Article Title
The Catholic Church proves incapable of exorcising clergy sex abuse — again
Link to Article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-catholic-church-waves-a-red-flag-on-clergy-sex-abuse–again/2018/11/12/306dda44-e6b3-11e8-a939-9469f1166f9d_story.html?utm_term=.02670babe45a
Source: Washington Post
Author(s): Editorial Board
Date: November 12, 2018
Synopsis of / Excerpts from Article
Currently meeting in Baltimore to deal with the fallout from the August 2018 Pennsylvania Statewide Grand Jury Report, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops has been hamstrung by the Vatican. The bishops were on track to vote on two reforms: establishment of a lay commission to review complaints against bishops and adoption of a code of ethical conduct for themselves. But on the very first morning of the conference, Rome ordered them not to vote. Supposedly, Jorge Bergoglio (aka Pope Francis) did not want the US bishops to get out ahead of the global church response. Bergoglio has called for a summit meeting of the heads of all national bishops conferences from around the world to be held in the Vatican in February of 2019.
According to the article:
“They [the US bishops] were stopped in their tracks by an abrupt message from the Vatican, which … arrived along with a warning from Pope Francis’s ambassador in the United States, Archbishop Christophe Pierre, who seemed to scoff at the proposal … to establish a lay commission that would assess bishops’ misconduct — ‘as if we were no longer capable of reforming or trusting ourselves,’ as he put it.”
“That remark crystallized the arrogance that has often characterized the church’s stance even as countless exposés have laid bare the culpability of its leaders. From high and low, the church has broadcast its conviction that its own transgressions are no worse than that of other institutions; that state statutes of limitations that shield dioceses from lawsuits should be preserved; that no foothold may be allowed for mechanisms to discipline bishops who have enabled abuse by transferring pedophile priests from parish to parish.”
“The agenda was modest, and Rome’s intervention is telling. Again and again, the Vatican pays lip service to the suffering of victims. Again and again, it undercuts its own assertions of contrition.”