BRAZIL
National Catholic Reporter
by John L. Allen Jr. | Jul. 26, 2013 NCR Today
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Boston’s Cardinal Sean O’Malley has spent the last two decades dealing with the church’s sexual abuse scandals, so when he speaks on the subject, people listen – presumably, up to and including Pope Francis himself.
In April, Francis named O’Malley as one of eight cardinals from around the world to help him govern the universal church and to reform the Vatican, in part, perhaps, because of his profile as a reformer on the abuse crisis.
In an interview today, O’Malley acknowledged that so far Francis hasn’t yet really engaged the issue, and suggested two steps he believes the pope could take that would make a difference:
• Prodding bishops’ conferences from around the world that haven’t yet finished their anti-abuse guidelines, offering whatever resources they need to get the job done.
• Implementing in the Vatican the same anti-abuse protocols that dioceses and other Catholic venues have adopted, including background checks and screening of all personnel, training in abuse prevention and detection, as well as training in how to handle accusations when they arise and how to conduct outreach to victims. Doing so, he said, would be a “powerful example.”
O’Malley made the comments in a July 26 interview in Rio de Janeiro, where he’s taking part in the July 22-28 World Youth Day.
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