ROME (ITALY)
USA Today
February 24, 2019
By Trevor Hughes
Pope Francis on Sunday vowed to confront the Catholic Church’s clergy sex abuse scandal head-on, calling for priests to be guided by the “holy fear of God” while victims are believed and supported.
“The church will spare no effort to do all that is necessary to bring to justice whosoever has committed such crimes,” Francis told a group of about 190 Catholic bishops and religious superiors he summoned to Rome. “The church will never seek to hush up or not take seriously any case.”
The sex-abuse scandal has rocked the church for two decades as journalists and prosecutors have uncovered hundreds of examples of predator priests who abused children and were allowed to continue in their ministry. The scandal has prompted many American Catholics to leave the church, which counts about 70 million Americans as members.
Last week, Francis defrocked former U.S. cardinal Theodore McCarrick, 88, after Vatican officials found him guilty of sex crimes against minors and adults. McCarrick is the most senior Catholic official to be defrocked for such crimes, and church experts say that’s a reflection of how slowly the church has moved in response to the ongoing scandal.
After a damning grand jury report released last summer uncovered 300 abusive priests in Pennsylvania, multiple state attorneys general have opened their own cases, and hundreds of new victims are expected to come forward across the U.S.
The Rev. James Bretzke, a theology professor at Marquette University, said the pope demands a change in clerical culture, which has focused more on protecting the church’s reputation than the abuse of children by priests.
“The pope is saying this isn’t just a problem for the United States or Europe or elsewhere,” Bretzke told USA TODAY last week. “The problem is the clerical culture that looks to protect the institution even at the expense of individuals who have been harmed.”
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