Pope Francis celebrates Mass at the Vatican. Photos / AP
Pope Francis celebrates Mass at the Vatican. Photos / AP
At a Mass marking the end of an unprecedented Vatican summit, Pope Francis today called for an "all-out battle" against clerical sexual abuse, saying the church needed to take "every necessary measure" to end the scourge.
But his remarks were short on specifics and roundly criticised by victims of abuse, who said the four-day summit amounted to a training seminar that concluded with few concrete steps and raised points that should have been obvious years ago.
Speaking at a gilded and frescoed hall at the Vatican, Francis said abuse should never be "covered up" or tolerated.
The Pontiff's words, which included general calls for improved national-level guidelines, underscored the looming challenges for an institution that has long acknowledged the seriousness of clerical abuse but struggled to curtail it.
Francis mentioned unspecified "legislation" that the Catholic Church will draw up, and he said it will "spare no effort to do all that is necessary to bring to justice" anyone who has committed the "crimes" of abuse.
He did not mention a zero-tolerance policy - a step that advocates have long called for to codify the idea that clerics found guilty of abuse be removed permanently from the priesthood.
After Francis' speech, the Vatican said it would create new child protection laws for its own city-state - rules that cover the 45ha space along the Tiber River but not the universal church. The Vatican said it would also publish a guidebook for bishops that will help them understand their "duties and tasks".
But larger questions, including how the church will handle the investigation and discipline of bishops accused of misconduct, remain unresolved.
The Pope had called for the summit while facing abuse-related scandals on multiple continents - stemming from cases that sometimes showed the complicity of church higher-ups in protecting abusers. At the start of the summit on Friday, Francis had called for "concrete and effective measures" to contend with the problem. And though some of the Vatican's handpicked speakers described their ideas for such measures, it is clear that any follow-through will have to come in the months and years ahead - if at all.
The event organisers have said they will remain in Rome in the coming days to discuss some of the ideas aired at the summit.
"I don't think we can rely on the institution to clean up its act," said Peter Saunders, a sex abuse survivor and former member of the Pope's commission on the protection of minors. He said the Pontiff's speech was "lukewarm" and made points "he has been talking about for years".
"There hasn't been any firm commitment to eject from the church the perpetrators of this crime," Saunders said.
Front row from left, sex abuse survivors and members of ECA (Ending Clergy Abuse), Peter Isley, Denise Buchanan, Alessandro Battaglia, listen to Pope Francis speak just outside St Peter's Square.
Instead, in a speech heavily footnoted with data from international organisations, the Pontiff spoke in sweeping terms about abuse, describing the underlying reasons that victims are fearful to speak out, and the fallout they face as adults, including "bitterness" and "suicide".
Parts of his speech had little to do with the church, and he mentioned how abuse can take place within families, schools and athletic families, and how the digital world adds new dangers for young people.
But, Francis said, the "worldwide phenomenon" of abuse is "all the more grave and scandalous in the church," incompatible with its "moral authority and ethical credibility".
"We are dealing with abominable crimes that must be erased from the face of the earth," he said.
While it is unclear what steps the Vatican will take next, some speakers at the meeting placed an emphasis on anti-abuse rulemaking at the national and local levels - something Francis specifically mentioned. National episcopal conferences were asked in 2011 to draw up such protocols, but not all followed through with the request. Others have guidelines that leave loopholes for properly responding to abuse cases.
Earlier today in a homily, Archbishop Mark Coleridge of Brisbane, Australia, said the leaders in the church "have been our own worst enemy."
