Author: Jason Horowitz and Elizabeth Dias / Source: New York Times
Giuseppe Lami/ANSA, via Associated Press
VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis ended a landmark Vatican meeting on clerical sexual abuse by calling “for an all-out battle against the abuse of minors” and insisting that the church needed to protect children “from ravenous wolves.
”But for all the vivid language and the vow “to combat this evil that strikes at the very heart of our mission,” the pope’s speech was short on the sort of detailed battle plan demanded by many Catholics around the world.
Francis had barely finished speaking before some abuse victims and other frustrated faithful began expressing outrage and disappointment at his failure to outline immediate and concrete steps to address the problem.
“Pope Francis’ talk today was a stunning letdown, a catastrophic misreading of the grief and outrage of the faithful,” said Anne Barrett Doyle, a leader of BishopAccountability.org, which tracks incidents of abuse in the church. “As the world’s Catholics cry out for concrete change, the pope instead provides tepid promises, all of which we’ve heard before.”
Pope Francis had raised expectations for a policy breakthrough in September when he summoned the presidents of the world’s local bishops conferences to participate in the meeting.
Abuse victims and their advocates held high hopes that Francis, who seemed in the last year to overcome his own blind spots on an issue on which he had repeatedly stumbled, would use his absolute authority to institute a churchwide law dismissing abusive priests and the bishops who cover up for them.
He did not.
Instead, with the abuse scandals threatening the credibility of his papacy, the pope decided that the best way for the church to address the problem lay not in issuing an edict from Rome but in setting out to change the hearts and minds of church leaders at the local level around the world.
The pope used the meeting to try to persuade skeptical bishops to take strong action against abusive clerics and to hold themselves accountable for protecting the faithful in their dioceses, rather than simply changing church law himself.
The prelates who organized the summit argued that any papal edicts might fall flat or fade away with Francis’ papacy. In their view, what is required is a broad cultural shift and an acknowledgment of the problem, especially in Latin American, African and Asian countries, where the future of the church lies.
“At the end of the day, it is the change of heart that is important,” Archbishop Charles Scicluna, the Vatican’s leading sex-crimes investigator, said on Sunday afternoon.
The Rev. Hans Zollner, another leader in the church’s efforts to safeguard children, said the church had made a “leap” forward by getting at the “systemic roots” of the scandal. But he acknowledged that it would take more time and energy to “turn a big ship around.”
This focus on the spiritual evolution of bishops, and on the importance of getting them to work together to tackle sexual abuse, was a letdown to those who had hoped the pope would act boldly, drawing on his own authority.
“The pope is the sole legislator, so he could make this change whenever he wants,” said Nicholas P. Cafardi, a prominent canon lawyer in the United States. “Zero tolerance should be universal law, and the Holy Father can do it himself.”
After the pope’s speech, the Vatican did announce that some specific steps that would be taken soon.
One was described by church officials as a toughening up of child-protection laws within the Vatican’s boundaries. They also spoke of a “very brief” handbook for bishops to understand their duties when it comes to abuse cases, and of new task forces of experts and canon…
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