VATICAN CITY
International Business Times
By Esther Tanquintic-Misa | September 6, 2013
In what could be a first for his 6-month tenure as chief spiritual leader of the 1.2-billion strong Roman Catholic church, the popularity of Pope Francis has hit a snag following the Vatican’s recall of its envoy to the Dominican Republic amid child abuse allegations.
The US-based Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), in a statement, blasted the half-year reigning pope for covering up the pedophile scandal in Dominican Republic, asserting further that he was in no way different from his immediate predecessor, Benedict XVI, and those way before him.
“Like all of his predecessors, Pope Francis is acting belatedly, secretively and recklessly. Catholic officials act only when forced to do so by media pressure,” the group said on Thursday.
On Wednesday, the Vatican confirmed that Monsignor Josef Wesolowski was indeed sacked from his job. But what irked SNAP and other victims groups was that the Vatican never made the matter public, only when it happened to be leaked. Monsignor Wesolowski had been removed from his post as the papal nuncio in Santo Domingo since Aug 21.
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