By Nicole Winfield, Associated Press, September 21, 2017<\/p>\n
The Pope spoke off-the-cuff during his first meeting with the sex abuse advisory commission.<\/p>\n
VATICAN CITY\u2014Pope Francis on Thursday acknowledged the Catholic Church was \u201ca bit late\u201d in realizing the damage done by priests who rape and molest children, and said that the decades-long practice of moving pedophiles around rather than sanctioning them was to blame.<\/p>\n
Francis met Thursday for the first time with his sex abuse advisory commission, a group of outside experts named in 2014 to advise him and the Catholic Church on best practices to keep pedophiles out of the priesthood and to protect children.<\/p>\n
Commission members briefed him on their work and made a series of proposals that, if accepted, would mark a major turnabout in the way the church handles abuse cases.<\/p>\n
One recommendation is for sex abuse cases to be exempted from church\u2019s norms requiring \u201cpontifical secret.\u201d Commissioners proposed that victims be guaranteed a \u201cminimum right to information\u201d as their claims are processed in the normally secrecy-filled church process. They also proposed that the 20-year statute of limitations on abuse accusations be lifted.<\/p>\n
In addition, the commission said it was discussing the problem of when church law \u201cimpedes the reporting of suspected child abuse to civil authorities.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Vatican has long insisted that the inviolability of the seal of confession prevents clergy who might learn about abuse through the sacramental practice as an impediment to reporting crimes to law enforcement. Recently, however, Australia\u2019s royal commission has called for clergy to face criminal charges if they learn of abuse in confession and fail to report it.<\/p>\n
In his remarks, Francis thanked the members for their work and acknowledged they had had a difficult job going \u201cagainst the current\u201d in making the church and Vatican aware of the problem and respond to it.<\/p>\n
In off-the-cuff remarks, he admitted that the church\u2019s response to the scandal was slow. Indeed, the Vatican for decades turned a blind eye to the problem and local bishops, rather than defrocking abusers, instead moved them from parish to parish, allowing them to abuse anew.<\/p>\n
Part of the problem was that under the papacy of St. John Paul II, the Vatican was reluctant to defrock young priests, even if they were abusers, and sought to avoid scandal at all costs.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe consciousness of the church arrived a bit late, and when the consciousness arrives late, the means to resolve the problem arrive late,\u201d Francis said. \u201cPerhaps the old practice of moving people around, and not confronting the problem, kept consciences asleep.\u201d<\/p>\n
Francis also addressed the way the Vatican was handling appeals of canonical sentences, saying he wanted to add more diocesan bishops to the appeals commission that is currently dominated by canon lawyers. He said lawyers \u201ctend to want to lower sentences\u201d and that he wanted diocesan bishops with experience of the problem in the field to have a say.<\/p>\n
\u201cI decided to balance out this commission and also say that if abuse of a minor is proven, it\u2019s sufficient and there\u2019s no need for recourse. If there is proof, period. It\u2019s definitive. Why? Not because of revulsion, but simply because the person who did this, man or woman, is sick. It\u2019s a sickness.\u201d<\/p>\n
Francis acknowledged he had a learning curve about the clergy abuse issue, admitting that he once opted to impose a more lenient sentence on a priest who subsequently reoffended a reference to the case of the Italian priest, the Rev. Mauro Inzoli.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was new and I didn\u2019t understand these things well, and before two choices I chose the more benevolent one,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was the only time I did it, and never again.\u201d<\/p>\n
In its three years, the sex abuse commission has held educational workshops in dioceses around the world, but has faced such stiff resistance to some of its proposals at the Vatican that its most prominent member, Irish abuse survivor Marie Collins, resigned in frustration in March.<\/p>\n
The commission\u2019s statutes and membership are up for review, and it remains to be seen if survivors of abuse will be included in the new membership roster.<\/p>\n
Commission member Bill Kilgallon told the pope that the group was proposing an \u201cinternational survivor advisory panel\u201d and an international group of speakers, to help inform it and the church about the experiences of abuse victims.<\/p>\n