Pope Francis sought to downplay what he called “inflated expectations” for a global church summit on child sexual abuse next month, casting it as an educational workshop for bishops more than a definitive policymaking meeting.
“We have to deflate expectations,” the pope told reporters on the papal plane returning to Rome from an international event for Roman Catholic youth in Panama. “Because the problem of abuse will continue, it is a human problem.”
The summit is shaping up to be a pivotal moment in Francis’ nearly six-year papacy. As abuse scandals have spread beyond the United States and Europe to Latin America and Asia, the pope has faced pressure to prove that the church is capable of removing abusive priests and disciplining negligent bishops.
The pope said that the meeting, to be held at the Vatican on Feb. 21 through Feb. 24, was intended to help bishops and the heads of religious orders better understand the procedures to follow when faced with allegations of abuse, and to impress on them the terrible suffering of victims.
If expectations are high, it is — at least in part — the Vatican’s own doing. The summit was announced in September amid fresh reports that the Vatican had turned a blind eye to accused abusers in the hierarchy. In November, the Vatican ordered the United States bishops to hold off voting on new policies for keeping bishops accountable until the February summit could produce protocols that would apply to the church worldwide.
About 200 participants are expected at the summit. In recent weeks, Vatican officials have stressed that because it is a consultative meeting only four days long, the gathering should not be viewed as a panacea to the global abuse crisis.
“The meeting is a stage along the painful journey that the church has unceasingly and decisively undertaken for over 15 years,” Alessandro Gisotti, the interim director of the Holy See’s press office, said this month.
Pope Francis, speaking on the plane from Panama where he participated in the celebrations for World Youth Day, a gathering of Catholic young people, said that the idea for the meeting had developed among the group of nine cardinals that serve as his closest advisers.
“We saw that some bishops didn’t properly understand, or didn’t know what to do, or did one thing right and the other badly,” the pope said.
“Resolving the problem in the church, we will help resolve it in society, and in families, where shame leads to cover up,” he said.
Some Catholics have called for the church to reconsider the requirement of celibacy for priests, calling it a stressor that can lead to abuse. But Francis reiterated his opposition to lifting the celibacy rule, saying it was “a gift for the church” that should not “be optional.” He cited the words of Pope Paul VI, now a saint, who said, “I prefer to give my life before changing the law on celibacy.”
But Francis showed some openness to allowing married men to serve as priests in remote areas, like the islands of the Pacific, where there are few clergymen to administer the sacraments. In exceptional circumstances, it was right to at least study the question, and pray for guidance, he said.
Another closely watched meeting will be held in October for bishops of the Amazon region, where there is a shortage of priests. One of the topics of discussion at that meeting is expected to be the possibility of ordaining older married men to the priesthood, in cases of exceptional pastoral necessity.
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