VATICAN CITY (VATICAN CITY)
BishopAccountability.org [Waltham MA]
April 21, 2025
By Anne Barrett Doyle
Pope Francis was a beacon of hope to many of the world’s most desperate and marginalized people. But what we most needed from this pope was justice for the Church’s own wounded, the children and adults sexually abused by Catholic clergy. In this realm, where Francis had supreme power, he refused to make the necessary changes. This choice is having devastating consequences for the Church’s most powerless members. It will forever tarnish the legacy of this remarkable man.
We needed Pope Francis to permanently remove abusers from ministry and decisively punish enablers. We needed him to rid canon law of its bias in favor of accused priests. We needed him to follow through on his promises of transparency, by releasing abuse data and the names of offending clergy and complicit bishops. Pope Francis chose to do none of these things. He instead maintained the secrecy of his predecessors and addressed the crisis with superficial measures that have fallen short. Most perversely, he repeatedly defended, protected and gave soft landings to offending bishops and high-ranking clerics.
What makes Pope Francis’ failed record on abuse especially crushing is that he at times seemed to convey a keen understanding of its catastrophic impact. He was the first pope to say that bishops must be held accountable, and in his letter to the Chilean people in 2018, he passionately and unforgettably vowed “‘never again’ to the culture of abuse and the system of cover up.” He proclaimed “an all-out battle” on abuse and said that “God weeps” for victims.
Indeed, it was in Chile, he told a reporter, where he experienced a “conversion” to the moral imperative that victims must be listened to and believed.
In 2019, a few months after hosting the world’s senior bishops at a four-day summit on abuse, he issued a new law, Vos estis lux mundi, that his spokespeople promised would curb abuse and cover-up. And to be sure, it introduced changes that at least on paper are positive. It widened the church’s canonical definition of ‘victim’ to include vulnerable adults, and it broadened the definition of that term to include seminarians, priests and nuns who face sexual advances from their superiors. It also included provisions to protect whistleblowers, forbid the silencing of victims and others reporting abuse, and to mandate an internal reporting protocol for the universal church.
In terms of ‘bishop accountability,’ it is not possible to judge the true impact of Vos estis, as the Vatican has released neither data nor the names of the bishops who have been sanctioned. We gather from news reports that at least two dozen bishops have lost their posts, such as the Peruvian archbishop Miguel Cabrejos, accused of doing nothing to stop the abuses that were perpetrated in his diocese by the now-disbanded conservative Catholic group, Sodalitium Christianae Vitae.
The removal of these bishops is to Francis’ credit. At the same time, their number are few and their penalties are disproportionately mild compared to the harm they did. Not one bishop sanctioned for enabling abuse has lost his title; every one enjoys the privileged status of bishop emeritus. And the Pope’s refusal to publicly explain the reason for their dismissals has allowed nearly all of them to save face, and attribute their departures to age or poor health.
Pope Francis oversaw the revision of penal canon law but left its core deficiencies intact. He chose not to enact mandatory reporting to civil authorities, independent oversight by laity, or strong, clear sanctions for wrongdoers.
Incredibly, too, while Francis frequently invoked “zero tolerance,” he chose not to enact it: he kept intact a universal church law that permits bishops under certain conditions to reinstate to ministry known and even criminally convicted child molesters.
Several years ago, with the faithful reeling from the revelations of the hierarchy’s enabling of the crimes of Cardinal McCarrick, the Pope took decisive action. He removed McCarrick from the priesthood, and eventually published an extraordinary report disclosing complicity by several bishops. He gave us hope: it seemed a new era of accountability and openness was dawning.
But the McCarrick case has proved to be an aberration, a “one and done.” In fact, since McCarrick’s defrocking, Francis has repeatedly, sometimes with seeming defiance, shown favor toward bishops and clerics accused of serious wrongdoing and conveyed skepticism toward their accusers. Bishop-Accountability.org has tracked more than ten such instances. These include the cases of Bishop Gustavo Zanchetta, Father Marko Rupnik, Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández, Cardinal Marc Ouellet, Bishop Rosario Gisana, Archbishop Michel Aupetit, Archbishop John Nienstedt, and Cardinal Jean-Pierre Ricard.
About BishopAccountability.org
Founded in 2003, BishopAccountability.org maintains the world’s largest archive of documents on the problem of clergy sexual abuse, outside the Holy See’s own archives. We conduct research on child sexual abuse by priests and religious and on the management of those cases by bishops and their staffs, superiors of religious orders, and the Holy See. An independent non-profit based in Waltham, Massachusetts, USA, BishopAccountability.org is not a victims’ advocacy group and is not affiliated with any church, reform, or victims’ organization.
Anne Barrett Doyle
Co-Director, BishopAccountability.org
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