Pope Francis calls for ‘concrete and effective measures’ against the ‘plague’ of clerical sexual abuse as historic Vatican summit gets underway
- Pontiff asks bishops in landmark summit to hear ‘screams of little ones asking for justice’
Pope Francis opened a landmark summit on preventing clerical sexual abuse Thursday, saying Catholics were looking to church leaders not for “simple and predictable condemnations,” but instead for “concrete and effective measures” to deal with the scourge.
“May the Virgin Mary enlighten us to try and heal the great wounds that the scandal of paedophilia has caused in both children and the believers,” Francis said.
He called abuse a “plague” and asked that bishops in attendance “listen to the screams of the little ones asking for justice”.
The pontiff’s brief address kicked off one of the most critical points of his papacy, a gathering of the world’s leading bishops to discuss a problem that the Catholic Church for decades has struggled to curb – and that has now damaged the pope’s own reputation.
Church officials have called the four-day meeting one phase in a long process, not a cure-all. But the pope and the Vatican face intense pressure to push bishops from around the world to take the issue seriously, even in regions where abuse scandals have not yet broken into the public.
Francis did not specify Thursday what kind of concrete measures could result from the summit, and in late January he had tried to play down expectations for the event. But organisers have said that the meeting aims to give bishops a clearer sense of guidelines for how to deal with abuse accusations – while emphasising the imperative to not keep those accusations silent.
Still, the church is not aiming to draw up a single, global standard for dealing with abuse. Corrupt legal systems or draconian laws in some countries make it unrealistic, church officials have said, for the Vatican to mandate that all bishops report abuse accusations to criminal authorities – a standard that is common within the US church.
“You cannot have a one-size-fits-all that comes out of this,” Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago said in an interview. “They won’t be told: This is exactly what you have to do.”
The meeting involves some 190 participants, including the presidents of 114 episcopal conferences, with each day devoted to a different theme – responsibility, accountability and transparency. As the event opened Thursday, it had the feel of an educational gathering, with the pope and several others sitting at a panel up front, and more than a hundred red- and purple-capped prelates sitting in ascending auditorium rows. They had notepads and pens, and were scheduled to listen to a series of presentations, starting with one from Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle of the Philippines.
Several times holding back tears, Tagle said bishops had wounded the faith with their behaviour on abuse.
“Our lack of response to the suffering of victims, even to the point of rejecting them, and covering up the scandal to protect the perpetrators and the institution, has injured our people,” Tagle said.
The event is closed to the press, but the Vatican is live-streaming certain moments, including the remarks from the pope and the three official presentations that are planned for each day. But the additional portions, working group sessions and question-and-answer periods, are not being broadcast.
No survivors of clergy abuse are speaking in person at the summit, but the Vatican played audio testimony from five victims Thursday. One survivor described the “total loss of the innocence of my youth.” Another, from Asia, described abuse as a “time bomb” happening in the region and said the problem could destroy “whole generations” of children. Another victim described receiving a sceptical reception from church authorities after reporting abuse.
“The first thing they did was to treat me as a liar, turn their backs and tell me that I, and others, were enemies of the church,” the victim said. “This pattern exists not only in Chile: it exists all over the world, and this must end.”
“You need to repair what has been done to the victims, be close to them, believe them and accompany them,” the person continued. “You are the physicians of the soul and yet, with rare exceptions, you have been transformed – in some cases – into murderers of the soul, into murderers of the faith.”
Archbishop Charles Scicluna of Malta, one of the Vatican’s sex crimes investigators, described steps that prelates could take to improve safeguarding.
Scicluna said any diocese should tell Catholics that they have a right to report abuse – and advise them of a clear contact point for doing so.
When allegations are received, Scicluna said, they should be investigated “with the help of experts.”
Scicluna reminded the bishops that abuse “is also a crime in all civil jurisdictions.”
“The competence of the state authorities should be respected,” Scicluna said. “Reporting laws should be followed carefully. And a spirit of collaboration will benefit both the church and society in general.”
