TORONTO (CANADA)
The Catholic Register
February 13, 2019
By Michael Swan
Ever since Pope Francis announced in September that he was calling the heads of the world’s bishops’ conferences to Rome for an unprecedented summit on sexual abuse, expectations have been mounting.
He called for the summit as the Church was reeling from several abuse scandals that had implicated priests, bishops and even cardinals. Nine months into 2018, it was already a horrible year for the Church and it would get worse. More than just a Pennsylvania grand jury report on 70 years of clerical abuse and cover-ups, or lurid tales of sexual predation by former Washington Archbishop Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, or having every single bishop in Chile tender his resignation — beyond these ghastly headlines was a relentless drip of revelations of abuse, negligence and concealment.
Then in November the Pope instructed the American bishops to postpone a vote on stringent new abuse protocols that included creation of a phone line to report misconduct by bishops. He wanted them to wait until the abuse crisis was discussed by bishops from around the world. His intervention further fuelled anticipation of major developments when the three-day summit convenes Feb. 21 in the Vatican.
But as the date approaches, the Vatican has been trying to dampen anticipation.
“I’ve perceived a bit of an inflated expectation,” Pope Francis told reporters on the plane as he returned to Rome Jan. 26 from World Youth Day in Panama. “We need to deflate the expectations.”
That doesn’t mean the Pope is having second thoughts about his own summit. But his ambitions differ from the thousands of Catholics worldwide who may be expecting dramatic announcements or the immediate imposition of new measures to combat abuse.
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