Don't Believe the Pope Francis Sexual Abuse Pr Stunt. Believe in Payback

The Guardian
July 10, 2014

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/10/pope-francis-sexual-abuse-victims-catholic-church

'On the very day the pope is professing deep concern for victims,' says a leading activist, 'this archdiocese severely trashes a young woman who cannot speak out for herself.' Photograph: Alessandra Tarantino / AP

The most promising pope in the modern history of the Vatican had quite the audience this week: Francis spent two days with six people who were sexually abused by priests. He begged their forgiveness, of course, for "an ugly crime" perpetrated by a kind of "sacrilegious cult". That was pretty bold. But he also made a half-promise: "We must go ahead with zero tolerance", the pope said on the papal plane, adding that his church should "weep and make reparation".

As the Atlantic's Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote in his brilliant treatise on another kind of reparations entirely, there is justice, and then there are practicalities; there are reparations, and then there is existentialism. And when you're running the most existential institution on Earth – the Catholic Church – sometimes you have to get down to details, even if you're talking basic penance to God, not amends to people. Sometimes you have to stop talking in empty promises and start cleaning house.

His Holiness sure knows how to say he's sorry for this "sin of omission", but as David Clohessy of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (Snap) told me on Tuesday, "We don't need any more symbolic gestures or study panels to make recommendations – we need concrete actions that will protect vulnerable children."

The past is not just the past, as the church well knows, and if you want evidence that that Francis's zero-tolerance policy is merely a PR stunt, look back to the pope's time in Argentina.

Then-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was closely involved in the case of Father Julio Cesar Grassi, who was sentenced to 15 years in prison after being found guilty of molesting a boy in his care. Details are murky, but Anne Barrett-Doyle, who runs the website Bishop-Accountability.org, which has tracked the case closely, told me this week that Grassi remained free on conditional release until September 2013, when his final appeal was rejected, at least in part because of a private report commissioned by Bergoglio that sought to prove Grassi's innocence and, according to Barrett-Doyle, to discredit the victims.

The convicted pedophile certainly considered the current pope to be a friend and supporter – Grassi told reporters before his conviction that his Holiness "never let go of my hand".

Was it a "sin of omission" that, of the victims granted an audience with the pope this week, none were from Argentina, where that dark cloud still hangs over Francis's apparent failure to protect children from predator priests during his tenure as archbishop? Does his Holiness tolerate ignoring victims from the developing world, where advocacy groups claim that clerical abuse is still being actively covered up and where the power differential between a predator priest and his victim is that much greater?

Not that victims here in America have any power either. On Monday morning, as the pope was busy talking "reparation", the Archdiocese of St Louis settled a law suit with a young woman who claimed she was abused for five years – allegedly beginning when she was five years old – by former priest Joseph D Ross.

The terms of the settlement were not disclosed, but the archdiocese's statement called the alleged victim everything but deluded "with a medical condition that causes her to falsify claims, exaggerate symptoms and make inconsistent statements". Did I mention that, a decade before that abuse was said to have begun, Father Ross pled guilty to charges that he molested an 11-year-old boy? And that he went away for "treatment", only to return to the church two years later? Oh, and that the St Louis Archdiocese has spent more than $10m dollars since 2004 in payments related to priestly "misconduct"?

"At best," Snap's Clohessy told me, "this serves as a warning to other victims that if they make a legal challenge, they will be made to pay a price for it."

So is this pope ready for payback?

"He seemed genuinely frustrated at what he was hearing," Marie Kane told the Irish Times, of her audience with Francis. "He listened and seemed genuine.

The UK's Peter Saunders, in an interview with the Boston Globe, went further: "The man I met today, I don't think is a man who would let us down."

Francis does have the power, however, to rectify the sins of the past – including his own – by following up on his zero-tolerance declarations with concrete action. He can begin by sacking bishops and cardinals who have covered up the behavior of pedophiles and sought to discredit victims. He can start by promoting the whistleblower priests who have jeopardized their own careers by calling out abusers.

When the pope dismissed the so-called "Bishop of Bling" this spring, it sent a strong message to the clergy that $43m homes wouldn't be tolerated in the Francis's new age of austerity. On Wednesday, he cleaned house at the Vatican bank. There's no reason Francis can't send a similar message – to believers and those of us who just don't believe his words without action – that the sexual abuse of children won't be tolerated either.