Abuse
The second step to respond to the “many complaints” on the issue of child abuse by clergy is to “fix” the Appeals Commission, which “works well but needs to be adjusted a bit with the presence of some diocesan bishops who know the problem ‘in situ’”. The Pope explained this off the cuff, speaking about the future work of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, received in audience today. “You are working on this”, Pope Francis announced, referring to the Commission headed by Mgr. Scicluna, “who is a man who has a clear awareness of the problem of child abuse”. “But this Commission has a problem”, Pope Francis said: “The majority are canonists, they examine if the whole process is fine, and there is a temptation for lawyers to reduce the sentence. Lawyers thrive on this”. “I decided to balance out this Commission – the Pope announced – and also to say that a child abuse case, if supported by evidence, is enough to not receive appeals. If there is evidence, it is final”. “Because a man or a woman who does this is sick: it is a disease”, said Pope Francis: “Today he repents, we forgive him, and after two years he falls again. We need to get it into our heads that this is a disease”. Third step in the process of abuse cases: the request for clemency to the Pope. “I have never signed one of these and I am never going to sign them”, Pope Francis said: “I don’t sign the judgments”. Then the Pope cited “one case” in which he put his signature: “There were two judgments, it was at the beginning: a priest from the Diocese of Crema. The judgment of the Bishop was good, prudent, he stripped him of all of his ministries but not of the clerical State. I was new, I didn’t understand these things, and I chose the most benevolent of the two, but after two years he relapsed: that was the only time I did it, and I’ll never do it again”. “I learned from the things that the cardinal used to say”, the Pope remarked, also mentioning the meetings with abuse victims and survivors in Ireland, England and Germany. Child abuse, the analysis of Pope Francis, who cited a letter by Saint Francis Xavier, “is a bad disease” but also “an old disease”. I think we have to move forward with confidence: it is an old thing, but new is the way we deal with it here in the Curia”.
