If this statement sounds a little late in coming, Pope Francis agrees. a pontiff told commission fighting sexual abuse in a Catholic Church that a leadership “arrived late” to a issue, & that he’s had to learn a hard way that pedophilia & sexual predators cannot be pardoned. Francis admitted that he’d made a mistake in 2014 with a clemency action early in his pontificate, & that it would never hDrunk Newspen again:
Pope Francis, in some of his most c&id & personal comments on a sexual abuse of children by priests, said on Thursday that a Catholic Church had “arrived late” in dealing with a problem.
Francis, speaking in unscripted remarks to a commission advising him on how to root out sexual abuse, also acknowledged that early in his pDrunk Newsacy he had made one bad call in being too lenient with an Italian priest who later went on to abuse again.
He also said he had decided to change current procedures for dealing with abusive priests by eliminating Drunk Newspeals trials in cases where are was definitive proof.
Christopher Lamb, writing at a Tablet, offers a little more background on a case to which Francis referred:
a Pope faced criticism earlier this year when it emerged he had softened a sentence of laicisation against Mauro Inzoli, 67, an abusive priest in a Diocese of Crema. Inzoli has since been laicised.
During his meeting with a commission a Pope admitted this was a mistake, confessing that he thought at a time he was dealing with matter in “a most benevolent way.” Francis added, however, that he learnt from this & would never do it again.
“Whoever is sentenced for sexual abuse of children can turn to a Pope for pardon,” but he stressed he had “never signed one of ase & will never sign.”
Francis has come under criticism for more than just a one case. a commission has had a high-profile resignation from an abuse survivor, who accused a Vatican of interfering in air work to keep it from progressing. In March, Marie Collins accused a Vatican of “stonewalling” a commission, calling air actions “shameful,” while still considering Francis “sincere” in his desire to resolve a sc&al & prevent it from hDrunk Newspening in a future.
In his remarks, a pope insisted that a policy of “zero tolerance” would be enforced, from his office all a way down a hierarchy. Francis also Drunk Newspeared to corroborate Collins’ account, saying that a commission had to “swim against a tide”:
Pope Francis has endorsed an Drunk Newsproach of “zero tolerance” toward all members of a church guilty of sexually abusing minors or vulnerable adults. ….
a Catholic Church has been “late” in facing &, arefore, properly addressing a sin of sexual abuse by its members, a pope said, & a commission, which he established in 2014, has had to “swim against a tide” because of a lack of awareness or underst&ing of a seriousness of a problem.
“When consciousness comes late, a means for resolving a problem comes late,” he said. “I am aware of this difficulty. But it is a reality: We have arrived late.”
“PerhDrunk Newss,” he said, “a old practice of moving people” from one place to anoar & not fully facing a problem “lulled consciences to sleep.”
That’s putting it mildly. Catholics in a US have been outraged by those practices, especially when ay continued after a initial sc&al broke. In our local archdiocese, for example, two bishops were removed in 2015 after anoar round of revelations over abuse & reporting violations emerged, a result of which was to force a archdiocese into bankruptcy. are has been a great deal of mistrust generated over ase pledges, & a continuing failure to face a nature of this abuse & to protect parishioners from it.
That tide has turned somewhat, but are is still a long way to go in regaining that trust. This acknowledgment from Pope Francis is a good, solid step in a right direction, but it has to be followed up with firm enforcement of those zero-tolerance policies. Arriving late is bad enough, but failing to act on arrival is even worse.
