Catholic Clergy Abuse Survivors Hopeful After Meeting With Pope Leo

Survivors of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy have expressed hope after meeting Pope Leo at the Vatican for the first time. Gemma Hickey, board president of Ending Clergy Abuse (ECA Global), told the BBC that the meeting spoke “volumes” in that the Pope had met them so soon in his papacy.

ECA Global is campaigning for a global zero-tolerance policy, which the group says has already been adopted in the United States, under which a priest who admits or is proven to have sexually abused a child would be permanently removed from ministry. Hickey said the Pope acknowledged there was “resistance in some parts of the world” to such a policy. ECA Global also acknowledged pockets of resistance, Hickey said, adding: “We were all being realistic when we recognised that there is resistance.”

Pope Leo assumed the papacy in May. He inherits a problem that has troubled the Catholic Church for decades and that the Vatican has struggled to eliminate. His predecessor, Pope Francis, convened an unprecedented summit on paedophilia in the Church and changed its laws to explicitly criminalise sexual abuse, but the BBC reports that problems remain.

A recent Vatican-commissioned report was unusually critical of Church leaders. It stated that victims and survivors had frequently raised the lack of accountability of bishops and superiors. The report also noted that many historic cases were allegedly covered up.

Hickey, who uses they/them pronouns, said the drive for such a policy is personal. The Canadian said they were abused by a priest who was then moved between parishes. Hickey described Monday’s meeting as “historic” and “a big step for all of us,” and said: “Hopefully this will set the tone for his papacy, because we want to work with him. We have the same goal, we want to end clergy abuse.”

Six board members and one other ECA representative attended. ECA is a coalition of victims and advocates representing survivors from more than 30 countries. The group sat in a semi-circle in the Pope’s Vatican office, with the pontiff at the head. The meeting was scheduled for 20 minutes but lasted an hour. Hickey said the Pope “mostly listened to us.”

Hickey said the Pope was “quite empathetic” when hearing the account of a woman abused at a Catholic residential school for Indigenous children in Canada, and “tender” about Hickey’s own experience. Describing the Pope, Hickey said he was “very humble, funny, [and] very down to earth.” Hickey added: “Survivors have long wanted a seat at the table and I didn’t feel like he was giving us lip service. I felt like he was genuine, realistic, and very open and eager to collaborate with us.”

The group hopes a change to canon law will bring about a worldwide zero-tolerance policy. It has spoken to experts and compiled documents that it will give to Pope Leo.

The Vatican’s child protection commission published a 100-page report that emphasised the “importance of a streamlined protocol for the resignation and/or removal of Church leaders or personnel in cases of abuse or negligence.” The report said victims and survivors stressed the “urgent need for bishops and major superiors to be held accountable for negligence and cover-up was repeatedly stressed,” a call for honest dealing by church leaders (Proverbs 11:1).

Source: Read the original report