We’d all like to see the plan

Was the Vatican’s just-completed summit on child sex abuse, convened by Pope Francis amid a crisis of credibility that has crippled the Catholic Church’s moral authority, really intended simply to prepare the way for genuine reforms in the indefinite future? Victims’ groups had hoped for much more, as had many of the faithful in the United States and elsewhere. They were heartened, briefly, when the pope opened the unprecedented four-day conference by demanding what he called “concrete” measures to deliver something real that would uproot the scourge of clerical sex abuse and hierarchical coverup.

In the end, those concrete measures were a chimera—widely debated, held up to intense canonical scrutiny, but ultimately put off to some future date. The contrast with the pope’s own words could not have been sharper, or more disappointing.

A meaningful and, yes, concrete agenda for the U.S. bishops would start with taking up measures they were on the verge of adopting last November when the Holy See intervened to stop them. That would include establishing a code of conduct for bishops, who have been instrumental in covering up the church’s crimes, as well as a commission of lay Catholics to review allegations of misconduct by bishops. In addition, it would mean reversing the church’s steadfast opposition to changes in state laws that prohibit survivors of pedophile priests from filing lawsuits years after the abuse took place. Moreover, it would mean a shift in rhetoric that would recognize not only the church’s obligation to root out abuse but also its unique history as a safe haven for abusers.

Let the American bishops act if the pope will not.