ROME (ITALY)
Los Angeles Times
By Tom Kington
February 19, 2019
Pope Francis’ special summit on protecting children from sexual abuse by clergy may be a turning point for the Vatican, but many critics still wonder what took so long.
The four-day summit, which begins Thursday, is expected to explore ways for the Roman Catholic Church to protect children from abuse by examining bishops’ legal responsibilities. It is also supposed to address accountability by church leaders and transparency in confronting cases of abuse.
Francis called more than 100 bishops from around the world and dozens of others, including superiors of men’s and women’s religious orders, to the Vatican amid ongoing scandals about decades-long clergy abuse.
The church last week announced the defrocking of former U.S. Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who was found guilty by the Vatican of sexually abusing a child. The church and the pope during the past year have also faced an abuse scandal in Chile and a Pennsylvania grand jury report showing decades of cover-ups of abuse by priests.
“There is going to be every effort to close whatever loopholes there are and to make sure bishops understand what their responsibilities are,” Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich, who helped organize the summit, said at a Vatican briefing this week. “My hope is people see this as a turning point.”
Cupich was joined at the briefing Monday by Maltese Archbishop Charles Scicluna, the Vatican’s top abuse investigator, who said, “Silence is a no-go. Whether you call it omerta or a state of denial.”
Scicluna said an initial response may be to deny problems, but that is not sufficient.
“It’s a primitive mechanism we need to move away from,” he said.
Francis called the summit after his dramatic U-turn last year on abuse cases in Chile, where he first denounced victims for slandering priests, then admitted widespread abuse and prompted a number of bishops to resign.
“The pope said, ‘I got that wrong, we are not to do it again and we are going to get it right, and that gives us great hope,” said Scicluna, who led Francis’ investigation in Chile.
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