Allentown Bishop John Barres praises Pope Francis' 'powerful' statement on sexual abuse

By Dan Sheehan
Morning Call
September 27, 2015

http://www.mcall.com/news/nationworld/pennsylvania/mc-pope-sexual-abuse-victims-20150927-story.html

PHILADELHIA — Pope Francis met with victims of child sexual abuse Sunday, the final day of his U.S. visit, and promised to hold accountable those responsible for the scandal in the church, delivering a powerful warning to American bishops accused of covering up for pedophile priests instead of reporting them to police.

In a gesture of reconciliation just hours before he was to return to Rome, the pontiff praised the victims as "true heralds of mercy" who deserve the church's gratitude for helping to bring the truth to light.

"God weeps, for the sexual abuse of children cannot be maintained in secret, and I commit to a careful oversight to ensure that youth are protected and that all responsible will be held accountable," Francis said in Spanish.

It was Francis' second such meeting. He met with sexual abuse victims at the Vatican in July 2014.

But in a move that signaled a new effort by the church to reshape the discussion, the Vatican said not all five of the victims at Sunday's meeting were abused by members of the clergy. Some of the three women and two men had been victimized by family members or educators.

"I was so touched by his statement to the survivors," said Allentown Bishop John O. Barres, who attended the pope's visit to St. Charles Borromeo Seminary on Sunday morning and was among the concelebrants of Sunday afternoon's Mass in front of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Francis likened survivors to the disciples on the road to Emmaus after the crucifixion, who fall in with a fellow traveler and realize only later they have been in the company of Christ. When they recognize him, they beg him to stay with them.

"Like those disciples, I humbly beg you and all survivors of abuse to stay with us," Francis told the survivors.

The Catholic Church has been dogged for decades by allegations of harboring clergy who sexually abused children. The scandal exploded in 2002 with revelations of widespread abuse within the Archdiocese of Boston.

Since then, the Catholic Church has spent billions settling lawsuits filed by thousands of victims in dioceses where thousands of priests and other clergy were shuffled from parish to parish instead of being criminally charged. About a dozen from the Allentown Catholic Diocese were targeted in civil lawsuits claiming abuse.

By the end of 2002, eight priests in the five-county diocese had been removed or had resigned over allegations of abuse.

That year, then-Bishop Edward Cullen joined bishops nationwide in installing sweeping measures to protect children, including instituting background checks for clergy and others working and volunteering in the diocese of 259,000 Catholics, setting up a panel to review allegations of sexual abuse and pledging to file criminal charges against any suspected abuser. The diocese also offered counseling to victims.

"These are lifelong traumas," Barres said, praising Francis' call to have a "Good Samaritan commitment" to survivors. In that parable, the Samaritan not only aids a stranger immediately, but makes sure he will be cared for later.

At least one sexual abuse victim found hope in the pope's words.

State Rep. Mark Rozzi, D-Berks, a priest-abuse survivor who has sponsored legislation to extend the statute of limitations for filing child sex-abuse claims, called the pope's statements and meeting "encouraging."

"It's a good start," Rozzi said Sunday. "Now if we can put those words into actions."

Rozzi said he did not know which abuse victims met with the pope, but "hopefully they were able to get their message across to him."

The pope's meeting and pledges of more action were not enough to satisfy victims advocacy groups.

In a statement, the Foundation to Abolish Child Sex Abuse, based in Bryn Mawr, said the survivor community has been asking the church for years to reveal the identities of all priests who have been accused of abuse and drop its opposition to statute-of-limitation reform, which would lift the cap on when criminal action can be taken against abusers.

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia has been hit hard by the sex-abuse scandal and has been the subject of repeated grand jury investigations, including one that accused it of keeping on assignment more than three dozen priests facing serious accusations. A monsignor was found guilty of endangering children by not removing pedophile priests, becoming the first American church official convicted of such an offense.

The pope has agreed to create a new Vatican tribunal to prosecute bishops who failed to protect their flock, and he has accepted the resignations of three U.S. bishops accused of mishandling cases. During the previous meeting with victims, he similarly vowed to hold bishops accountable.

But Francis and U.S. bishops have also argued that child molestation is a serious problem beyond the church, especially within families and in schools. The meeting with victims abused by people other than priests underscored that point.

The main victims support group, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, dismissed the meeting as an exercise in public relations.

"Is a child anywhere on Earth safer now that a pope, for maybe the seventh or eighth time or ninth time, has briefly chatted with abuse victims? No," said SNAP's David Clohessy.

SNAP also pointed out on its website that the "disgraced" former head of the Philadelphia archdiocese, Cardinal Justin Rigali, was among those celebrating Mass with Francis at the basilica Saturday.

Rigali retired to the Diocese of Knoxville (Tenn.) months after a grand jury accused the Philadelphia archdiocese of sheltering more than three dozen credibly accused priests and lying about it to victims and others.

The Rev. Tom Doyle, a canon lawyer who worked at the Vatican embassy in Washington and is now an advocate for victims, said including more than just victims of abusive clergy "seriously minimizes" the problem in the church.

"We don't think we're going to get any real support to change this from the leadership in the Vatican," Doyle said in a phone interview. "They're having this big meeting of families. But there's been no real room for all the families that the Catholic Church has destroyed through sexual abuse."

The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said the pope met with the survivors for a half-hour at the seminary. He said the pope prayed with them, listened to their stories and expressed his closeness in their suffering and his "pain and shame" in the case of those abused by priests.