SAN FRANCISCO (CA)
San Francisco Chronicle
May 14, 2019
By Celia Wexler
Pope Francis’ new rules on sexual abuse have been called “revolutionary,” “groundbreaking” and “exhaustive.”
But will the pope’s mandates, issued on May 9, actually bring about the reforms that Catholics so desperately want?
On paper, the pope scored a home run. Not only is every priest and member of a religious order required to report abuse or the cover-up of abuse, the pope includes misconduct toward minors and also harms to any adult considered vulnerable to clerical intimidation. That category includes seminarians, nuns and those with mental or physical disabilities.
All dioceses also will have to develop a “public and easily accessible” system for victims to submit complaints. Those who report misconduct cannot be retaliated against, and abuse victims cannot be silenced.
But here’s where the rule breaks down: The Vatican puts the responsibility for investigation of abuse in the hands of the bishops, the very people who have done such a terrible job over the past century.
Marie Collins, an Irish abuse survivor who resigned from the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, put it this way: “[K]eeping it all within the church has been the problem all along, and this is just really continuing that.”
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