Catholic Church needs truth and transparency

Heeding requests from American bishops, including Dallas Bishop Edward J. Burns, the Vatican recently announced that Pope Francis will convene a summit of bishops from around the world to address the global sexual-abuse scandal that has roiled the Catholic Church and led to a crisis of faith for many believers.

We, like many Americans— Catholic and non-Catholic alike—welcome this announcement and see it as the first of many steps that must be taken by church leaders to restore the world’s faith in an institution that has done great good in the world, even as it has, in the pope’s own words, committed “atrocities” against society’s most vulnerable.

The “worldwide synod” of the leaders of bishops’ councils, to be held Feb. 21-24, is unprecedented in that it is the first time a meeting of this kind has been called by the Vatican to address a specific issue—in this case the “prevention of abuse of minors and vulnerable adults.”

In an interview with The Dallas Morning News following the Vatican’s announcement of the synod, Burns said, “It is my hope that out of all the ugliness that has taken place due to the scandals … that the church purifies herself of members who have embraced a sin of the worst kind and who also present themselves as church leaders.”

While we certainly hope such a purification takes place, and agree with Burns that calling for the worldwide synod means Francis “has taken this issue to an international level,” we also believe it is time for the pope to end his silence on accusations that he personally disregarded reports of decades of sexual abuse of minors and adult seminarians by Theodore McCarrick, the former archbishop of Washington, D.C.

Francis makes only veiled, vague responses. During a recent homily, he preached “silence and prayer” when confronted “with people lacking good will, with people who only seek scandal, who seek only division, who seek only destruction, even within the family.”

Silence and prayer may be good for the soul. But what the Catholic Church—and the hundreds of thousands if not millions of children who suffered at the hands of priests in the most unholy of ways—needs now is truth, transparency and penance.

It’s time for Francis to address his accusers, and speak the truth clearly and loudly. Anything less would be an insult to McCarrick’s victims, and render the church’s “worldwide synod” on child sex abuse meaningless.