UNITED STATES
USA Today
Brett M. Decker
April 21, 2014
This Sunday, one week after Easter, Pope Francis is scheduled to canonize two of his predecessors, John Paul II and John XXIII. Few moves could so quickly undo his popular efforts to make the Roman Catholic Church more sensitive to the values of modern churchgoers.
Francis has concentrated much of his 13-month papacy on making symbolic gestures. To great news media fanfare, he wears black boots with his clerical robes instead of more formal, traditional slippers, and he sleeps in a hotel built for cardinals rather than the papal apartment in the Vatican palace.
Church knew
The impact of the Argentine pontiff raising two popes to sainthood after their failures to address the globe-spanning clergy sex abuse scandal would be far more than symbolic. The scandal damaged thousands of innocent lives and cost the church billions of dollars in legal damages as well as its moral standing.
John XXIII, pope from 1958 to 1963, and John Paul II, pope from 1978 to 2005, both held their positions after the widespread abuse, stretching back deep into the 20th century, was known to the Vatican.
The strict hierarchical structure of the Roman church means accountability goes straight to the top. The buck stops at the pope’s desk, for good or for ill.
Canonizing pontiffs from the era of abuse is not only tone deaf but also exposes a continuing, stubborn refusal to acknowledge the institutional coverup that occurred for decades and that those at the highest levels — including popes — didn’t do enough to prevent the crimes, enabling the crisis to continue.
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