The charging of a top Vatican official, Cardinal George Pell, with sex-abuse crimes last week will permanently stain the legacy of Pope Francis, exposing poor judgement in his appointment, victims of sexual abuse said.
Francis’ appointment of Pell, dogged for many years by victims’ allegations that he shielded abusers and had himself molested two young boys in the 1960s, underscores a lack of sufficient vetting for top Vatican posts, Vatican sources said.
Pell, appointed as Francis’ economy minister in 2014, has always strongly denied he molested children or turned a blind eye to abuses.
On Thursday, Australian police charged him with historical sex crimes after a two-year investigation.
The charges bring the church’s global abuse scandal to the heart of the Vatican and, according to victims and their advocates, weaken the pope’s credibility in tackling a decades-old crisis against which he vowed “zero tolerance.”
“I think his legacy is under severe threat,” said Peter Saunders, a victim of clergy abuse who took a leave of absence from the papal advisory commission on abuse last year in protest over a lack of progress.
“I genuinely thought when I met with Francis three years ago that: ‘This man is the real deal,’ and he is going to get on with things and I really thought there was a prospect of real, significant and rapid change, but he is surrounded by people who don’t want change,” Saunders, a Briton, said in a telephone interview.
The affair threatens to overshadow accolades the Argentine pope has won since his election in 2013 for bringing the church closer to poor people and refugees, and making it more welcoming to those who felt excluded in the past, such as homosexuals.
Church sexual abuse broke into the open in the US with reports of cases in Louisiana in 1984 and exploded in 2002, when journalists in Boston found that bishops had systematically moved abusers to new posts instead of defrocking them.
VICTIMS SPEAK UP
Thousands of cases have come to light around the world as investigations have encouraged long-silent victims to go public, shattering the church’s reputation in places such as Ireland, and more than US$2 billion has been paid in compensation
Pell, 76, has taken a leave of absence to return to Australia, saying: “I am looking forward finally to having my day in court. I repeat that I am innocent of these charges.”
Victims groups have accused Pell of mishandling cases of abuse when he was in Australia as archbishop of Melbourne and later Sydney.
Pell last year told an Australian inquiry that the church had made “catastrophic” choices by refusing to believe abused children, shuffling abusive priests from parish to parish and relying too heavily on the counsel of priests to solve the problem.
He denied involvement in any cover-up.
Australian police did not detail the charges or specify the ages of the alleged victims or the period when the crimes were alleged to have occurred.
Pell was ordered to appear before Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on July 26.
Marie Collins of Ireland, another non-clerical member of the Vatican commission Francis established in 2014, and also a victim of priestly abuse when she was a child, quit in frustration in March, citing a “shameful” lack of cooperation within the Vatican.
“What I have no hesitation in saying is that it has been proved that Cardinal Pell is guilty of the appalling mishandling of cases of abuse when still in place in Australia and causing untold pain to the victims in those cases,” she wrote on her Web site.
“The fact that Cardinal Pell was appointed to a very senior post in the Vatican rather than having to face any sanction for his mishandling of abuse cases was a slap in the face to all those he had let down so badly,” she wrote.
The case also pointed to what Vatican insiders say is an inherently opaque and lax system for the appointment of some officials, and a tendency to look the other way if the pope really wants someone whose past might be less than limpid.
“There really is no structured vetting process for top Vatican jobs as there is for when a priest is made a bishop or when a bishop is made a cardinal,” said a Vatican source who follows abuse cases.
“When someone is already a cardinal, as Pell was in Sydney, the feeling is that there is little left to vet,” the priest said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk about the case.
FINANCIAL PROWESS
Francis was impressed by Pell when they met in 2013. In meetings among cardinals before the conclave that elected Francis pope that year, the former Australian Rules soccer player stood out not only for his height and broad shoulders, but also for his command of financial matters.
After becoming pope, Francis, hoping to put an end to Vatican financial scandals, moved Pell to Rome to head a new ministry, the Secretariat for the Economy.
More than a decade earlier, in 2002, Pell, the then-archbishop of Sydney, faced an internal church investigation relating to allegations that he had molested two boys at a holiday camp in the early 1960s when he was a trainee priest.
A retired Australian judge, Alex Southwell, ran a closed hearing at a Melbourne hotel.
He wrote in his findings that the alleged victim appeared to be telling the truth, but that there was no evidence to substantiate it.
He concluded that he was “not satisfied the complaint has been established,” citing lack of evidence, Pell’s sworn denial, and the complainant’s later alcoholism and criminal history.
Recently, China launched another diplomatic offensive against Taiwan, improperly linking its “one China principle” with UN General Assembly Resolution 2758 to constrain Taiwan’s diplomatic space. After Taiwan’s presidential election on Jan. 13, China persuaded Nauru to sever diplomatic ties with Taiwan. Nauru cited Resolution 2758 in its declaration of the diplomatic break. Subsequently, during the WHO Executive Board meeting that month, Beijing rallied countries including Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Belarus, Egypt, Nicaragua, Sri Lanka, Laos, Russia, Syria and Pakistan to reiterate the “one China principle” in their statements, and assert that “Resolution 2758 has settled the status of Taiwan” to hinder Taiwan’s
Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s (李顯龍) decision to step down after 19 years and hand power to his deputy, Lawrence Wong (黃循財), on May 15 was expected — though, perhaps, not so soon. Most political analysts had been eyeing an end-of-year handover, to ensure more time for Wong to study and shadow the role, ahead of general elections that must be called by November next year. Wong — who is currently both deputy prime minister and minister of finance — would need a combination of fresh ideas, wisdom and experience as he writes the nation’s next chapter. The world that
Can US dialogue and cooperation with the communist dictatorship in Beijing help avert a Taiwan Strait crisis? Or is US President Joe Biden playing into Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) hands? With America preoccupied with the wars in Europe and the Middle East, Biden is seeking better relations with Xi’s regime. The goal is to responsibly manage US-China competition and prevent unintended conflict, thereby hoping to create greater space for the two countries to work together in areas where their interests align. The existing wars have already stretched US military resources thin, and the last thing Biden wants is yet another war.
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, people have been asking if Taiwan is the next Ukraine. At a G7 meeting of national leaders in January, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida warned that Taiwan “could be the next Ukraine” if Chinese aggression is not checked. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has said that if Russia is not defeated, then “today, it’s Ukraine, tomorrow it can be Taiwan.” China does not like this rhetoric. Its diplomats ask people to stop saying “Ukraine today, Taiwan tomorrow.” However, the rhetoric and stated ambition of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Taiwan shows strong parallels with