UNITED STATES
Crux
By John L. Allen Jr.
Associate editor June 10, 2015
In one fell swoop Wednesday, Pope Francis moved to address arguably the greatest bone of contention about the Vatican’s response to the Catholic child sexual abuse scandals and also gave himself a badly needed bit of good news, at a time when his handling of the scandals has been drawing fire around the world.
The Vatican announced Wednesday that Francis has approved the creation of a tribunal — a Church court — to judge bishops charged with failing to apply the Church’s official “zero tolerance” policy for abuse of minors properly. The idea is to ensure that if a bishop drops the ball, he’s held accountable.
The tribunal will be housed within the Vatican’s powerful Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which lends it immediate political heft. In another sign of how seriously Francis takes it, he also approved an exception to a Vatican hiring freeze imposed in 2013 to allow the tribunal to attract qualified personnel.
The idea to create the court came from the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, an advisory panel for the pontiff created in 2014 and headed by Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley of Boston. It’s thus also further confirmation that O’Malley is the prime mover in shaping policy under Francis on matters related to sexual abuse. …
Critics cited Bishop Robert Finn of Kansas City-St. Joseph, for instance, who was convicted on a misdemeanor criminal charge of delaying to report an accusation of child abuse against one of his priests in 2012, but remained on the job until Francis accepted his resignation in April.
Speaking on background, Vatican officials said the new tribunal is designed to handle precisely that sort of situation. In theory, a bishop could appeal a verdict to the pope, but a Vatican spokesman said Wednesday “there’s no reason to expect he’d overrule the tribunal’s decision.”
The announcement comes at a time when the pope’s commitment to abuse reform has come into question in various parts of the world.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.