Editorial of the “World”. Is the Catholic Church finally ready to admit that it is an environment conducive to the commission of sexual abuse on children and to draw all the consequences to end this scandal? The announcement could be believed on 5 November of the recognition of an “institutional responsibility” of the Church by the Conference of Bishops of France (CEF). Five weeks later, the doubt has interfered, given the reluctance of the Vatican to accept the conclusions of the saved commission, which establishes, for France, this terrible reality long denied by the Church.
Pope Francis, by canceling the hearing at the end of November on 9 December at the request of the French bishops, to Mr. Sauvé and the members of the Commission he presided, cast a cold . On November 6, in front of journalists, he then stated that he did not read the report saved and warned against the “mixture of the times”, implicitly criticizing the eyes posed today on ancient acts.
In France itself, eight members of the Catholic Academy, a group of Catholic intellectuals founded in 2008, accused the French bishops for having endorsed the findings of the report based on an estimated number of victims they contest. A delegation of the Conference of the Bishops of France was received, Monday, December 13, by the Pope to make the “point”.
A difficult transparency to accept
In the Vatican, some criticize the recourse of French bishops to an independent external body to the Church and consider unacceptable that the saved commission has made it possible to make recommendations in strictly internal areas such as Canon law, yet notoriously insufficient. on sexual abuse. For an institution that has continued over the centuries to reinforce its authority by protecting themselves from all other powers, the intervention of external looks, and the transparency it supposes, is definitely very difficult to accept.
It is precisely this withdrawal and this pretension to the omnipotence that allowed for decades that children suffer sexual assault on the part of priests and religious in denial and total silence of their hierarchy.
The confrontation engaged between the bishops of France and the most conservative forces of the ecclesial institution is a hinge moment for the Church. The CEF’s courageous decision to recognize the “systemic dimension” of violence is a big step forward after long errors. It should not be a work of sape, in Rome or France, reduces the scope of this decisive progress.
For the Pope, it’s the moment of truth. It would be incomprehensible that the investment drawn up in France is disputed or even invalidated by the Vatican. Why does the Church, whose hierarchical functioning is uniform, would it have an “institutional responsibility” about sexual abuse in France and not elsewhere?
The consequences of such universal recognition by the Vatican are heavy, including in terms of compensation for victims. But François, who since 2018, describes the scandals of pedocinality of “shame of the Church”, can not reiterate the error he committed four years ago by treating “slanders” the accusations of the victims of a Chilean priest, before recognizing their reality.
By accepting the painful finding of the bishops of France, the Pope would benefit from credibility, not only for himself, but for the Church and his message of compassion with respect to the victims.