Challenging times ahead for Pope Francis

Something quite extraordinary has happened. Every Catholic bishop in Chile — all 34 of them — has tendered his resignation. This mass capitulation followed a meeting with Pope Francis in the Vatican.

The immediate issue at stake is the allegation that decades-long complaints of sexual abuse by Chilean priests have gone unanswered. Also, allegedly, some of the violations were covered up by one or more bishops who knew what was going on.

The deeper concern that motivated Francis appears to have been the willingness of his prelates to protect the church at all costs, rather than face the truth. That is to say, the bishops believed that Catholicism could not survive the telling of what had happened.

In one respect, that took courage. The Pope himself had earlier denied the allegations, and specifically defended one of the bishops who helped in the cover-up.

Now he is willing to put his papacy on the line, and one wonders how exactly he survives. Having provoked all of Chile’s bishops to resign, how does he avoid paying the same price himself?

What led to this astonishing series of events was a meeting in the Vatican with some of the victims. Francis spent four days listening to what must have been heart-rending testimony.

Following these meetings, he summoned Chile’s bishops to Rome, and here we can only speculate exactly what was said. However, the Vatican’s press release admitted “issues of abuse of power, abuse of conscience and sexual abuse … in the Chilean Church, as well as … mechanisms that led, in some cases, to concealment and serious omissions against the victims.”

It was at the conclusion of this confrontation that all 34 bishops tendered their resignation. Whether Francis will accept those resignations is unknown, but by any standard, this is a major crisis.

If we go looking for a comparable upheaval, the decision by Pope John XXIII to convene an ecumenical council in 1962 comes to mind. It was the first such council since 1869.

In John’s view, Catholicism had stagnated, and much-needed reforms were being held back by conservative members of the church. Among the changes that emerged were a decision that the majority of the mass should be preached in the language of the country, and not in Latin.

Priests were no longer required to say mass with their backs to the congregation, and nuns were excused a formal dress style that dated back centuries.

This was a crucial turning point. Despite much debate and angry denunciation, Catholicism had proved it could move forward.

Francis, if he survives, faces such a test.

It is true there have been similar allegations, and resignations, before. In April 2002, Pope John Paul II summoned 13 U.S. cardinals and bishops to discuss the far-reaching sexual abuse crisis in America.

Benedict XVI followed suit in 2010, calling high-ranking Irish prelates to the Vatican after allegations of sexual misconduct reached crisis levels in that country.

And in Canada, there have been numerous scandals involving sexual abuse by priests.

It is now the law here that bishops who learn of such allegations must report the matter to the police. Cover-ups will not be tolerated.

But the same cannot be said of every country. Police in some nations often turn a blind eye to such matters.

Francis then faces a dilemma. Does he continue the tactics of his predecessors, putting out fires one at a time?

Or does he convene an ecumenical council to address the issue on a church-wide basis? In the short term, that would be a harrowing experience. Much damage would be done to the reputation of the church.

Yet that was, in effect, the complaint he levelled against Chile’s bishops — that they placed the stature of the church above its mission.

We will see where Francis stands.