Pope condemns ‘atrocities’ of sex abuse, cover-up
Letter comes days after grand jury report of latest scandal in Pennsylvania
ROME — Pope Francis, whose slow pace of action on clerical sexual abuse has threatened lasting damage to his papacy, on Monday did what no pope had done before, issuing a letter to all Catholics condemning the “atrocities.” But he offered no specific remedies.
The letter came just days after a sweeping grand jury report in Pennsylvania found that the church had covered up the abuse of more than 1,000 minors by some 300 priests over 70 years.
It was published as Francis prepared to visit Ireland, a predominantly Catholic nation where abuse scandals have contributed to a revolt over issues like abortion that would have been unthinkable just years ago.
“With shame and repentance, we acknowledge as an ecclesial community that we were not where we should have been, that we did not act in a timely manner,
realizing the magnitude and the gravity of the damage done to so many lives,” Francis wrote. “We showed no care for the little ones; we abandoned them.”
As much as anything, the church’s mishandling of the abuse crisis, which has affected dozens of countries, can account for its gradual erosion in the West.
Over the past two decades, the church often has resisted acknowledging the scale of the crisis, or even specific sexual abuse scandals as they came to light in parishes and dioceses in many countries.
The letter offered a more candid acknowledgment and forceful condemnation of the problem by Francis since he admitted “grave errors” in the handling of cases in Chile earlier this year. Previous letters from popes were more limited.
But even as the pope said Monday that the church would spare no effort to ensure such abuses never happen again, the letter invited a fresh round of criticism from disappointed survivors, frustrated by the gap between the pope’s words and actions when it comes to what is by now a well-documented, decades-old history of pedophilia by priests.
Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of BishopAccountability. org, called the pope’s letter “recycled rhetoric” and “a disappointment.”
“Mere words at this point deepen the insult and the pain,” she wrote in a statement to the news media.
In 2010, Pope Benedict XVI wrote a letter to Ireland’s Catholics when the abuse scandal came to the fore there. And earlier this year, Francis wrote to Catholics in Chile after an abuse scandal forced the ecclesiastical hierarchy there to tender their resignations.
“This is about Ireland, this is about the United States, and this is about Chile. But not only,” Greg Burke, the director of the Holy See Press Office said in an audio statement. “Pope Francis has written to the people of God, and that means everyone.”
But while the shift in Francis’ tone has been notable since he was assailed earlier this year for defending a Chilean bishop from the “calumny” of abuse victims, critics say the pope has consistently raised expectations of remedies and then failed to deliver.
Early on, in 2013, Francis directed the Vatican to act decisively on sexual abuse cases. He instituted a Vatican commission that included victims among its members to propose “best-practice initiatives for protecting minors and vulnerable adults” from delinquent clerics, and proposed a tribunal to prosecute remiss bishops.
But the initiatives disappointed. The commission, whose term expired in December 2017, gradually lost several of its members, who quit, citing frustration at the resistance they had met from some church officials as well as reluctance in the Vatican to implement recommended changes. The Vatican tribunal to try bishops was never set up. Then the pope seriously mishandled the situation in Chile. Outrage followed and the pope took note. In February, Francis sent the Vatican’s top investigator to Chile, and that led to the pope’s convening of the country’s bishops at the Vatican for a collective scolding. In February, too, the pope instated a new commission for the protection of minors.
In May, Cardinal George Pell, the Vatican’s finance minister, became the highest-ranking Vatican official to stand trial on charges of “historical sexual offenses.” Last month, a leading figure in the United States church, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the former archbishop of Washington, resigned after allegations that the cardinal had sexually abused minors and adult seminarians.
Responding to the Pennsylvania grand jury report, the Vatican issued a statement calling the abuses criminal and morally reprehensible. The statement sought to emphasize that the pope had the victims at heart.
“Those who have suffered are his priority, and the church wants to listen to them to root out this tragic horror that destroys the lives of the innocent,” the Vatican wrote.
In his letter issued Monday, which Francis addressed to “the People of God,” the pope went further, acknowledging that saying sorry was not enough. “Efforts to beg pardon” would never be sufficient, the pope wrote.
The deep wounds of the victims “never go away,” he said, specifically citing the grand jury report. While most of those cases, “belong to the past,” he wrote, “we have realized that these wounds never disappear and that they require us forcefully to condemn these atrocities and join forces in uprooting this culture of death.”
He also admitted that the church had delayed in applying “actions and sanctions that are so necessary” to protect ” the integrity of children and of vulnerable adults, as well as implementing zero tolerance and ways of making all those who perpetrate or cover up these crimes accountable.”
The Rev. Tom Reese, a senior analyst at Religion News Service, said he heard a “different, better, tone coming out of this letter,” which was, he thinks, necessary. “People were asking for a personal response from the pope,” he said.
“The letter isn’t defensive, it acknowledges that the church has been slow in responding, and identifies with the suffering of the victims, they are on the cross,” said Reese. Bishops once saw themselves as those being crucified on the cross of public opinion because of the sexual abuse crisis, “which is nonsense,” he said.
The letter, which was issued in seven languages, also makes clear that the pope believes that at least in part, the church got itself into its current trouble because of what is termed “clericalism.”
“Clericalism is great sin of clergy, putting themselves first, putting themselves on a pedestal, rather than acknowledging that they are the servants of the faithful,” Reese said. “Circling the wagon to protect our own is what got us into this trouble, it’s at the root of the church’s poor response to the abuse crisis,” he said.