After a historic Vatican summit on child sexual abuse by priests, campaigners are demanding that the Catholic Church now turns words and resolutions into action.
At the end of three days of debate on Sunday, Pope Francis promised an “all-out battle” against the scourge that has done so much damage to the church’s reputation worldwide.
However, victims’ groups reacted sharply to the tone of his speech and what they said was a lack of concrete measures.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“The pope has announced a battle against child abuse, but he has the weakest weapons imaginable,” BishopAccountability.org codirector Anne Barrett Doyle said.
As a mark of good faith, the Vatican announced an interministerial meeting on Monday on the protection of minors.
Urging more tangible progress, BishopAccountability.org and fellow campaigning group End Clergy Abuse have drawn up a 21-point plan of action for the pope.
Their “Points of Action for Pope Francis” was intended to sharpen the Vatican’s good intentions, as the pontiff set out in his points of reflection at the start of the summit.
“These aren’t reflection points, these are action points, battle plans,” Ending Clergy Abuse spokesman Peter Isely said.
Referring to the pope, Doyle said: “If he were to do the 21 points in this list, he would end this scourge once and for all.”
Their plan of action pulls no punches.
Any cleric found guilty of even a single act of child sexual abuse should be permanently removed from the priesthood, they said — as should any bishop or religious superior helping cover it up.
All abusers or suspected abusers should be reported to the civil authorities and any abuse-related files handed over to them, the campaigners added.
The church should also draw up a public list of all abusers, past and present, they said.
After eight victims of sexual abuse told the summit what they had endured at the hands of priests, journalists asked the Vatican if those responsible had been punished — but the church was unable to say.
For Isely, this was unacceptable.
“Are you saying that these ‘ravenous wolves’ might be out there right now, tearing apart children, and you don’t know who they are?” he asked, borrowing a phrase used by the pope in his speech.
Both organizations nevertheless remained optimistic of change.
“People are hearing our voices around the world this week, and they are listening to us,” Isely said.
Referring to the Vatican and the Catholic Church itself, he said: “There is a lot of good here, but to find the good, we have to first face the evil that’s here.”
On Monday, the International Union of Superiors General (IUSG), which represents 600,000 Catholic nuns, also promised to do better.
Ten members of the IUSG board were invited to attend this summit.
IUSG secretary-general Sister Patricia Murray vowed action to ensure “that never again will this happen because of our lack of action or our blindness.”
Sister Veronica Openibo, another union board member, gave a hard-hitting speech to the summit denouncing the church’s long silence on this issue.
“I felt that there were people, bishops, cardinals, who did not believe some of the things I was saying,” the Nigerian nun told journalists. “Some African bishops thought there were more important issues.”
“The greatest work now is to give hope — hope to the victims, and to our children for tomorrow. Because if we don’t act now, it will be too late: because the credibility of the church is at stake,” she said.
The IUSG urged the creation of defined structures to deal with complaints.
“We are encouraging religious women who have been abused, sexually, psychospiritually, even in terms of harassment, bullying — there are lots of different ways in which a woman can be abused... to report that,” Murray said.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of