The Vatican took an enormously large step towards completing the
Catholic church's assault on the scourge of sexual abuse by clergy on
Saturday when Pope Francis issued his motu proprio entitled "Come una madre amorevole"
or, in English, "Like a loving mother." My colleague Joshua McElwee was
yet again first with the story and you can find his report here.
The document helps confront the last, critical piece of the puzzle in any effective strategy to confront the scourge of clergy sex abuse: episcopal accountability. Until bishops know that they will be held accountable for their actions and, perhaps more importantly, for their inaction, all the other architecture for protecting children was sitting on a shaky foundation. You can train ministers who work with children. You can adopt norms like those in the Dallas Charter that established zero tolerance for priests and deacons who abuse a child sexually. You can require lay review boards and have diocesan audits. But, unless the bishops who oversee all this know that they are accountable for enforcing the norms and the culture of zero tolerance, it is easy to see how there can be backsliding.
http://www.ncronline.org/blogs/distinctly-catholic/episcopal-accountability-and-motu-proprio
The document helps confront the last, critical piece of the puzzle in any effective strategy to confront the scourge of clergy sex abuse: episcopal accountability. Until bishops know that they will be held accountable for their actions and, perhaps more importantly, for their inaction, all the other architecture for protecting children was sitting on a shaky foundation. You can train ministers who work with children. You can adopt norms like those in the Dallas Charter that established zero tolerance for priests and deacons who abuse a child sexually. You can require lay review boards and have diocesan audits. But, unless the bishops who oversee all this know that they are accountable for enforcing the norms and the culture of zero tolerance, it is easy to see how there can be backsliding.
http://www.ncronline.org/blogs/distinctly-catholic/episcopal-accountability-and-motu-proprio