UNITED STATES
Religion News Service – Spiritual Politics
By Mark Silk
A year ago, Pope Francis announced that a special tribunal would be set up within the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) to judge bishops accused of covering up the abuse of minors. Three months ago, the AP’s Nicole Winfield reported that the tribunal was going nowhere: no special secretary for discipline had been appointed, no staff assigned, no resources allocated, nada.
On Saturday, Francis told the CDF to forget about it. In an apostolic letter written on his own authority (motu proprio), he announced that beginning in September, such accusations — involving not only bishops but also heads of religious orders — will be handled by the Vatican “congregations” charged with overseeing them. The final decision will be up to the pope, acting with the assistance of a new “college” of jurists.
Unsurprisingly, SNAP’s David Clohessy was unimpressed. “Instead of just sacking bad bishops, or turning over abuse records to law enforcement, the Vatican is setting up yet another untested, internal church “process” to purportedly deal with bishops who ignore or conceal child sex crimes,” he said in a statement.
With due respect, Clohessy is wrong. The pope has done something far more consequential than setting up another internal process.
The apostolic letter, titled “Like a Loving Mother,” declares that not dealing properly with abuse accusations is an administrative failure sufficiently serious to warrant removal from office, even if there is no serious moral culpability on the bishop’s part (anche senza grave colpa morale da parte sua). In other words, there’s no need to prove that the bishop personally engaged in a cover-up. If it happened on his watch, he can be removed.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.