Pope calls summit on clergy abuse crisis; victims’ advocates say too little, too late

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis summoned the presidents of the world’s bishops’ conferences Wednesday to a summit on preventing clergy sex abuse and protecting children, responding to the greatest crisis of his papacy with the realization that Vatican inaction on the growing global scandal now threatens his legacy.

Francis’ key cardinal advisers announced plans for the summit early next year the day before the pope meets with U.S. church leaders embroiled in their own credibility crisis from the latest accusations in the Catholic Church’s decades-long sex abuse scandal.

Francis faces criticism

The meeting, scheduled for Feb. 21-24, would assemble more than 100 churchmen to represent every bishops’ conference. Its convening signals awareness at the highest levels of the Catholic Church that clergy sex abuse is a global problem, not restricted to some parts of the world or a few Western countries.

Victims’ advocates immediately dismissed the event as belated damage control, an action publicized hastily as allegations regarding Francis’ record of handling abuse cases — and accumulated outrage among rank-and-file Catholic faithful over covered-up crimes — jeopardize his papacy.

“There’s absolutely no reason to think any good will come of such a meeting,” given the church’s decades of failure to reform, David Clohessy, former director of the victims’ advocacy group SNAP, said.

“Criminal prosecutions, governmental investigations and journalistic exposes — stemming from brave victims and church whistle-blowers — are the best way to protect kids, expose wrongdoers and end cover-ups,” Clohessy said.

The summit was announced as Francis still works to recover from his botched handling of the sex abuse scandal in the Chilean church, sparked earlier this year when he discredited victims of a notorious Chilean predator priest.

Francis eventually admitted to “grave errors in judgment” and took steps to make amends, including securing offers of resignation from every active member of Chile’s bishops’ conference.

Even as actions to address Chile were underway, Francis’ papacy was jolted last month by accusations from a retired Vatican ambassador that Francis himself rehabilitated atop American cardinal accused of molesting and harassing adult seminarians.

The Vatican hasn’t responded to Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano’s allegations against the pope and some two dozen other Vatican and U.S. officials, but has promised “clarifications” that could come after Francis’ meeting Thursday with the U.S. delegation.

The U.S. delegation will be headed by Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and archbishop of the Galveston-Houston diocese, and includes Francis’ top adviser on the clergy abuse issue, Cardinal Sean O’Malley.

DiNardo has said he wants Francis to authorize a full Vatican investigation of ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who was removed as cardinal in July following a credible accusation that he groped a teenager.

Scheduled for February

Amid such turmoil, a gathering of the global church leadership to discuss a specific problem — in the tradition of church synods and councils — is a good idea, but should take place sooner than February, said Christopher Bellitto, a church historian at Kean University in New Jersey.

Francis, he said, “has enormous amounts of what (German theologian) Hans Kung has called ‘capital of credibility,’ but he’s losing it fast,” Bellitto said. “This is an excellent action, but I think it should happen quicker than six months from now.”

An open question in advance of the summit is whether the Vatican will issue a universal call for bishops and religious superiors to report suspected abuse to police; currently, it advises church leaders to report suspected abuse when it’s required under local laws.