Child sexual abuse scandal cast long shadow over Francis’s papacy
Within hours of Francis’s death on Monday, survivors of clerical sexual abuse sounded a discordant note amid the lavish tributes. They said the pope failed to fundamentally change the culture of deference that allowed abusers to flourish and failed to deliver decisive action. It was the “tragedy of his papacy”, said one organisation.
Among the scandals that erupted in the first half of Francis’s papacy were a damning report on the sexual abuse of potentially thousands of children by priests in Pennsylvania and the subsequent cover-up by the church; the resignation as a cardinal (and later defrocking) of Theodore McCarrick, a former archbishop of Washington, over alleged sexual assaults; a police raid on the Catholic church’s HQ in Chile; and the conviction of an Australian archbishop of covering up child abuse.
In Chile, Francis defended a bishop, Juan Barros, who had been accused of being an accomplice of that country’s most notorious paedophile priest, Fernando Karadima. Francis only changed his stance after a disastrous trip to Chile in January 2018. He admitted “grave errors” of judgment, and summoned all the Chilean bishops to Rome and received their resignations en masse.
Later that year, Pope Francis’s two-day trip to Ireland, once a devoutly Catholic country, was dominated by protests by abuse survivors who demanded that the pontiff take responsibility for the church’s failures. Francis made repeated pleas for forgiveness at public events.
As his trip came to an end, archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, a retired Vatican diplomat, demanded Francis’s resignation, claiming he had failed to act on abuse allegations against a prominent figure in the church hierarchy.
After the Pennsylvania report, Francis issued a 2,000-word letter to members of the global church. It spoke of sorrow and shame at atrocities committed by priests, and begged for forgiveness.
The following year, he summoned bishops from around the world to Rome for a summit on clerical sexual abuse. He told them survivors deserved “concrete and efficient measures”, not mere condemnations.
That was followed by a decree that all Catholic priests and nuns must report sexual abuse and its cover-up to church authorities – although not to police.
But for survivors it was too little, too late.
Ending Clergy Abuse (ECA) said after Francis’s death on Monday that his papacy “fell short of delivering the decisive action needed”.
Its statement added: “Words without action ring hollow. Under [Francis’s] leadership, the church failed to hold bishops accountable for their roles in enabling, concealing, and perpetuating abuse. Systemic change remained elusive.
“The resignation of a few prelates behind closed doors is no substitute for public accountability. His refusal to remove or discipline those complicit in cover-ups betrayed the church’s moral obligation to protect the vulnerable.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a...iss-papacy
Within hours of Francis’s death on Monday, survivors of clerical sexual abuse sounded a discordant note amid the lavish tributes. They said the pope failed to fundamentally change the culture of deference that allowed abusers to flourish and failed to deliver decisive action. It was the “tragedy of his papacy”, said one organisation.
Among the scandals that erupted in the first half of Francis’s papacy were a damning report on the sexual abuse of potentially thousands of children by priests in Pennsylvania and the subsequent cover-up by the church; the resignation as a cardinal (and later defrocking) of Theodore McCarrick, a former archbishop of Washington, over alleged sexual assaults; a police raid on the Catholic church’s HQ in Chile; and the conviction of an Australian archbishop of covering up child abuse.
In Chile, Francis defended a bishop, Juan Barros, who had been accused of being an accomplice of that country’s most notorious paedophile priest, Fernando Karadima. Francis only changed his stance after a disastrous trip to Chile in January 2018. He admitted “grave errors” of judgment, and summoned all the Chilean bishops to Rome and received their resignations en masse.
Later that year, Pope Francis’s two-day trip to Ireland, once a devoutly Catholic country, was dominated by protests by abuse survivors who demanded that the pontiff take responsibility for the church’s failures. Francis made repeated pleas for forgiveness at public events.
As his trip came to an end, archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, a retired Vatican diplomat, demanded Francis’s resignation, claiming he had failed to act on abuse allegations against a prominent figure in the church hierarchy.
After the Pennsylvania report, Francis issued a 2,000-word letter to members of the global church. It spoke of sorrow and shame at atrocities committed by priests, and begged for forgiveness.
The following year, he summoned bishops from around the world to Rome for a summit on clerical sexual abuse. He told them survivors deserved “concrete and efficient measures”, not mere condemnations.
That was followed by a decree that all Catholic priests and nuns must report sexual abuse and its cover-up to church authorities – although not to police.
But for survivors it was too little, too late.
Ending Clergy Abuse (ECA) said after Francis’s death on Monday that his papacy “fell short of delivering the decisive action needed”.
Its statement added: “Words without action ring hollow. Under [Francis’s] leadership, the church failed to hold bishops accountable for their roles in enabling, concealing, and perpetuating abuse. Systemic change remained elusive.
“The resignation of a few prelates behind closed doors is no substitute for public accountability. His refusal to remove or discipline those complicit in cover-ups betrayed the church’s moral obligation to protect the vulnerable.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a...iss-papacy
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
