Catholic summit woes loom

In what could be a defining moment for his papacy, Pope Francis will welcome more than 100 top Catholic bishops from around the globe to Rome this week for an unprecedented summit aimed at tackling the issue of clergy sex abuse.

Never before has a pontiff convened the global church’s leaders to discuss the issue. And after a bruising year that saw highranking church officials resign in scandal, fresh investigations and demands for new laws, the conference that opens Thursday could present an opportunity for Pope Francis to dispel criticism that he has responded sluggishly to the crisis.

But should his four-day event fail to deliver, the pope risks cementing the impression among detractors that he remains resistant to meaningful change.

“Many U.S. Catholics feel a sense of urgency …,” said Kathleen Sprows Cummings, who runs the University of Notre Dame’s center for the study of American Catholicism. “But the Vatican is an incredibly inefficient and cumbersome bureaucracy that’s inflexible and doesn’t change easily. For Rome, this is urgency.”

Hundreds of reporters and sexual-abuse victims are expected to set up shop outside the Vatican as the prelates gather behind closed doors.

As if to signal his seriousness, Pope Francis on Saturday took his most meaningful step to date by defrocking Theodore McCarrick, a former cardinal and archbishop of Washington, after the church found him guilty of sexually abusing minors and adult seminarians.

Also in the world …

Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida said Sunday humanitarian aid “is going to get through” to Venezuela with or without the cooperation of President Nicolas Maduro. … Hundreds of thousands of land mines are stymieing the Saudi-led forces in Yemen.