Long Shadow Over Papacy
Title: Child sexual abuse scandal cast long shadow over Francis’s papacy
Author: Harriet Sherwood
Publisher: The Guardian
Date: 22APR2025
Issue dogged Francis throughout his time as head of Catholic church, with abuse survivors saying he failed to do enough.
In 2002, the Boston Globe published a series of articles exposing the scale of child sexual abuse in the local Catholic church. It shone a spotlight – the title of a later movie based on the investigation – on the church’s dark shameful secrets.
Eleven years later, Francis became pope. Wave after wave of abuse revelations continued to crash at the Vatican’s doors amid mounting anger and revulsion among the faithful and beyond. The issue threatened to derail Francis’s papacy and dominate his trips abroad. He was slow to grasp the scale and systemic nature of the issue and apparently reluctant to take firm action to deal with abusers and those who covered up abuse.
Within hours of Francis’s death on Monday, survivors of clerical sexual abuse sounded a discordant note amid the lavish tributes. They said the pope failed to fundamentally change the culture of deference that allowed abusers to flourish and failed to deliver decisive action. It was the “tragedy of his papacy”, said one organisation.
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