Pope Francis Must Do More Than Apologize

Southcoast Today
July 10, 2014

http://www.southcoasttoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20140710/OPINION/407100328

True reconciliation only begins with an apology.

It takes more than saying one is sorry to heal the wounds that come from hurting others. That takes justice — a commitment to make things right, to change whatever actions have caused harm, and to hold those responsible for that harm accountable for their actions.

Pope Francis on Monday met with a group of Roman Catholics who had suffered sexual abuse at the hands of Catholic clergy, and he offered a sweeping apology to them for the wrongs done against them when they were children. The meeting was orchestrated by Cardinal Sean O'Malley of Boston, who serves on the church's Commission for the Protection of Minors. It was the first in a series of meetings Francis plans to have with victims — a conversation that actually started under his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI.

"I beg your forgiveness, too, for the sins of omission on the part of church leaders who did not respond adequately to reports of abuse..." Francis said. "This led to greater suffering on the part of those who were abused, and it endangered other minors who were at risk."

But while the pope made it clear in his remarks that bishops who fail to take action against abusive priests betray the trust of the church and its 1.2 billion believers, the Vatican has been reluctant to discipline church higher-ups. In fact, former Boston Archbishop Bernard Law was promoted a decade ago to a prestigious post in Rome after his role in the archdiocese's coverup of clergy abuse was exposed, a move that has been bitterly criticized by victims groups.

Francis acknowledged that some abuse victims had committed suicide or been lost to drug addiction and emotional illness caused by the betrayal they felt from the criminal conduct of clergy pedophiles, saying that those victims "weigh upon the heart and my conscience and that of the whole church."

Those victims still wait for justice in the form of disciplinary action and public condemnation of those individual church higher-ups who covered up decades of criminal conduct by Catholic clergy and who by their inaction allowed it to persist against countless other children.

An apology is just a beginning. Reconciliation requires justice.

Otherwise, it's just words.