Posted on 03/29/2023 10:53:04 AM PDT by ebb tide
A widely known and well-respected world figure is once again taking on the Catholic Church over its abuse crisis, speaking more forcefully than ever before.
Asking for forgiveness "is not enough," he says.
Victims, he says, have to be "at the center" of everything.
He insists there must be "concrete actions to repair the horrors they have suffered and to prevent them from happening again."
The Catholic Church must set an example in helping to solve the problem and "bring it to light," he says.
Strong words, no?
Here's the problem, though: the man saying these things is the man who can do these things.
Pope Francis himself, in a carefully choreographed new video released earlier this month (March 2), talks tough about abuse, as though he is someone outside the church looking in.
But he is, of course, the ultimate church "insider," the man at the top of a very clear and rigid hierarchy, the one person who has the most power — indeed, nearly limitless power — to prevent abuse, expose wrongdoers, release records, rebuild trust and help victims heal.
But he refuses to do so. Instead he repeatedly just pontificates (excuse the pun) about the crisis, often in eloquent, even heart-wrenching ways, without following through with concrete, effective reforms.
To many survivors like me, this is absolutely maddening. As we approach the 40-year mark in the U.S. church scandal, it seems like the gap between what top Catholic officials say about abuse and what they do about abuse has never been bigger.
Admittedly, Francis has met with more victims and apologized more abjectly than Benedict or John Paul II. He has tweaked or toyed with more internal church policies and protocols on abuse (which his supporters then try to portray as far more substantive than they really are).
He has broadened the definition of abuse to include vulnerable adults. And he has expanded the long-standing practice of bishops investigating and judging accused priests to bishops investigating and judging accused bishops as well.
And he has empowered bishops to not only investigate and judge accused abusive priests but to do likewise with accused enabling bishops.
But consider what Francis could do and hasn't. And imagine the shock waves that would reverberate through the entire church hierarchy — and the cover-ups that would be deterred — if he acted boldly:
Across the world, there are more than 5,600 bishops, so the handful of prelates who have or may have been removed by Francis pale in comparison with the task still ahead of him. He's done anything but the kind of thorough housekeeping needed to safeguard kids and reassure parishioners.
Within the past few years, lengthy investigations — some by secular authorities, most by church bodies — have put forth stunning estimates of the number of victims in several nations (Portugal 4,800, Australia 4,444, Germany 3,677, France more than 215,000).
With numbers of this magnitude, can anyone deny that Francis needs to take much stronger and bolder steps?
Church officials in these few developed countries have barely and belatedly begun to face the scandal, much less implement corrective measures. Throughout most of the world, when it comes to abuse and cover-up in the church, what few real changes have come about are largely because of external forces and adopted only on local levels.
Ironically, more than 20 years ago, nearly 200 of his bishops moved more boldly against abuse than Francis.
Throughout the 1990s, small groups of us in SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, met with more than two dozen U.S. prelates, begging for the adoption of a national "zero tolerance" abuse policy. Without exception, they insisted that this couldn't be done, that the U.S. bishops' conference was more of a fraternal group answerable only to the pope, not to one another.
But in Dallas in 2002, these same bishops finally succumbed to public and parishioner pressure and did as we asked. This move — like most of Francis' policies — was more dramatic gesture than effective reform. (It is sporadically followed and there's virtually no sanction for violators.)
Still, it's more than Francis has done. Despite his considerable talk, this pope still has not mandated a "one strike and you're out" requirement across the globe. The vast majority of bishops can still keep or even put convicted or admitted molesters on the job in parishes (usually after being sent abroad or far away).
For example, just last month, a commission in Portugal found more than 100 accused child molesting clerics still on the job.
Here in my hometown of St. Louis, Fr. Alex R. Anderson remains a pastor despite having faced five accusers, including one pending civil lawsuit. He's never been suspended for even a day, though the bishops' Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People requires that an alleged predatory cleric be suspended pending a full investigation.
It's horrifying to consider how many boys and girls have been sexually assaulted because this otherwise admirable world leader repeatedly professes to support zero tolerance but can't bring himself to enact and enforce this notion globally.
As so many have pointed out, from the moment he appeared on that balcony in Rome a decade ago, Francis continually surprises his followers, his fellow clerics and indeed the world by breaking the stale and rigid papal mold time and again in so many ways.
But on the central crisis roiling the church, Francis talks a great game while doggedly remaining in the ruts that characterize the rest of the comfortable church hierarchy and that leave children at risk, the corrupt in control and the flock floundering.
Ping
Sorry, but more children have been sexually abused by public education employees than by the Catholic Church.
Nobody is talking about that FACT
FYI, francis (sic) has cancelled today’s appointments, and is undergoing medical testing.
I’ve heard it’s ten times worse in public education, some say 100. But the media don’t focus on that, they focus on the problem in institutions they hate, institutions that stand for order and discipline, the enemies of liberal hedonism: The Catholic Church, conservative Christian churches, the Scouts, the military, etc.
Sexual abuse is everywhere and we shouldn’t play into the hands of those whose real motive is destroying the moral credibility of the Catholic Church because she preaches against their pet sins: Divorce, fornication, adultery, so-called same-sex marriage, contraception, abortion, pornography, gender theory, materialistic greed, low wages.
The Church scandal just feeds into the left’s hatred of religion, just as their communist masters taught them and which led to the shooting in Nashville recently.
The incredible hate against religion, especially Christianity, harkens by to their hatred of black citizens and has many parallels.
/sarc
No one said it was all right but the portrayal of it as an almost exclusively Catholic Church problem when it’s everywhere is deceitful. Schools are liberal enclaves and it shouldn’t be pointed out that it’s ten times worse there? And the percentage of priests doing it is the same as the percentage of Christian ministers doing it.
School teachers and Prot pastors get caught more easily. They don’t have the behemoth system of the RCC to hide them and/or transfer them and cover up the abuses. Anybody caught in this sicko crime should be permanently marked as a child predator and unable to work around children. Any church housing these monsters is despicable regardless of any stats.
“School teachers and Prot pastors get caught more easily.”
Don’t know about that. When they get caught I’ve often heard that they’ve been doing it for years and decades with a long list of victims. I disagree that the effort to cover things up is more intense in the Catholic Church than in public schools, Christian churches or anywhere else in society. People have been trying to cover-up and get away with things since Cain killed Abel. Things go on in families generation after generation and there is denial, silence, and cover-up.
We should all pray about his health.
I do have prayers regarding Senior Bergoglio’s health
“A disappointing 10 years of Senor Bergoglio”
THAT would be the correct headline
About his health, that’s all good.
About his continuance as Pope, not so much.
Abuse? Sad how the Rats turn a blind eye to the real crime that they pay their way out of every time.
It's called rape of a juvenile!Lock em up !
A disappointing 10 years period
There were just as many stories in the news of Protestant pastors asexually abusing children and adults but they just got short mentions or mentions in only local press. That made no waves.
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