A RESPONSE TO POPE FRANCIS' LETTER TO THE PEOPLE OF GOD

Today, Pope Francis responded to new reports of clerical sexual abuse and the ecclesial cover-up of abuse. 

In a letter addressed to The People of God (the full text available on the Vatican News website), the Pope calls on the Church to be close to victims in solidarity, and to join in acts of prayer and fasting in penance for such "atrocities".

In response this letter, I offering the following remarks and observations.

It’s nothing that we haven’t heard before and that’s the great tragedy that is playing out within the Church today.

No one, not even the Vicar of Christ himself, is willing to tell the whole truth.

What are Catholics and indeed all people of good will supposed to do when the Chief Shepherd of the Church refuses to acknowledge the central role which the Bishops played in creating a culture unable to prevent such atrocities against minors from happening, but also a culture in which the abuse was covered up and perpetuated?

Nowhere in the letter does Pope Francis hold Bishops accountable.

In fact, nowhere is the word “Bishop” even mentioned.

When the Pope does condemn the abuse of authority, these are the persons he singles out (I have quoted the letter directly and place in bold script the Pontiff’s references to persons).

“... I acknowledge once more the suffering endured by many minors due to sexual abuse, the abuse of power and the abuse of conscience perpetrated by a significant number of clerics and consecrated persons.” 

“Clericalism, whether fostered by Priests themselves or by lay persons, leads to an excision in the ecclesial body that supports and helps to perpetuate many of the evils that we are condemning today.  To say “no” to abuse is to say an emphatic “no” to all forms of clericalism.”

“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.”

But perhaps what I find most disconcerting is the Pope’s following remark:

“With shame and repentance, we acknowledge as an ecclesial community that we were not where we should have been, that we did not act in a timely manner, realizing the magnitude and the gravity of the damage done to so many lives.” 

So, it wasn’t the Priests who abused or the Bishops who covered up who are really at fault, but rather all of us, every Catholic Priest, every man or woman Religious, every member of the the laity, the entire Body of Christ who failed?

Must be.

What else explains Pope Francis writing:  “Let us beg forgiveness for our own sins and the sins of others.   An awareness of sin helps us to acknowledge the errors, the crimes and the wounds caused in the past and allows us, in the present, to be more open and committed along a journey of renewed conversion.”

Pope Francis goes even further in assigning corporate blame for the scandals: “Likewise, penance and prayer will help us to open our eyes and our hearts to other people’s sufferings and to overcome the thirst for power and possessions that are so often the root of those evils.  May fasting and prayer open our ears to the hushed pain felt by children, young people and the disabled.”

Dear Holy Father, the fact is it has been almost exclusively lay people, the victims themselves, their families, and their advocates and law enforcement officers whose ears and hearts have always been open to the suffering and pain.

The fact is it has been precisely the Bishops whose ears and hearts have remained willfully closed to  and unmoved by the cries of those who have been victimized so terribly.

How much more evidence do you need before your ears and your heart is open to this fundamental truth?

And why are you so reluctant to openly confess and admit it?


Far from being an honest and forceful rebuke of the persons responsible for scandals that have shaken the trust which Catholics and civil society once had for the Church, the Pope’s letter is itself a cover up.

While I am embarrassed and ashamed over my the sinful behavior, and while I will fast and pray for the sake of those victims who have suffered a lifetime of suffering, I refuse to painted with the brush stroke of personal responsibility for the crimes of those who abused and those who aided them.

When it comes to holding those truly responsible, the Pope writes:  We have delayed in applying these actions and sanctions that are so necessary yet I am confident that they will help to guarantee a greater culture of care in the present and future.”

They will, Your Holiness, when you who have Supreme Apostolic Authority finally begin to apply the actions and sanctions upon those directly and personally responsible for the crimes as well as well as the cover ups.

Until Pope Francis reassures the Church -- by actions and not words -- that he will take action to remove the abusers and their abettors from their positions of authority or influence, he will continue to fail at the very moment the Church is facing perhaps the greatest crisis of faith and trust in its history.

Let us pray that the next letters we read from Pope Francis will be those which laicize the Clerics, be they Priests, Deacons, Religious or Bishops, who abused or who abetted such criminals by their silence.