VATICAN CITY — The clerical sexual abuse crisis has caused
"serious scandal" in the Catholic Church and in society "because
of the dramatic suffering of the victims, as well as the unjustifiable lack of
attention to them" and attempts by church leaders to cover up the crimes
of the guilty, Pope Francis said.
Speaking to the public, including dozens of abuse survivors,
after his midday recitation of the Angelus Feb. 24, the pope promised measures
to ensure children would be safe in the church and that the crime of abuse would
stop.
The pope's remarks came just an hour after he concluded the
Vatican's Feb. 21-24 summit on child protection and the clerical abuse scandal.
In his talk concluding the summit, Pope Francis said the Catholic
Church would focus on eight priorities: the protection of children;
"impeccable seriousness" in dealing with clerical sexual abuse;
genuine purification and acknowledgment of past failures; improved training for
priests and religious; strengthening and continually reviewing the guidelines
of national bishops' conferences; assisting victims of clerical sexual abuse;
working to end the abuse and exploitation of children and young people online;
and working with civil authorities to end sex tourism.
The summit brought together Pope Francis and 190 church leaders —
presidents of bishops' conferences, the heads of the Eastern Catholic churches,
superiors of men's and women's religious orders and Roman Curia officials — for
four days of listening to speeches, survivors' testimonies, discussions in small
groups, a penitential liturgy and Mass.
In addition to the handful of survivors who spoke at the summit
itself, dozens of survivors from around the world gathered in Rome in
solidarity with one another and to speak to reporters and to individual
bishops. Twelve representatives of the survivors were invited to meet Feb. 20
with the summit's organizing committee.
As the bishops met with the pope inside the Vatican's synod hall,
the coalition Ending Clerical Abuse, which brought 40 survivors from 21
countries to Rome, organized vigils and a march to St. Peter's Square.
The survivors' groups were, in general, not satisfied with the
summit and insisted the time to talk about the reality of abuse was long
passed; it was time for action.
The summit, though, seemed designed more to ensure that every
bishops' conference around the world recognized the gravity of the problem,
even if in their country very few cases of clerical sexual abuse had been
reported.
Addressing the summit Feb. 23, Nigerian Sister Veronica Openibo,
congregational leader of the Society of the Holy Child Jesus, called out
bishops, particularly in Asia and Africa, who dismiss the abuse crisis as a
Western problem. She cited several personal experiences she confronted while
counseling men and women who were abused.
Church leaders cannot think they can "keep silent until the
storm has passed," Sister Openibo told them. "This storm will not
pass by."
Preaching at the closing Mass, Australian Archbishop Mark
Coleridge of Brisbane warned his fellow bishops that they would be called to
account for what they did and what they failed to do to stop the abuse and
assist the victims.
For too long, he said, bishops and church leaders tried to
protect the church's reputation and not the church's children.
"We have shown too little mercy, and therefore we will
receive the same, because the measure we give will be the measure we receive in
return," he said. "We will not go unpunished."
Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle of Manila, Philippines, gave the
first formal talk of the gathering Feb. 21, providing a theological reflection
on the meaning of Christ's wounds and on the obligation of the world's bishops
to recognize how they have inflicted wounds on Christ's beloved children.
Touching those wounds and begging for forgiveness is an essential
part of a bishop's mission, he said.
Archbishop Charles Scicluna of Malta, adjunct secretary of the
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and longtime investigator of
clerical abuse cases, outlined for participants the necessary, mandatory steps
they must take when an allegation is made.
He insisted on making the victims a priority, but also used his
talk to suggest that the "stewardship of prevention" includes helping
the pope choose candidates for bishop appointments.
"Many demand that the process be more open to the input of
laypeople in the community," Archbishop Scicluna said, a request later
echoed by Sister Openibo.
When a priest or bishop or layperson is asked to comment on a
potential candidate, the archbishop said, "it is a grave sin against the
integrity of the episcopal ministry to hide or underestimate facts that may
indicate deficits in the lifestyle or spiritual fatherhood" of the
candidate.
Later, summit participants debated particular measures, such as a
mandatory requirement that abuse allegations be turned over to police.
Archbishop Scicluna insisted involving local police and other authorities was
important, especially because while bishops exercise spiritual authority over
their priests, they have no actual "coercive measures — and we don't have
any nostalgia for the coercive measures of the Inquisition" — to force
priests to cooperate with investigations and obey when punishment has been
imposed.
Throughout the summit, bishops and other speakers tried to identify
attitudes and issues that have contributed to the Catholic Church's sex abuse
crisis; repeatedly they pointed to "clericalism," and especially an
attitude that allows priests and bishops to think that they were somehow
special and above the law and common human decency.
To understand the full depth of the crisis, Colombian Cardinal
Ruben Salazar Gomez of Bogota said Feb. 21, bishops must stop looking at
outsiders as the cause of the damage within the church and recognize that
"the first enemies are within us, among us bishops and priests and
consecrated persons who have not lived up to our vocation."
Chicago Cardinal Blase J. Cupich, one of the summit
organizations, told the gathering he believed the Catholic Church needed a new
structure in place to deal with bishops accused of abuse or of negligence in
handling abuse claims.
His "metropolitan model" of accountability would rely
on the metropolitan archbishop of a church region receiving claims made against
a bishop and conducting an initial investigation with the help of qualified lay
experts before turning the information over to the Vatican for further action.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops currently is
investigating the possibility of such a model.
Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo of Galveston-Houston, USCCB president,
said Feb. 24 that it would be up to the full body of bishops to decide how to
proceed, but he would not be surprised if they came up with a proposal that
would combine a metropolitan-level system with a lay board to assist the metropolitan.
"In our proposals, the work of the laity will be to
collaborate," which is something all the speakers at the summit
emphasized, Cardinal DiNardo said. "We want to make sure the laity are
involved" in a way that would give them a level of independence to
investigated claims against bishops while, at the same time, making it clear
the board is acting on behalf of the church.