UNITED STATES
Crux
By John L. Allen Jr.
Associate editor March 7, 2016
Recently two different constituencies in the Catholic Church have complained of feeling misunderstood or let down by Pope Francis, and it’s instructive to compare the pontiff’s responses in each case.
One group is made up of Eastern Catholics, especially the 5 million-strong Greek Catholic Church in Ukraine, while the other is composed of survivors of clerical sexual abuse. In a nutshell, the pope’s reaction to the former seems a textbook example of effective outreach, while the latter so far appears largely a tale of missed opportunities.
To begin with Greek Catholics, many felt that Francis’ historic Feb. 12 meeting with Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church in Havana, Cuba, was a propaganda coup for Moscow, and that the joint declaration the two men issued was even worse — mostly a series of Catholic concessions to the Russians, including language that could be read to invalidate criticism of Russia’s invasion of Eastern Ukraine. …
Meanwhile, survivors of sexual abuse, as well as their families and advocates, have had their own reasons of late for feeling ambivalent about Francis.
They’ve complained that he appointed a bishop in Chile known as an apologist for that country’s most notorious abuser priest. They’ve watched as a survivor on the pope’s anti-abuse panel was assigned an involuntary leave of absence by fellow members after voicing criticism over the Chile appointment and other matters, and they also wonder why Francis hasn’t had any reaction to criticism of Cardinal George Pell, his hand-chosen financial reformer, for Pell’s record on abuse cases in Australia.
Survivors also noted that Francis did not meet abuse victims during his trip to Mexico last month, even though that country was hard-hit by a scandal surrounding the Legion of Christ and its late founder, Marcial Maciel Degollado.
So far, Francis has not addressed those concerns in his own voice, apparently content to let others do it for him.
Last week, a group of 15 Australian survivors, along with relatives and supporters, were in Rome to watch Pell testify before a Royal Commission in their country via video link. They told everyone who would listen that they’d like to meet the pope, and at one stage Pell released a statement vowing to try to help make it happen.
It was a bit mystifying, then, to hear a Vatican spokesman assert on Friday that no meeting would take place because there had been no “official request.” Everyone knew the victims wanted it, and Francis rarely has shown himself to be a slave to protocol when he’s determined to do something.
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