VATICAN CITY
The New York Times
By ELISABETTA POVOLEDO and ALAN COWELL
Published: December 5, 2013
VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis will set up a commission to advise him on protecting children from sexually abusive priests and on how the church should counsel victims, the Vatican said on Thursday. The step was his first to address one of the most sensitive issues facing his papacy.
The timing of the announcement, two days after a United Nations panel criticized the Vatican over its handling of abuse cases, suggested that the pope and his closest advisers want to be seen to be tackling the issue with greater firmness than in the past.
The announcement was a forthright acknowledgment by the Vatican of the enduring problem of abusive priests, and it fit with Pope Francis’s pattern of willingness to set a new tone in dealing with religious and secular critics of the church.
The suggestion to set up the commission came from the group of eight cardinals brought together by the pope a month after his election in March to advise him on reforming the Vatican’s labyrinthine bureaucracy.
Precisely who will serve on the advisory commission and what authority it will have remained unclear. But Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley, the only American among the eight cardinals advising the pope, said on Thursday that it would include priests, men and women from religious orders and lay people with expertise in safeguarding children, and that it would offer advice on pastoral care rather than judicial functions. That seemed to signal that it would not make proposals for exposing or punishing abusive clerics.
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