Pope Francis ‘Backsliding’ On Paedophile Priest Crackdown

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The Pope may be backsliding on his crackdown on paedophile priests as Vatican bureaucrats are doing all they can to undermine reform efforts, a senior Australian Catholic official has warned.

Francis Sullivan who leads the Australian church’s response to a four-year investigation into child abuse, says the  Church in Australia could end up as a “marginalised rump” unless there is real change to an institutional culture hell-bent on self-protection and self-preservation.

“You have to seriously wonder whether this isn’t the Pope backsliding on what has been a strong and determined crackdown on offending priests and the circumstances that allowed abuse to take place,” Sullivan said.

The Independent reports:

Francis Sullivan, who is in charge of the Catholic Church’s Truth, Justice and Healing Council, said he feared the Vatican’s “bureaucrats and courtiers [were] doing all they can to either undermine the Pope or driving an agenda” of protecting the institution, according to Australian Associated Press (AAP).

In 2014 the Pope ordered a “zero-tolerance” stance on members of the clergy who abused children. Before that the church had been criticised by the UN for the frequency with which allegedly abusive priests were moved to different areas rather than turned over to police.

Mr Sullivan also pointed to the resignation from the Vatican’s child protection commission of campaigner and abuse survivor Marie Collins, who had accused the institution of a “shameful lack of cooperation”, as evidence of a culture of self-preservation, the AAP reported.

Mr Sullivan said: “You have to seriously wonder whether this isn’t the Pope backsliding on what has been a strong and determined crackdown on offending priests and the circumstances that allowed abuse to take place.”

In May last year Pope Francis called the abuse of children “a tragedy” and said: “We must protect our minors and severely punish abusers.”

According to Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse, 7 per cent of Catholic priests were accused of crimes in relation to children between 1950 and 2010.

But few cases were ever investigated. Responding to the findings in February, Mr Sullivan said they were “shocking” and “indefensible”.

Data compiled by the Council showed 1,265 Catholic priests, brothers and nuns had been accused in the period.

The Commission – Australia’s highest form of public inquiry – is also investigating abuse at non-religious institutions, including schools and sports clubs. It began in 2013 and has heard hours of harrowing testimony from alleged victims.

2 Comments

  1. The truth is starting to penetrate too close to home, especially the period when this psychopath cooperated with the brutal Argentine Fascist coup while Bishop of Buenos Aires.

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