirmed there was a 2000-case backlog and he set about naming new officials in the congregation’s discipline section to process the overload.
Mueller’s handling of the abuse portfolio came under fire from Marie Collins, an Irish survivor of abuse.
Collins resigned from Francis’ sex abuse advisory commission in March in frustration of what she said was the congregation’s “unacceptable” resistance to accepting advice on how to better respond to victims.
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