UNITED STATES
Progressive Secular Humanist
February 25, 2017 by Michael Stone
A new report reveals Pope Francis is quietly making the Catholic church a safe space for pedophile priests.
The Associated Press reports that Pope Francis is reducing sanctions against pedophile priests, and even refusing to defrock priests found guilty of sexually abusing children, all in the name of mercy.
In one particularly egregious case, Francis let off one notorious pedophile priest, Rev. Mauro Inzoli, with just a lifetime of prayer for abusing five young boys.
The Associated Press reports about the Pope’s leniency towards pedophile priests:
One case has come back to haunt him: An Italian priest who received the pope’s clemency was later convicted by an Italian criminal court for his sex crimes against children as young as 12. The Rev. Mauro Inzoli is now facing a second church trial after new evidence emerged against him, The Associated Press has learned.
The Inzoli case is one of several in which Francis overruled the advice of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and reduced a sentence that called for the priest to be defrocked, two canon lawyers and a church official told AP. Instead, the priests were sentenced to penalties including a lifetime of penance and prayer and removal from public ministry.
The report notes that by refusing to punish pedophile priests Francis is going against the recommendations of his advisers in an attempt to show “mercy.”
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