BRUSSELS (BELGIUM)
BishopAccountability.org [Waltham MA]
September 27, 2024
Pope Francis meets with Belgian victims: Statement from Anne Barrett Doyle, Co-Director, BishopAccountability.org
Friday, September 27, 2024
After expressing shame and sorrow in Belgium on Thursday, Pope Francis attempted damage control again Friday evening, when he met with 17 Belgian victims of clergy sex abuse.
Each time the Pope visits a country rocked by revelations of clergy sex abuse, he follows the same PR playbook: he meets with victims, expresses shame, and promises change. He employed these tactics in Portugal in 2023, in Canada in 2022, in Ireland in 2018, in Chile in 2018, and in the U.S. in 2015.
We know from these past examples that the Pope’s meeting with victims in Belgium will have few meaningful consequences. While it may have provided validation to the 17 survivors in attendance, it won’t change the systemic corruption in the Belgian church, and not one child in Belgium will be safer because of it.
The Pope’s meetings with victims are about public relations, not reform. And at this point in his papacy, the tactic is tired. An apology without effective reform is worse than meaningless. It’s disrespectful.
The Pope speaks and acts differently in visits to countries where the church is not being embarrassed by negative headlines. On those trips, he makes no mention of abuse, and he does not take the time to meet with victims. He did not meet with clergy sex abuse victims during his visits to Hungary, the Congo, Romania or Panama, even though the church’s victims in each of those countries surely also number in the thousands.
Most heartbreakingly, he chose not to meet with clergy sex abuse victims during his recent visit to East Timor. He chose to not even speak about clergy sex abuse, other than a passing reference to abuse in general.
This calculated omission by Francis was an abdication of compassion and courage. East Timor is a rare instance in which a papal meeting with victims or even a few powerful words could have made a difference. That country is starkly different from Belgium, where the prime minister, the king and most of the public give victims rousing support. The people of East Timor are devoutly Catholic, and they overwhelmingly side with two known abusers, a popular bishop and former missionary. The victims who’ve testified against these men are in hiding. Victims of other predatory priests surely don’t dare come forward.
The Pope’s tragic decision in East Timor will have consequences. He could have made Timorese victims safer — indeed, he could have made all Timorese children safer — but he chose not to do so.
The untold thousands of victims of the Catholic church in East Timor, Belgium and elsewhere deserve the “concrete actions” that the Pope repeatedly has promised. It is not too late for Francis to enact genuine reform. He could take these basic and crucial steps to stop clergy sexual abuse and its cover-up:
- He could change universal canon law to enact true “zero tolerance” for sexual abusers in the priesthood. This would mean that a cleric found guilty of even a single act of child molestation would be removed permanently from ministry. To our knowledge, the only national bishops’ policy that comes close to “zero tolerance,” at least on paper, is that passed by the U.S. bishops in 2002.
- He could revamp his ineffective ‘bishop accountability’ law, Vos estis lux mundi, which even his own advisor, Fr. Hans Zollner, S.J, describes as ‘not working.’ The Pope could clean house, country after country, removing complicit bishops, stripping them of their titles, and publishing accounts of their wrongdoing.
- He could demonstrate transparency with a meaningful directive. He could order the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith to release the names, assignment histories, and case files of the thousands of priests it has found guilty. He thereby would make common cause with abuse victims worldwide, as well as the 162 dioceses and 34 religious order provinces in the U.S. who have published at least partial lists of credibly accused priests.
About BishopAccountability.org
Founded in 2003, BishopAccountability.org maintains the world’s largest archive of documents on the problem of clergy sexual abuse, outside the Holy See’s own archives. We conduct research on child sexual abuse by priests and religious and on the management of those cases by bishops and their staffs, superiors of religious orders, and the Holy See. An independent non-profit based in Waltham, Massachusetts, USA, BishopAccountability.org is not a victims’ advocacy group and is not affiliated with any church, reform, or victims’ organization.
Contact for BishopAccountability.org
Anne Barrett Doyle, Co-Director, BishopAccountability.org, barrett.doyle@comcast.net