By Carol Glatz
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The time has come for an “all-out battle” against the abuse of minors, erasing this abominable crime from the face of the earth, Pope Francis said, closing a global four-day summit on child protection in the Catholic Church.

For quite some time, the world has been aware of the “serious scandal” the abuse of minors by clergy has brought to the church and public opinion, both because of the dramatic suffering it has caused victims and because of the “unjustifiable negligence” and “cover-up” by leaders in the church, he told people gathered in St. Peter’s Square.

Since the problem is present on every continent, the pope said he called leaders of the world’s bishops and religious superiors to Rome because “I wanted us to face it together in a co-responsible and collegial way,” he said after praying the Angelus Feb. 24.

“We listened to the voice of victims, we prayed and asked for forgiveness from God and the people hurt, we took stock of our responsibility, and our duty to bring justice through truth and to radically reject every form” of sexual abuse and the abuse of power and conscience, he said.

“We want every activity and every place in the church to be completely safe for minors,” he said, which means taking every possible measure so that such crimes never happen again.

It will also entail working with great dedication together with people of good will everywhere in order to fight this “very grave scourge of violence” that affects hundreds of millions of minors around the world.

The pope’s noonday summary of what he called a “very important” meeting came after he delivered his closing remarks at the end of Mass Feb. 24.

Surrounded by the ornate frescoed walls and ceiling of the Sala Regia, the pope told some 190 cardinals, bishops and religious superiors from around the world, “the time has come, then, to work together to eradicate this evil from the body of our humanity by adopting every necessary measure already in force on the international level and ecclesial levels.”

However, despite the importance of knowing the sociological and psychological explanations behind this criminal act of abuse, he said, the church must recognize this is a spiritual battle against the “brazen, aggressive, destructive” power of Satan.

“I see the hand of evil that does not spare even the innocence of the little ones. And this leads me to think of the example of Herod who, driven by fear of losing his power, ordered the slaughter of all the children of Bethlehem,” the pope said.

Just as the pagans once sacrificed children on their altars, such cruelty continues today with an “idolatrous sacrifice of children to the god of power, money, pride and arrogance,” he said.

While the majority of abused minors are victims of a person they know, most often a family member, he said, it is “all the more grave and scandalous” when a member of the church, particularly a priest, is the perpetrator “for it is utterly incompatible” with the church’s moral authority and ethical credibility.

“Consecrated persons, chosen by God to guide souls to salvation, let themselves be dominated by their human frailty or sickness and thus become tools of Satan,” he said.

There is no excuse for abusing children, who are an image of Jesus, he said, which is why it has become increasingly obvious “the gravest cases of abuse” must be disciplined and dealt with “civil and canonical processes.”

“Here again I would state clearly: if in the church there should emerge even a single case of abuse — which already in itself represents an atrocity — that case will be faced with the utmost seriousness.”

In fact, he said, the church should recognize that people’s anger over the mishandling of abuse is nothing other than a reflection of “the wrath of God, betrayed and insulted by these deceitful consecrated persons.”

“The echo of the silent cry of the little ones who, instead of finding in them fathers and spiritual guides, encountered tormentors will shake hearts dulled by hypocrisy and by power,” Pope Francis said. “It is our duty to pay close heed to this silent, choked cry.”

The church must combat this evil, both inside and outside its walls, he said, and protect children “from ravenous wolves.”

The Catholic Church must “hear, watch over, protect and care for abused, exploited and forgotten children, wherever they are,” he said. And to do that, the church “must rise above the ideological disputes and journalistic practices that often exploit, for various interests, the very tragedy experienced by the little ones.”

Because concrete measures will need to be adopted on a local level, the pope pointed to the work of international organizations in their “Seven Strategies for Ending Violence against Children” and guidelines and other resources produced by the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors.

The church, he said, must concentrate on the protection of children, being serious in bringing justice and healing to victims and undergoing genuine purification; proper training for priests and religious is necessary, as are strong guidelines by bishops’ conferences.

The pope urged all Catholics to help the church be liberated “from the plague of clericalism, which is the fertile ground for all these disgraces.”

“The best results and the most effective resolution,” he said, will occur when the church commits itself to “personal and collective conversion, the humility of learning, listening, assisting and protecting the most vulnerable.”

On behalf of the whole church, the pope also thanked “the vast majority of priests who are not only faithful to their celibacy but spend themselves in a ministry today made even more difficult by the scandals of few — but always too many — of their confreres.”

He also thanked the faithful who recognize the goodness of their ministers and pray for and support them.

“I make a heartfelt appeal for an all-out battle against the abuse of minors both sexually and in other areas, on the part of all authorities and individuals, for we are dealing with abominable crimes that must be erased from the face of the earth,” he said.

---

Measures to help protect minors are imminent, summit moderator says

By Junno Arocho Esteves
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — While the four-day Vatican summit on the protection of minors has ended, the work to ensure that laws and concrete actions are in place is just beginning, said Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi.

During a press briefing Feb. 24, Father Lombardi, who served as moderator of the Feb. 21-24 summit, said Pope Francis will soon publish a new set of laws and guidelines concerning child protection for Vatican City State.

The measures, he said, will be issued “motu proprio,” on the pope’s own accord, and will be “presented and published in the near future.”

Another initiative that will be available in “a few weeks or a month or two” is a handbook or vademecum for bishops, prepared by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Father Lombardi told journalists that the handbook will list a set of guidelines and “will help bishops around the world clearly understand their duties and tasks” when handling cases of abuse. He said the pope also wants to amend the current law concerning the crime of a cleric acquiring, possessing or distributing pornographic images of minors by extending the age from 14 years old to include young people under the age of 18.

Lastly, Pope Francis has also expressed his intention to establish task forces “made up of competent persons” that will assist dioceses and episcopal conferences “that find it difficult to confront the problems and produce initiatives for the protection of minors,” especially when they lack the needed resources and skilled personnel.

Meanwhile, a number of survivors and advocacy groups were disappointed the pope and the Vatican did not go further with more direct mandates, especially in ordering bishops to implement what laws already exist.

Peter Isely, spokesman for the Ending Clergy Abuse coalition, said he wished the pope had told bishops to remove known abusers from public ministry immediately in order “to keep them from harming children. That’s pretty simple.”

Also, just as the pope had recently revised the catechism concerning the inadmissibility of the death penalty, Isely said the pope could have changed canon law to include zero tolerance for abusers and those who protect them.

Miguel Hurtado, a survivor from Spain, told Catholic News Service that the church still needs a clear mechanism or process for bishop accountability and making public the dismissal of a leader for negligence.

“This is what changes the hearts and minds,” he said, “is seeing a colleague lose his job.”

“Why don’t we see bishops ordaining women? Because they know it is a red line and they will be excommunicated if they cross it. Covering up child rape is not a red line” if there are no clear and serious consequences that go with it, he said.

Hurtado said if the church fails to police itself, “what will prevent another crisis are the external checks and balances” of media outlets doing accurate investigative reporting, the trend of child victims speaking out sooner, and civil laws abolishing the statute of limitations on the abuse of minors.

Anne Barrett Doyle of BishopAccountability.org said in a press statement that the summit was only a failure in terms of needed internal reforms.

“But in a larger sense, it achieved a great deal” by increasing global awareness of clergy sex abuse and facilitating “connections between journalists and survivors from many countries,” she said.

“This was public education on a massive scale,” Doyle said.

In a statement provided to CNS, a group of U.S. women from Catholic Worker who were in Rome for the summit supported “Pope Francis placing the spotlight on the global sexual abuse. This is good and crucial.”

“As Catholic Workers, people who have seen violence in so many forms, we resonate with his understanding that abuse of power is the root cause of the problem here,” it said.

“But where are the concrete processes to guide the bishops in assuring accountability, transparency, and responsibility upon their return?”

As Pope Francis “recognized that the outrage on the street with regard to sex abuse reflected the ‘wrath of God,'” the Catholic Workers’ statement said, there is the continued mission for all people of God: “to be that ‘wrath’ until the violence of clergy sex abuse and cover-up is eradicated.”

Contributing to this story was Carol Glatz.