Pope Francis has approved the first-ever system for judging, and possibly deposing, bishops who fail to protect children from abusive clerics, a major step in responding to Catholics who have been furious that guilty priests have been defrocked while bishops have largely escaped punishment.
The five-point plan on accountability for bishops originated with the special sex abuse commission that Francis set up to deal with the ongoing crisis, and after some modifications, his nine–member Council of Cardinals signed off on it and Francis gave his final blessing to it on June 10.
“Very pleased the Pope has approved the Commission’s proposal on accountability,” tweeted Marie Collins of Ireland, one of two victims of sex abuse by clergy who sit on the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors.
There was no immediate reaction from Peter Saunders of England, the other victim on the commission, who has warned that if the pope does not institute a reliable system for holding bishops’ feet to the fire he will leave the panel.
Saunders is also currently embroiled in an ugly verbal tussle with Cardinal George Pell, the pontiff’s top financial reformer, who Saunders has accused of being “almost sociopathic” in his handling of clergy sex abuse when Pell served as a bishop in Australia.
The Vatican has defended Pell, a blunt-talking churchman who is expected to return to Australia to testify before a government commission investigating the church’s abuse history.
“The Pope’s decision to hold bishops accountable for mishandling sex abuse cases is a long-overdue and indispensable step in fighting abuse,” added the Rev. James Martin, an editor at the Jesuit weekly America and a widely-followed commentator on church affairs.
Until now, Catholic bishops have only been answerable directly to the pope, who has the sole power to appoint them and also to fire them. But popes have been loathe to depose bishops over shielding molesters, and the process for deposing a bishop was so murky that it was often easier for the Vatican to shuttle a bishop to a ceremonial post or wait for them to retire.
In April, Bishop Robert Finn of Missouri, who three years earlier became the first bishop convicted of failing to report a priest suspected of child abuse, was forced to resign, effectively the first bishop in the decades-long crisis who lost his job for covering up for an abuser.
But Finn’s resignation only came after years of outrage among Catholics and, in the end, lobbying by some fellow bishop, most notably Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley, who also head the papal sex abuse commission.
O’Malley has long backed a system for judging bishops who failed to stop abusive clerics, and this new system has the hallmarks of his approach.
David Gibson is a national reporter for RNS and an award-winning religion journalist, author, and filmmaker. Via RNS.
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