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It was an unfortunate year for Pope Francis, whose slowness in dealing with badual abuse of clerics collaborates in events beyond his control that threaten his legacy and launch the Catholic hierarchy into a crisis of credibility never seen before. These days. 19659002] The last event – in a far-away country – gives the impression that Francis simply did not "understand" when he became pope in 2013 and that he started directing the company. ;church.
Early mistakes included badociation with compromised cardinals bishops and underestimated or rejected rumors of abuse and concealment. Francisco finally took a stand in 2018, when he publicly admitted that he was wrong about an affair in Chile, repaired and laid the foundation for the future by organizing a summit on the prevention of abuse next year.
on the subject were made. Before opening his eyes, Francis showed that he was a product of the very clerical culture that he always denounces, always ready to accept the cleric's word regarding the victims.
The year has started well: Francisco has dedicated his annual message of peace. January 1 to the suffering of migrants and refugees. Shortly after, he baptized 34 babies in the Sistine Chapel and encouraged his mother to badfeed, a typically Franciscan demonstration of informal practicality in the midst of the splendor of Michelangelo's "final judgment"
Then came Chile. In January, Francis had been dominated by the mullahs' abuse scandal and had staged unprecedented protests against a papal visit: churches were attacked with incendiary bombs and soldiers used water cannons to suppress demonstrations [19659003] The Chilean opposition to Francis had begun three years earlier, when the Argentine pope had appointed Juan Barros Bishop of the diocese of Osorno. Francisco had rejected accusations that Barros ignored and concealed the abuses committed by Chile's most important predatory priest by imposing a diocese that would have nothing to do with him.
"The day they introduced me against Bishop Barros, I will speak," Francisco said on his last day in Chile. "
Francisco defended Barros because one of his friends and advisers, Chilean Cardinal Javier Errazuriz, had defended Barros." There is not one type of evidence against him. In 2013, Francisco appointed Errazuriz to his small circle, a parallel parallel cabinet of nine cardinals, meeting every three months at the Vatican.
Chilean victims accuse Errazuriz for a long time of being deaf to their listeners. while he was Archbishop of Santiago, covering the abusers and their facilitators. Francisco ignored the victims' concerns and appointed Errazuriz to the higher cabinet.
Following his disastrous trip to Chile, Francisco slowly approached the victims, in part as a result of reports from the Associated Press. He ordered a thorough investigation of the Chilean church, admitted "serious errors of judgment" and apologized personally to the victims that he had discredited. He accused the Chilean leaders of creating a "secret culture" and guaranteed the resignation of all active bishops, including Barros. He promised that the Catholic Church would never "hide" the abuses, and earlier this month the Vatican announced that Francis had deposed Errazuriz from the government.
Cardinal George Pell was also removed from office. In June 2017, he was tried by the Vatican for historical crimes of badual abuse in his home country, Australia. Like Errazuriz, Pell has been the target of the anger of the victims of abuse for many years, long before Francis took him to the Vatican, because of his prominent role in Australia and the US. horrible story of the abused Catholic Church.
Both men deny that they did something wrong. But his constant presence at the Council of Nine, as the cabinet calls it, became a source of scandal for the Pope, who said goodbye in October with a letter thanking them for his service. For Pell, the withdrawal of C9 suggests that he will not resume his work at the Vatican, his five-year term coming to an end early next year.
They are not the only cardinals in the limelight: the current archbishop of Santiago is being investigated as part of a large criminal investigation into the concealment of badual abuse. Promoters from a dozen US states are investigating church records. A concealment lawsuit in France has two cardinals as defendants, including the Spaniard who runs the Vatican office that prosecutes cases of badual abuse. The Holy See invoked sovereign immunity to spare the Cardinal of Spain, Luis Ladaria Ferrer. But it does not have such power to protect Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, Archbishop of Lyon, France, accused of not reporting to the authorities an abusive priest.
Despite these problems, the Chilean scandal was largely redeemed and the decisions made to purge its restricted circle of committed members, Francisco it seemed that, in the middle of the year, he was about to go out of the badual abuse crisis of 2018.
Then began the second round.
In July, Francis retired from American Archbishop Theodore McCarrick for the title of Cardinal. after church investigators said that the allegation that he would have put his finger on a boy altar boy in the 1970s was credible.
A month later, a Pennsylvania grand jury report revealed seven decades of abuse and concealment in six dioceses, alleging abuses and acts of intimidation. that more than 1000 children were badaulted by about 300 parents. Most of the priests were already dead and the crimes went well before Francis's papacy.
But the combined scandal created a crisis of confidence in the hierarchy of the United States and the Vatican. Apparently, in the United States and in the direction of the Vatican, everyone knew that "Uncle Ted", as he was called, slept with seminarians and that he always remained impbadive in the ranks of the 39; church.
After deposing McCarrick and approving a canon trial against him, Francis should have become the hero of the saga since he corrected the error of St. John Paul II, the pope of 1978-2005 who had promoted McCarrick and whose abusive behavior was far worse but the Franciscan wave was interrupted when a former Vatican ambbadador to the United States accused the pope himself of participating in McCarrick's concealment .
In an 11-page report Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano said in August that Vatican officials, during three pontificates, were aware of McCarrick's propensity to seminarians and had turned a blind eye.
Vigano wrote that he had told Francis in 2013 at the beginning of his pontificate that McCarrick had "corrupted a generation" of seminarians and priests and that Pope Benedict had just punished him for his badual misconduct.
Vigano claims that Francis was unaware of his 2013 alert and rehabilitated McCarrick from these sanctions, making him a key advisor and giving him delicate badignments in China and elsewhere.
Francis never responded to Vigano's complaint list. Instead, Francis blamed the devil – "the Great Accuser" – for sowing division and discord in the church, an indirect slap in Vigano that only fueled the Conservative outrage against Francis and demands that he tell what he knew about McCarrick. 19659002] The Vatican did not help Francis to defend himself when, without providing any plausible reason, he prevented the American bishops from adopting measures of responsibility to try to restore confidence in their herds.
It now seems clear that Francis, at least at the beginning of his pontificate, was willing to ignore the badual misconduct of the past or to conceal the claims if those responsible had been redeemed. Francis published his pontificate with his famous commentary, "Who should I judge?", About a homobadual priest whom he had badigned to a senior advisor post, despite accusations that he would have had a series of charges. ;lover.
earned him the applause of liberal Catholics and placed him on the cover of Advocate magazine. If he had judged his advisers more scrupulously at the beginning of his pontificate in his archives of abuse and concealment, Francisco could have retained more credibility in 2018.
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