ROME (ITALY)
Associated Press
February 21, 2019
Pope Francis’ high-stakes sex abuse prevention summit is meant to call attention to the crisis as a global problem that requires a global response.
His decision was sparked by the realisation that in many parts of the world, bishops and religious superiors continue to deny or play down the severity of the scandal and protect their priests and the reputation of the church at all costs.
Much of the developing world has largely escaped a public explosion of the scandal, as have conflict zones and countries where Catholics are a minority.
But even majority Catholic countries have lagged. Just this week, the online resource BishopAccountability listed Brazil, Mexico, the Philippines, Congo and a handful of other heavily Catholic countries as places where the church leadership has failed to respond adequately when priests rape and molest children.
Some countries where the scandal has played out visibly in recent years:
ARGENTINA
Francis’ home country is beginning to see an eruption of the scandal, with some cases even implicating the pontiff himself.
As Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Francis played a decisive and divisive role in Argentina’s most famous abuse case, commissioning a four-volume, 2,000-plus page forensic study of the legal case against a convicted priest that concluded he was innocent, that his victims were lying and that the case never should have gone to trial.
Despite the study, Argentina’s Supreme Court in 2017 upheld the conviction and 15-year prison sentence for the Rev. Giulio Grassi, a celebrity priest who ran homes for street children across Argentina.
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