ERIE (PA)
WJET-TV
February 26, 2019
Yesterday, we reported on the anti-climactic Clergy Abuse Summit in Rome. Today, SNAP representatives are speaking out about the lack of action taken by those in attendance.
A representative of SNAP says, “After four long days in Rome, survivors and advocates who had hoped to see Catholic church officials take concrete action towards ending the clergy abuse and cover-up crisis were left disappointed. At the end, Pope Francis offered only words, reflection points, and policies to consider for the future.
No bishop who had been involved in covering-up or minimizing allegations was fired. No directive was handed down to order bishops to turn over their secret abuse files to police. No punishment was agreed upon nor system put in place for disciplining those bishops who continue to cover-up abuse cases in the future.
In other words, no child was made safer and no survivor was helped during this summit.
And so, in many ways, not only was the summit everything that survivors expected it would be, but is also an affirmation that we are right to lay our hopes for change at the feet of secular officials, not those in the church.
This summit was called because of the explosive grand jury reports and investigations in places like Pennsylvania and Chile. The work of independent law enforcement officials compelled catholic leaders to look deeply at this problem once again and, now that those same catholic leaders have failed to take direct action, those secular officials will be the ones we are looking to for action in the future.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.