ROME (ITALY)
Crux
December 9, 2018
By John L. Allen Jr.
Under any circumstances, the announcement in September that Pope Francis plans to convene a summit Feb. 21-24 for all the presidents of bishops’ conferences around the world, along with the Vatican’s senior leadership, to discuss the clerical sexual abuse scandals in the Church would have been big news.
After the Vatican invoked that summit in November in instructing the U.S. bishops to stand down in adopting new accountability measures, however, telling them they need to wait until after February, it was foreordained that American analysts will treat February like Roosevelt and Stalin at Yalta – a high-stakes, history-making exercise.
Before expectations spiral completely out of control, however, it’s important to say this out loud: For all kinds of reasons, this is not going to be Yalta on sex abuse, and to hope that it will be is a fool’s errand.
Let’s lay out the reasons why, and then touch on what would actually count as success.
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