Liberty Voice
Added by Lydia Bradbury on March 23, 2014.
Pope Francis is being hailed by many as a revolutionary pontiff, bringing the ancient Roman Catholic Church into the modern era by his openness and acceptance and even his sense of humor. However some of Pope Francis’ recent appointments to Vatican positions carry with them a weight of inescapable irony. In making his initial selections for the new Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, he is assuredly making great strides in the way the church looks at cases of child sexual abuse, but his other appointments to different positions reveal a certain amount of hypocrisy in his selection process.
It was announced today that American Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley, the current Archbishop of Boston, will be the lone American in Francis’ initial selection for the new committee. The American church has been racked by child abuse claims and cases for many years, so it makes sense to have an American in the first round of draft picks. Despite the distance between America and Europe, O’Malley won’t be moving to the Vatican for his new job, since it is not a full-time position. None of the appointments are.
However the other appointees to the committee are all much closer, being primarily from Western Europe. These include high profile experts on child psychology, such as French child psychologist Catherine Bonnet and the former president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists in the United Kingdom, Baroness Sheila Hollins. Francis is making good decisions in having acknowledged and highly qualified experts on the subject readily available to make policy and review cases. Pope Francis also made excellent choices in having campaigners against abuse, like the Reverend Hans Zollner, a Jesuit from Germany. Zollner coordinated a major conference on abuse in 2012 and continues to be an advocate for anti-abuse policy.
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