Correspondent Andrea Vreede on the role of the Vatican:
The Pope, as Bishop of Rome, is the primate, the first, among the bishops. But at the same time, the Italian Episcopal Conference is an autonomous organization with its own responsibility. Even if it is the Pope who appoints their president from a list of three names that he receives from the bishops. Elsewhere, the bishops themselves elect their president.
Soon after his election, the Pope made tackling and preventing sexual abuse a priority. He has had guidelines drawn up to be followed by all bishops’ conferences to establish reporting centers for abuse and to make significant efforts to assist victims.
Italian bishops are slow to follow those guidelines. Francis has repeatedly called for action. Intervening yourself, as the Pope did in Chile, would cause enormous damage to the image of the Italian Church. The question is whether Francis would choose that. But it also remains to be seen whether he will be satisfied with the minimal investigation into abuse cases between 2000 and 2021 that the bishops are now proposing.
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