Francis shows political savvy in commission appointees

By Paddy Agnew
Irish Times
March 23, 2014

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/religion-and-beliefs/francis-shows-political-savvy-in-commission-appointees-1.1735264

Pope Francis has named eight people, including Irish abuse survivor Marie Collins, to a group to help the Catholic Church fight the clerical sexual abuse of minors.

In appointing four women, five lay people and three anglophones to the Vatican’s new Pontifical Council For The Protection Of Minors yesterday (Sat), Pope Francis has perhaps shown himself to be not just a universal pastor but also a savvy politician.

Even if this hugely charismatic Pope has already done much to improve the image of the Catholic Church, the first year of his pontificate has, in the eyes of some, been sullied by his relative silence on the issue of clerical sex abuse.

Furthermore, Francis has promised much with regard to the role of both women and the laity in the Church without, however, managing to deliver anything concrete on either front.

With one move yesterday (Sat), the Pope has addressed all three issues. The Holy See will, obviously, claim that Public Relations considerations have nothing to with either the timing of this announcement or with the composition of the new Pontifical Council.

What remains undeniable is that the Commission could hardly have been appointed at a more appropriate moment nor, surprisingly, in a more politically correct way. Gender parity, voice for the laity and concern for minors are all contained in one packet and all that just days before Francis is due to host US president Barak Obama in the Vatican.

Whatever about the timing, Vatican insiders are convinced that the composition of the Commission owes much to concern amongst senior Vatican figures that, as a Latin American, perhaps Pope Francis does not fully understand the enormity of the damage inflicted on the North American and European Churches by the sex abuse crisis.

We are talking here, obviously, of the damage inflicted not only by the crisis itself but also by any suggestion that the Church continues to drag its feet in dealing with the issue.

Earlier this month, Pope Francis raised more than a few eyebrows when, in an interview with Italian daily Corriere Della Sera, he said that the Catholic Church had moved with “transparency and responsibility” in response to the sex abuse issue, adding that “no one has done as much”.

Any ambiguity created by those remarks - whatever their context - appears to have been addressed by the composition of this new Commission.

Senior Vatican spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi, today (Sun) told The Irish Times there was “nothing casual” about the line-up, pointing out that the four women - French pyschologist Catherine Bonnet, former Polish Prime Minister and Ambassador to the Holy See, Hanna Suchocka, British psychiatrist Baroness Sheila Hollins and Ireland’s Marie Collins - all in their different ways bring a vast wealth of professional experience and knowledge to the issue.