Pope meets with top U.S. bishops
U.S. church leader, himself accused of cover-up, lauds talk.
Top U.S. bishops met in the Vatican with Pope Francis on Thursday to discuss the sexual abuse crisis that the leader of the American church said has “lacerated” the church.
That leader, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston who is president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, was himself accused this week of covering up the actions of a priest in his archdiocese who was just arrested for sexually abusing children.
And as the bishops met with Francis on Thursday morning, Francis also removed from ministry the bishop of West Virginia’s Catholic church, who will face a Vatican investigation on charges of sexual harassment.
“We shared with Pope Francis our situation in the United States — how the Body of Christ is lacerated by the evil of sexual abuse. He listened very deeply from the heart. It was a lengthy, fruitful, and good exchange,” DiNardo said in a statement after leaving the meeting on Thursday, which also included Archbishop Sean Patrick O’Malley of Boston and Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles. But DiNardo did not say what concrete steps, if any, the bishops agreed to for addressing the crisis.
“As we departed the audience, we prayed the Angelus together for God’s mercy and strength as we work to heal the wounds,” DiNardo said. “We look forward to actively continuing our discernment together identifying the most effective next steps.”
On Wednesday, as DiNardo prepared for his meeting with the pope, the Associated Press reported that two people claim to have told DiNardo about an abusive priest in his Texas archdiocese, and that DiNardo failed to take action to remove the priest from ministry until the priest was arrested on child abuse charges this week.
The Rev. Manual LaRosa-Lopez was arrested in Conroe, Texas, on Tuesday on four counts of indecency with a child. Police say he fondled two teenagers when he was a priest at a Conroe church. At the time of his arrest, he was a priest at another church in Richmond, Texas, according to the AP.
The AP said that both victims, who were teenagers at the time, are now in their 30s. One victim told the AP that her family reported LaRosa-Lopez’s conduct to the church after he touched her when she was 16, and church leaders told her he would be moved to another parish; he was transferred in 2001 and again in 2004. In 2010, the victim saw that LaRosa-Lopez was still in ministry and contacted DiNardo, who had not been in Texas when she first raised the allegation.
The victim told the AP that DiNardo told her the priest wouldn’t work with children, but eight years later, he was still in a parish church. “I’m tired of all of his empty words,” she said of DiNardo. “If he’s going to go meet with the pope and pretend that all of this is OK and his diocese is clean, I can’t stand it.”