Will the Vatican Discipline Offending Bishops?

New York Times
June 8, 2016

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/08/opinion/will-the-vatican-discipline-offending-bishops.html?_r=0

Pope Francis in Saint Peter’s Square at the Vatican last week.

Victims and their advocates are understandably skeptical about Pope Francis’ latest plan for disciplining bishops who schemed for years to protect abusive priests in the church’s devastating pedophilia scandal.

The pope dropped last year’s plan to create a special tribunal to investigate offending bishops. Instead, last week, he handed the task to existing Vatican agencies, accompanied by a personal order to investigate and remove diocesan leaders found guilty of engaging in cover-ups.

The fief-like powers of bishops, plus the Vatican’s failure to act, made cover-ups possible. After Francis became pope, he promised that the Vatican would do more to address a scandal that, as the news media revealed, had reached staggering proportions.

In the United States alone, where more than 700 priests were eventually dismissed, no bishops were punished by Rome as the scandal unfolded. This despite an investigation by lay leaders who warned “there must be consequences” for those who provided refuge for priests accused of raping schoolchildren, which often meant that the accused priests were shifted from parish to parish.

Public reaction to the pope’s new approach suggests that he will have to deliver prompt and credible enforcement from Rome if the church is to regain the laity’s confidence. Mitchell Garabedian, the Boston lawyer who played a key role in uncovering the scandal and was featured in the film “Spotlight,” told The National Catholic Reporter, “History has shown us that the Catholic Church is incapable of objectively investigating itself in clergy sexual abuse cases.”

The Vatican has long had the power to remove an offending diocesan prelate, but has rarely used it. A papal spokesman says that Francis’ new order is designed to broaden that power by making it easier to fire a bishop, particularly “when there is negligence with regard to cases of sexual abuse.” The order stresses that any accused bishop will be entitled to defend himself, but the pope will exercise the ultimate judgment in investigations.

It’s encouraging that Pope Francis is using his authority to push the Vatican machinery to act. But the church faithful will be watching to see whether diocesan leaders will ever be made answerable for their part in allowing the sexual abuse of children to continue when much of it could have been stopped.