VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Over the course of his pontificate, Pope Francis held up two recurring images: the good shepherd who looks for the lost sheep and lays down his life to save them; and the good Samaritan, who did not ignore the wounded traveler, but helped him without asking for anything in return.
“God thinks like the Samaritan” and “God thinks like the shepherd,” the pope said in his first general audience talk March 27, 2013, calling on everyone to enter “more deeply into the logic of God” in their daily lives.
Pope Francis used the same “logic” of God’s love and protection in his attempts to address the abuse crisis in the Catholic Church.
One hallmark of the pope’s approach was the way he listened to survivors and understood “how deep the wounds go,” Jesuit Father Hans Zollner, a leading safeguarding expert, told Catholic News Service in 2023.
The pope listened to survivors carefully with great empathy, and he regularly met with them privately, Father Zollner said. He tried to be a model for all Catholics and especially those in authority, he added.
The approach was indicative of the pope’s desire for the church to be a field hospital, Deacon Bernie Nojadera, executive director of the Secretariat for Child and Youth Protection at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, told CNS in 2023.
“He modeled humility and was able to say sorry when he was wrong,” Nojadera said. Pope Francis was not afraid to ask for help and seek advice from those “who have been harmed, molested or abused by the church and its members.”
The pope insisted that by meeting personally with survivors and learning “to weep,” leaders would understand the full gravity of abuse and, therefore, want to help the wounded, eradicate the evil and make amends. Thanks to the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, which the pope established in 2014, it became the norm for survivors to be present and speak to newly appointed bishops when they came to the Vatican for “baby bishops’ school.
The commission, whose task is to advise the pope and empower local churches with best practices, was led since its beginning by Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley of Boston and included experts in child protection, psychology and survivors of clerical sexual abuse. It became part of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith in 2022 since that dicastery “deals with sexual abuse on the part of members of the clergy,” the pope had explained.
The pope had clearly outlined the roadmap for action in his homily at a Mass celebrated in his residence with a group of clergy sex abuse victims in 2014.
The Lord tells Peter, “‘Go back and feed my sheep’ — and I would add — ‘let no wolf enter the sheepfold,'” the pope had said, asking for “the grace to weep, the grace for the church to weep and make reparation for her sons and daughters who betrayed their mission, who abused innocent persons.”
In that homily, Pope Francis called the sexual abuse of minors not just a grave sin, but a “crime” so “despicable” it is akin to “a sacrilegious cult.” He promised “zero tolerance,” saying “there is no place in the church’s ministry for those who commit these abuses, and I commit myself not to tolerate harm done to a minor by any individual.”
He warned that bishops must foster the protection of minors, “and they will be held accountable,” delivering on that promise five years later with “Vos Estis Lux Mundi,” which revised and clarified norms and procedures for holding bishops and religious superiors accountable.
Pope Francis built on the foundation left by his predecessor, the late-Pope Benedict XVI, said Father Zollner, who is director of the Institute of Anthropology: Interdisciplinary Studies on Human Dignity and Care at Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University.
Pope Francis put the problem of abuse and the need to protect the most vulnerable “on the agenda of the global church,” Father Zollner said. It was a point the pope drove home when he convened a summit in 2019 for the presidents of bishops’ conferences, representatives of religious orders and heads of Vatican offices demanding concrete action by everyone when an abuse allegation is made.
Mark Joseph Williams, a survivor of clergy sex abuse, who has served as special adviser to Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin of Newark, New Jersey, told CNS in 2023 that the pope was “a man of mercy” who showed “the global church why it is so critical to listen to the voices of victims/survivors.”
“Most certainly, the synod on synodality journey has much promise to embrace those so hurt by the church,” he said, and, at the same time, to “realize that this same church that failed so many, like me, can be the haven for healing, a place for greater prevention, a sanctuary for sustained justice.”
The synod’s final document acknowledged the crime and sin of clerical sexual abuse and abuse of power, and insisted that a commitment to synodality, particularly to learning to listen and to necessary forms of transparency and accountability, were essential to preventing abuse.
However, like his predecessors, Pope Francis faced repeated criticisms for how he reacted to some allegations of abuse and cover-up leveled against bishops.
During a trip to Chile in 2018, he had strongly defended now-retired Bishop Juan Barros of Osorno, who had been accused of covering up for a notorious abuser, the late-Father Fernando Karadima, and told reporters that the people making accusations were liars.
It was only after he returned to Rome that he sent top investigators to Chile to study the clerical sex abuse scandal there, invited survivors to the Vatican for private meetings and called all the country’s bishops to Rome for a meeting, which ended with most of the bishops offering their resignations.
As the scandal in Chile continued to unfold, the Vatican announced that credible allegations of the sexual abuse of a minor had been made against Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, retired archbishop of Washington. Pope Francis accepted his resignation from the College of Cardinals in July 2018.
The Vatican released a report in November 2020 on how McCarrick managed to rise to the position of cardinal and archbishop of Washington despite decades of rumors of sexual misconduct and, six months later, the Vatican announced that McCarrick had been found guilty of “solicitation in the sacrament of confession and sins against the Sixth Commandment with minors and with adults, with the aggravating factor of the abuse of power.” The pope dismissed him from the priesthood.
The pope also insisted he had not been aware of the serious allegations of spiritual, psychological and sexual abuse against a former fellow Jesuit, Father Marko Rupnik, whose mosaics decorate numerous chapels at the Vatican and around the world.
While Father Rupnik had been briefly excommunicated in 2020 for the canonical crime of absolution of an accomplice, the excommunication was lifted after he apparently repented. However, the Society of Jesus expelled the priest from the order in June 2023 for refusing to observe his vow of obedience regarding sanctions, and the pope lifted the statute of limitations a few months later to allow the Vatican to pursue an investigation into abuse allegations.
Nonetheless, Father Zollner said Pope Francis “changed church law more than his predecessors have” regarding abuse.
The pope’s 2016 motu proprio, “As a Loving Mother,” expanded canon law provisions allowing for the removal of bishops and superiors for serious negligence or “lack of diligence” in the exercise of their office, in particular regarding the sexual abuse of minors.
The document, together with “Vos Estis Lux Mundi,” aimed to correct what had been a lack of or unclear procedures for investigating the way a bishop or religious superior complies with norms and clearly expresses the consequences of noncompliance or cover-ups.
The pope also waived the obligation of secrecy for those who report having been sexually abused by a priest and for those who testify in a church trial or process having to do with clerical sexual abuse. While Vatican officials are still obliged to maintain confidentiality, the change removes potential conflicts with civil laws, including on mandatory reporting, and with following civil court orders, such as turning over documents considered as potential evidence.
Abolishing the pontifical secret in cases of sexual violence and abuse of minors by clergy was a fundamental change, Father Zollner said, because it reaffirmed “that state law has to be respected and followed independently from what the church thinks about it and does” regarding its own laws.
In June 2021, Pope Francis promulgated a revision of the section of the Code of Canon Law dealing with crimes and punishments; the revision made many of the procedures in “Vos Estis” a permanent part of church law, made mandatory many of the previously suggested measures for handling allegations and expanded the application of canons dealing with abuse to religious and laypeople who have a role, office or function in the church — not just clergy. He slightly revised “Vos Estis” in early 2023 and made its procedures definitive.
Pope Francis “moved mountains when it comes to the clergy abuse crisis across the entire church,” Williams said. “I have personally felt his healing balm in word and deed.”