By James Simons-
Pope Francis has written an overdue letter to the Catholic Church condemning decades of long abuses of sexual abuse.
Critics of the Pope and the Catholic Church have described it as too little too late. Sexual abuses in the Catholic Church has been occurring for decades, with cover ups being common practice among offending circles and other highly ranked officials in the Church.
In a controversial reference to Catholics as “the People of God”, Pope Francis called for an end to the “culture of death” in the Church, as he condemned failures to deal with abuse in the Catholic Church.
His historical letter come in the wake of a grand jury report detailing seven decades of abuse in Pennsylvania.
The landmark investigation found more than 1,000 identifiable minors had been abused by 300 priests in the US state.
They uncovered evidence of systematic cover-ups by the Church, with many cases now too old for prosecution.
Pope Francis quickly expressed his objections against predatory priests and highlighted the effect and shame the abuses have brought to the Catholic Church as a whole.
“if one member suffers, all suffer together” he said, quoting a passage from the Bible. He called for the Church to come to grips with the reality of what has happened in a “comprehensive and communal way”.
“If, in the past, the response was one of omission, today we want solidarity, in the deepest and most challenging sense, to become our way of forging present and future history .Looking back to the past, no effort to beg pardon and to seek to repair the harm done will ever be sufficient. Looking ahead to the future, no effort must be spared to create a culture able to prevent such situations from happening, but also to prevent the possibility of their being covered up and perpetuated. The pain of the victims and their families is also our pain, and so it is urgent that we once more reaffirm our commitment to ensure the protection of minors and of vulnerable adults”.
“It is essential that we, as a Church, be able to acknowledge and condemn, with sorrow and shame, the atrocities perpetrated by consecrated persons, clerics, and all those entrusted with the mission of watching over and caring for those most vulnerable. Let us beg forgiveness for our own sins and the sins of others.”
HORRIFYING HISTORY
The abuses revealed in the recent U.S cases are not isolated, but has a long horrifying history. Last month the former archbishop of Washington DC, Theodore McCarrick was forced to step down over abuse accusations against him.
U.S church officials have supported allegations that he sexually assaulted a teenager nearly 50 years ago, despite his claim not to recall any of it. In May, Archbishop Philip Wilson became the most senior Catholic in the world to be charged with concealing child sexual abuse in Australia in the 1970s.
Margaret McGuckin from Survivors & Victims of Institutional Abuse, a historic abuse charity based in Northern Ireland, said the Pope’s response was “too little too late” and said “nothing will change” with the letter.
Anne Barrett-Doyle, co-director of clerical abuse tracking website BishopAccountability.org, said there needed to be “more actions, less words” from Pope Francis.
“He needs an effective discipline process for bishops and religious superiors who are known to have enabled abuse,” she said. Doyle is right, the world would rather the Pope implements radical action to discipline guilty parties for covering up excesses of abuse. It simply isn’t good enough to utter nice words of consolation without holding to account those who are guilty.
If the Pope intends to clean up the obscene mess that has tarnished the Catholic Church for years, he needs to call for all strict punishment against all offending Catholic leaders and those who have protected or shielded them. There is no room for the sort of forgiveness Pope Francis talks about, not against monstrous individuals who hide behind the name of God and use it as a vehicle to commit serious atrocities.
Even from a religious standpoint, forgiveness has to be left to God, but human beings operating within the realms of legal guidance should be seen to act fast and properly. Without such action, it should be viewed that those who fail to act are supporting the evil actions they profess to condemn, or taking it lightly.