Pope’s sex abuse commission zeroes in on bishop’s accountability

For months, I’ve heard mixed reviews of Pope Francis’ efforts to confront the sex abuse scandal in the church.

The pope generally gets high marks for two initiatives – his meeting with abuse victims last summer and his establishment of a Vatican child protection commission to strengthen and coordinate anti-abuse policies worldwide.

Critics, however, have pointed out that the commission, established late in 2013, is still getting organized and setting priorities. That makes its current three-day meeting in Rome especially important. People are waiting to see what concrete changes will emerge.

On Saturday we got a glimpse of the commission’s agenda from Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston, who heads the Vatican agency. Probably the most important disclosure was that the commission is drawing up recommendations for sanctioning bishops who have covered up abuse cases.

To date, bishops’ accountability has been the missing element in the Vatican’s approach to the scandals. While Pope Francis has investigated and, in a couple of cases, removed bishops, there is no systematic procedure for discipline or dismissal when reporting guidelines are not followed.

The assumption has always been that only the pope can “fire” a bishop – and that it’s almost impossible for the pope to follow details in every diocese. But the commission appears to be looking at a new way to bridge that gap.

Cardinal O’Malley said a specific working group that includes canon lawyers is drawing up “policies that would allow the church to respond in an expeditious way when the bishop has not fulfilled his obligations.” He said work on the recommendations is nearly complete, and that they would be presented to the pope and “hopefully implemented.”

“We think we have come up with some very practical recommendations that would help to remedy the situation that is such a source of anxiety to everybody on the commission,” O’Malley said.

“Obviously, there have to be consequences” for such bishops, O’Malley said. He declined to say specifically what sanctions the commission had in mind.

Marie Collins, an Irish survivor of clerical sexual abuse who is also on the commission, said she considers the accountability issue crucial. If the commission’s recommendations are followed, she said, she felt confident that they would resolve the problem.

“You have to have sanctions (for bishops), or it’s a waste of time,” she said.

Asked about the fact that dismissal of a bishop is seen as only the pope’s prerogative, Collins said, “Currently, yes.” She said she could not elaborate at the present time.

Cardinal O’Malley outlined several other initiatives by the commission and its various working groups:

— Each bishops’ conference around the world will be asked to name a contact person who will keep open a line of communication with the commission.

— The commission will work with the Vatican’s doctrinal congregation to suggest “best practices,” especially to bishops’ conferences, and will also present methods for measuring compliance. O’Malley said that only a small minority of bishops’ conferences, about 4 percent, have failed to draw up sex abuse guidelines, as requested by the Vatican in 2011. But he added that some of the guidelines that have been devised were too weak.

— The commission is developing educational seminars on sexual abuse for Roman Curia officials and new bishops who come to Rome for orientation.

— A church-wide Day of Prayer for all those harmed by sexual abuse is being prepared, to aid spiritual healing.

— The commission is asking Catholic funding organizations to include child protection in the guidelines for eligibility for funding, and to award grants to countries that lack resources to deal with sexual abuse.

— One of the commission’s working groups is reaching out systematically to survivors and survivor groups, so they can participate in the overall work of the commission. One commission member said it was proposed to request cooperation from U.S.-based Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, known as SNAP, a group that has been sharply critical of the pope, the Vatican and local dioceses on the sex abuse issue.

Beyond the details of commission projects, what was striking about the Vatican press conference was the change in attitude, compared to years past. When the sex abuse scandal exploded in 2002, Vatican officials were often defensive and dismissive, suggesting that the problem was being blown out of proportion by lawyers and the media.

At Saturday’s meeting with the press, the Vatican went out of its way to make commission members available to reporters, including the two victim survivors serving on the panel, who spoke bluntly about church failures.

Peter Saunders, a British survivor who was abused by two priests and others for five years, was outspoken in his call for bishops’ accountability, saying there had been “an abysmal record of so many ill-judged responses by priests and dioceses around the world.”

Saunders said the commission was also looking at how experts can study the deeper causes of sexual abuse. He said one factor that should be studied is priestly celibacy, although he made clear that he did not think celibacy led to abuse.

“In my version of the Bible, Jesus never said, ‘If you want to follow me, you have to be celibate,’” Saunders said.

Pope Francis asks bishops for their 'complete cooperation' with Vatican sex abuse commission

Pope Francis has written to the world’s bishops and the heads of religious orders, urging them to take “whatever steps are necessary” to protect children from sexual abuse by clerics and provide psychological and spiritual assistance to victims.

Families need to know the church is “making every effort to protect their children,” the pope said.

“Consequently, priority must not be given to any other kind of concern, whatever its nature, such as the desire to avoid scandal, since there is absolutely no place in ministry for those who abuse children,” he said.

The letter was released Thursday at the Vatican, the day before the start of a three-day meeting of the Vatican’s Commission for the Protection of Minors, which the pope established in 2013. The pope recently added new members to the commission, which includes two sex abuse victims.

Francis asked bishops and religious superiors to give their full cooperation with the Vatican commission, especially in exchanging best practices and developing programs of education, training and response to sexual abuse.

He also insisted on full compliance with a 2011 Vatican document that called on bishops’ conferences around the world to draw up guidelines for handling sexual abuse of minors by clerics. Once norms are established, he added, the conferences should establish practical means to guarantee that they are being followed.

The pope said his meeting with sex abuse victims at the Vatican last summer had deeply moved him and left him even more convinced that “everything possible must be done to rid the church of the scourge of the sexual abuse of minors and to open pathways of reconciliation and healing for those who were abused.”

He called specifically on bishops and superiors of religious orders to establish programs that provide psychological assistance and spiritual care to victims. He said pastors should be available to meet with victims and their loved ones.

“Such meetings are valuable opportunities for listening to those who have greatly suffered and for asking their forgiveness,” he said.

A Latin American pope, a Latin American martyr

“We had to wait for the first Latin American pope to beatify Oscar Romero.”

That’s how Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia described the long wait for the Vatican’s green light for the beatification of the Salvadoran archbishop.

“There’s a connection between the pontificate of Pope Francis and the beatification of Romero, which I would sum up in the phrase: ‘a church that is poor and for the poor,'” Archbishop Paglia said, citing Francis’ remark shortly after his election in 2013. Archbishop Romero, an outspoken defender of the poor and a critic of human rights abuses, was murdered in 1980.

Archbishop Paglia, the postulator for Romero’s sainthood cause, spoke at a Vatican press conference Wednesday. He said Romero is expected to be beatified in San Salvador sometime later this year — the earlier the better.

Pope Francis’ decision to approve the martyrdom of Archbishop Romero, announced Tuesday, fit well with the Argentinian pope’s vision of the church’s place in society, the role of the bishop and the process by which sainthood is recognized. It also underscores some similarities and a few important differences with his two predecessors, Benedict XVI and John Paul II.

Re-reading some of Romero’s writings and homilies, one immediately senses an affinity with Pope Francis’ emphasis on a church that is close to the people, especially the poor, and that is not afraid to be socially and politically involved.

Archbishop Romero: “When we struggle for human rights, for freedom, for dignity, when we feel that it is a ministry of the church to concern itself for those who are hungry, for those who have no schools, for those who are deprived, we are not departing from God’s promise. He comes to free us from sin, and the church knows that sin’s consequences are all such injustices and abuses. The church knows it is saving the world when it undertakes to speak also of such things.”

Pope Francis in his document Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel): “If the just ordering of society and of the state is a central responsibility of politics, the church cannot and must not remain on the sidelines in the fight for justice.”

As it happens, Pope Francis was quoting Pope Benedict in that particular passage. Pope Benedict once said Romero deserved beatification, and Pope John Paul II once prayed at Romero’s tomb. But both Benedict and John Paul II were hesitant to promote his sainthood cause. Pope Benedict feared that a “Saint Romero” would be politically manipulated in Latin America, and one presumes John Paul II had the same apprehensions. On the other hand, according to Paglia it was Benedict who unblocked Romero’s cause late in 2012, little more than a month before the German pope resigned.

Over the years, Archbishop Paglia recounted, strong opposition was expressed to Romero’s beatification. A “mountain” of paper arrived in Rome with objections, including accusations of doctrinal errors that needed to be investigated by the doctrinal congregation. The strongest objections were that Archbishop Romero was too political.

Pope Francis does not appear to be intimidated by political fallout when it comes to such causes. I think that’s because he expects the church to be deeply involved in the lives of the people, even if that creates waves and provokes criticism – or, as he said famously in Brazil, “a mess.” He also wants bishops to be closer to their flocks, sharing their suffering.

It was interesting that on the same day he approved Romero’s beatification, Pope Francis also signed off on the martyrdom of three priests killed by the leftist guerrillas in Peru in 1991. It was as if to say that “hatred of the faith” can come from anywhere along the ideological spectrum.

Francis has spoken of the price Christians must sometimes pay for witnessing the faith.

“The disciple is ready to put his or her whole life on the line, even to accepting martyrdom, in bearing witness to Jesus Christ, yet the goal is not to make enemies but to see God’s word accepted and its capacity for liberation and renewal revealed,” the pope said in Evangelii Gaudium.

Archbishop Romero, who was killed at the altar by a gunman believed linked to right-wing death squads, once said, “I don’t want to be an anti, against anybody. I simply want to be the builder of a great affirmation: the affirmation of God, who loves us and who wants to save us.”

In general, Pope Francis seems to have an implicit trust in Catholics to recognize saints, relying less on Roman procedures to verify a life of holiness or martyrdom. He has several times waived the miracle requirement for canonization. In that sense, I think the strong conviction among many Latin American Catholics that Archbishop Romero was a saint helped move his cause forward once Francis assumed the papacy.