Vatican orders bishops to delay action on sex abuse
Pope will address issue at Feb. world summit
BALTIMORE — A much-anticipated gathering of Roman Catholic bishops began with a sudden, anticlimactic announcement Monday that the bishops would not vote on proposals related to the crisis of sexual abuse in the church.
Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said the Vatican Congregation for Bishops insisted the
bishops wait until after Pope Francis convenes a Vatican summit in February on the worldwide crisis before adopting any policies. Cardinal DiNardo said he did not know what role Pope Francis personally had in the directive.
“At the insistence of the Holy See, we will not be voting on the two action items in our docket regarding the abuse crisis,” said Cardinal DiNardo, archbishop of Galveston-Houston. One was a set of “standards of accountability for bishops.” The other concerned establishing a special commission for handling complaints against bishops.
“The Holy See has asked that we delay voting on these so that our deliberations can inform and be informed by the global meeting,” Cardinal DiNardo said.
Cardinal DiNardo apologized for the late announcement, saying the Vatican conveyed its message only late Sunday.
The meeting was long anticipated as the most highstakes since the bishops met in Dallas in 2002 and adopted a zero-tolerance policy toward abusive priests in the wake of unrelenting revelations in the media.
This year brought a new round of scrutiny — not on priests but on bishops themselves, of both their own conduct and their failure to follow policies to remove abusive clerics,
Beginning with a scandal in Chile earlier this year, the crisis grew with revelations of repeated sexual abuse and harassment by a retired former cardinal, Theodore McCarrick of Washington. Then came a Pennsylvania grand jury report identifying more than 300 priests accused of abuse across seven decades in six dioceses, including Pittsburgh and Greensburg.
Since then, numerous state attorneys general have begun investigations, as has the U.S. attorney’s office in Philadelphia. Current bishops criticized for their oversight of abusive priests include Cardinal DiNardo himself, who Monday morning apologized for his failings.
Pope Francis called a February summit for the heads of bishops conferences around the world to discuss the crisis.
After Cardinal DiNardo’s announcement, Chicago Cardinal Blaise Cupich urged bishops to continue discussing the proposed measures, fine-tuning them and then taking a nonbinding resolution to give a sense of the bishops’ stance.
Also, he called for a special meeting in March to advance such policies, given the “urgency of this moment.”
He said to Cardinal DiNardo, who would represent U.S. bishops at the Vatican summit: “We need to be very clear with you where we stand, and we need to tell our people where we stand.”
Much of this year’s crisis has focused on bishops’ exemption of themselves from the 2002 Dallas charter that committed to ousting all abusers for even a single instance of abuse. Bishops can be disciplined by the Vatican, but critics cite the spectacular failure of that policy in the case of Cardinal McCarrick, who exploited seminarians for years and continued in high-ranking roles despite internal alerts to his behavior.
In a morning address, Cardinal DiNardo pledged that bishops would continue to seek ways to improve accountability for themselves.
“Votes will not [take place] this week. But we will prepare ourselves to move forward,” he said.
“Allow me to now address the survivors of abuse directly.
“Where I have not been watchful or alert to your needs, wherever I have failed, I am deeply sorry. The command of our Lord and Savior was clear. ‘What I say to you, I say to all: Watch!’ In our weakness, we fell asleep. Now, we must humbly beg God’s strength for the vigil ahead.”
In an informal news conference outside the bishops’ meeting at the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront, advocates for victims of abuse denounced the delay.
They said bishops could take steps immediately, such as calling on all members to release the names of abusive priests past and present and to stop lobbying against legislation in Pennsylvania and elsewhere that would allow lawsuits based on long-ago abuse.
Even before the announced delay, the bishops had planned to give over the bulk of Monday to prayer, devotions and Mass, deferring business to Tuesday and Wednesday. Even those devotions centered on the sexual-abuse crisis.
After adjourning to a makeshift hotel chapel, the bishops prayed the rosary, focusing on the “sorrowful mysteries,” in which speakers compared the sufferings of victims of sexual abuse to the sufferings endured by Jesus as he was crucified and killed.
Earlier in the devotional period, a survivor of sexual abuse, Luis A. Torres Jr. spoke to bishops and said: “You were not called to be CEOs. … You were not called to be princes. Be the priests you were called to be. … Be better. Be good.”
Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of the advocacy group BishopAccountability.org, sees the Vatican action as trying to “regain control and prevent U.S. bishops from responding even in the modest way they had intended.”
She added: “When the Vatican intervenes, regulations get weaker, not stronger,” citing past interventions with U.S. and Irish bishops.
“There are lots of things bishops can do,” added BishopAccountability co-director Terence McKiernan. “It is certainly possible for them to turn over a new leaf and … advance their actions and positions in a number of ways.”
Since the Pennsylvania grand jury report was made public, numerous bishops have released lists of abusers, revealing many names not previously known. “The conference could commit itself, even without a vote, to encouraging fellow bishops to accelerate that process,” he said.
Peter Isely of the advocacy group Ending Clergy Abuse questioned why the bishops heeded the call of the Vatican, as a foreign state, in dealing with what is a crime under U.S. law.
“They could still vote and let the Vatican rescind their vote,” he said.
But Bishop Timothy Doherty of Lafayette, Ind., said in a later news conference that as part of a global communion, bishops and their national conferences don’t act on their own.
“Bishops by our very nature are collegial,” Bishop Doherty said. “We work in unity with each other. When the Holy See, acting on behalf of the Holy Father, says this is what we’d like you to do,” to bring it to the global summit in February, that’s what they do. Defying such a directive is “counter to who we are as a church, a collegial church.”
Cardinal DiNardo admitted the Vatican request was “quizzical” and could even be seen as pre-empting that ideal of collegiality, sometimes described as synodality.
“My first reaction is this didn’t seem to be so synodical,” he said, but acknowledged the Vatican might think of being synodical as waiting for the international bishops’ gathering.
Advocates such as Mr. Isely, who has been an activist on such issues since before the 2002 Dallas meeting, said he keeps at it out of commitment to his Catholic faith.
“I don’t know what a postabuse church is going to look like, but that’s the church I want to belong to,” he said.
While the advocates were speaking outside the hotel, other lay persons working within church structures for reform had a platform during the bishops’ day of devotions.
“The church is bleeding, and a Band-Aid won’t heal the wound,” Christina Lamas, coordinator of Youth Ministry for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, told the bishops.
She said child-protection policies have improved dramatically in the church, but she called for greater transparency, compassion for victims and cooperation with lay people.
“We are asking you to work with us” and “not ignore us,” she said. “Trust us.”
She said disaffected Catholics, whether upset over disagreement with or how they were treated by the church, should be seen as neither adversaries nor “prized objects we are seeking to repopulate the pews” but rather treated with respect. Bishops should continue “listening sessions” such as those taking place in recent months.
Pittsburgh Bishop David Zubik said he didn’t see the Vatican action as a setback to bishops’ effort to regain credibility on the issue.
“It’s a recognition on the part of the Holy See that this is a worldwide issue that has to be addressed,” he said. The bishops have a “very open agenda” where they can discuss and fine-tune the proposals.
“All of us want to be sure we can genuinely respond to the crisis at hand, to help people know we really hear where everybody is,” he said.
As bishops held Mass inside, a group of abuse survivors gathered in the late afternoon darkness outside and used flashlights to illuminate photos of victims when they were children while reading the names of those who died from suicide or addictions.
Becky Ianni of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests called on Cardinal DiNardo to resign as conference president. She said he mishandled abuse cases in Iowa and Texas and can’t lead the task of reform.