LONDON (ENGLAND)
The Tablet
May 9, 2019
The new law issued by Pope Francis to combat clerical sexual abuse is a significant milestone in the Church’s long battle to tackle a scandal that has posed the greatest crisis to Catholicism’s credibility in 500 years.
Finally, after years of wrangling and resistance, the Church has a universal set of norms for how to handle abuse allegations, giving everyone responsibility in tackling the scourge be they a Cardinal Archbishop or ordinary Catholic.
The laws widen the scope of abuse to include “abuses of authority” whereby seminarians or religious are manipulated into sexual activity by superiors and sets out how bishops will be investigated for both allegations of abuse and cover-ups.
These are welcome developments. The lack of accountability for Church leaders was brutally exposed by the case of Theodore McCarrick, a former cardinal and priest found to have abused both minors and seminarians. Despite concerns being raised about his behaviour he was able to rise up the cleric ranks to become Archbishop of Washington DC in 2000.
But the crucial shift in the new legislation is the obligation for everyone in the Church, ordained or not, to report abuse to superiors. What was in the past left up to the conscience of individual priests and nuns is now set out in law.
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