UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism
Jerry Slevin
Pope Francis for two years has mainly continued the quarter century old priest child abuse cover-up policy of his two predecessors, it appears. The policy includes keeping secret Vatican records relating to the cover-up, including some records most recently requested futilely by Australia’s Royal Commission. The papal cover-up policy has completely failed.
Now an Australian Archbishop has become the world’s most senior Catholic leader criminally charged with concealing child abuse.The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Adelaide, Philip Wilson, has been charged with concealing child sexual abuse by Fr, James Fletcher, who died in prison while serving time for raping an altar boy. If found guilty, the archbishop could serve up to two years in jail. It is uncertain at present whether Wilson’s criminal proceedings will involve any secret Vatican records.
Pope Francis needs to ask whether more criminal charges against bishops, and even cardinals, will soon follow. He needs to revisit his “go slow” approach to curtailing priest child abusers and to holding complicit bishops accountable only to secretive Vatican proceedings. Even one of the pope’s two showpiece abuse survivor commission members, the UK’s Peter Saunders, has now even bravely and boldly offered to take over personally the Vatican child protection efforts, presumably after Saunders has gotten to see up close the “go slow” commission’s selective and inadequate efforts.
Francis needs a real “gamechanger”. He needs to call for an ecumenical council, as Pope John XXIII did over a half century ago. and make the subject of bishop accountability a top priority item for the new council.
Given the escalating governmental investigations, in Australia (including of Archbishop Wilson and Cardinal Pell), in the UK ( including of Cardinal O’Brien), in Minneapolis (including of Archbishop Niensted and his former vicar, the brother of President Obama’s Chief of Staff), in the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico (USA) (including of Archbishop Wesolowski), and in many other countries, Pope Francis, in his self declared short remaining papacy, will need all the trust he can generate now by giving the full truth, without spin, to Catholics. A full airing at a council can help build that trust.
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