ROME (ITALY)
Crux
January 21, 2019
By Inés San Martín and Christopher WhiteJ
When presidents and other representatives of the world’s nearly 130 bishops’ conferences gather in Rome next month for a summit on clerical sex abuse, many experts are predicting it will be the most-covered Vatican event since the last papal election in 2013.
Whether the gathering lives up to that hype, however, remains to be seen.
The Vatican has sought to downplay expectations for the February 21-24 event, with newly minted editorial director of the Vatican’s dicastery for Communications and veteran journalist Andrea Tornielli labeling the media hype of it as “excessive.” Yet the fact remains that after nearly a year of ongoing sex abuse scandals that have shaken the Church to its core, survivors and rank-and-file Catholics alike are increasingly impatient for results.
As the countdown begins, here’s Crux’s look at what is known – and what remains unknown.
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