Pope Establishes Court to Try Bishops for Sex-Case Missteps

By Francis X. Rocca
Wall Street Journal
June 10, 2015

http://www.wsj.com/articles/pope-establishes-court-to-try-bishops-for-sex-case-missteps-1433951501

Pope Francis, seen in St. Peter's Square on Wednesday, ordered the establishment of a special court to try bishops for mishandling cases of clerical sex abuse. Photo by FRANCO ORIGLIA

Cardinal Bernard Law resigned as archbishop of Boston in 2002 after coming under fire for mishandling cases of clerical sex abuse.

ROME— Pope Francis ordered the establishment of a special court to try bishops for mishandling cases of clerical sex abuse, filling a widely decried gap in the Vatican’s approach to the problem.

The Vatican on Wednesday said the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which already holds responsibility for cases of sex abuse by priests, will also “judge bishops with regard to crimes of the abuse of office when connected to the abuse of minors.”

While the Vatican has disciplined hundreds of priests for sex abuse since the outbreak of scandals in the early 2000s, no pope has explicitly punished a bishop for failing to prevent or punish abuse committed by other clergy.

A number of bishops accused of mishandling such cases have resigned under a provision of church law calling for them to step down on account of “ill health or some other grave cause.” A prominent recent case was that of Bishop Robert W. Finn of Kansas City, Mo., who was convicted by a local court in 2012 for failing to report a priest who had produced child pornography. Bishop Finn resigned in April.

The new Vatican measures were recommended unanimously to the pope by his advisory Council of Cardinals, based on recommendations by the papal commission on child protection, led by Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston, who also sits on the council.

Cardinal O’Malley’s predecessor as archbishop of Boston, Cardinal Bernard F. Law, resigned in 2002 under fire for mishandling cases of clerical sex abuse. Pope John Paul II then named Cardinal Law the archpriest of a papal basilica in Rome.

The new measures approved by Pope Francis include the establishment of a new section of the doctrinal congregation’s tribunal, which currently judges cases of clerical sex abuse. In a sign of the enhanced importance of the tribunal as a whole, it will be headed by a new official with the rank of secretary, a job typically assigned to an archbishop.