For the past few months, the Roman Catholic Church has been shaken by allegations of sexual misconduct conducted by church officials across the world. The scandal has extended through all levels of the Catholic Church hierarchy, with some accusing Pope Francis of doing little to address the serious concerns.
One action Pope Francis has taken is to ask the Catholic Church to send daily prayers to protect the church from what he called “attacks by the devil." This lack of accountability and action is astounding from the leader of the Catholic Church. We have all heard the saying that actions speak louder than words. In this case, Pope Francis is demonstrating his lack of ability to address a grave matter. His “action” has been to repeat empty words and do little to provide any substance behind it. In fact, on occasion, he has done worse than nothing.
In 2010 accusations of child molestation arose against a Chilean priest, Fernando Karadima. The Vatican launched an investigation in 2011 that found Karadima guilty of the abuse, and ordered him to a life of “prayer and penitence”. At the time he was forced to retire from ministerial duties. This form of punishment was disgustingly lenient to the perpetrator, and received abundant criticism from the victims. While Francis was not Pope at the time, he did become involved in the case later on.
In 2015, Pope Francis appointed Bishop Juan Barros, receiving immediate criticism due to accusations that Barros knew of abuses conducted by Karadima from the 1980s when they both served as priests in Santiago, but failed to report it. Earlier this year, while visiting Chile, the pope defended Bishop Barros, going as far as accusing the victims of slander. This attitude from the pope, a man looked up to by so many, is disappointing and discouraging to say the least.
It is saddening to see the leader of the Catholic Church accuse victims of sexual abuse as slanderous against a bishop. The backlash received finally prompted him to send an investigative team, which discovered the pope had made some mistakes and spoke with incomplete information. The pope then proceeded to change his mind and accept the bishop’s resignation, admitting that he made mistakes in handling the accusations. This proves, yet again, that Pope Francis preaches without acting. It was not until just a few days ago, on Sept. 28, that Pope Francis stepped up to further punish Karadima, defrocking him and dismissing him from the priesthood.
Overall, the Catholic Church has been facing scrutiny in the past months for their failure to address the child abuse scandals within their officials. A prime example is the Pennsylvania report this past August, in which over 1,000 victims were found to have been abused by more than 300 priests over 70 years. Furthermore, the bishops and others leaders of the Catholic Church allegedly covered it up, persuading victims not to report abuse and officials not to investigate it.
This disease within the Catholic Church has proven to be a reoccurring theme, a redundant problem that the pope has failed to properly address. Instead, he has skirted away from accepting responsibility. His calls to the church for prayers for the Catholic Church itself demonstrate a severe lack of clarity on the issue.
Instead of advocating for empty words and thoughts, instead of accusing victims of slander, Pope Francis should instead consider focusing his efforts on the investigations that have revealed the severe and overlooked allegations that have been covered up by his hierarchy and have affected thousands of innocents.