Next Pope Do More Than Francis
Title: Will the next pope do more than Pope Francis to fight clergy sexual abuse?
Author: Joan Vennochi
Publisher: The Boston Globe
Date: 05MAY2025
The priests were protected, not the children.
Is the Catholic Church any different today than it was 20-plus years ago, when the scandal of clergy sexual abuse first engulfed the Archdiocese of Boston and then spread across the country and the world? When it comes to the church policing itself and disclosing its findings, it’s not different enough, according to survivors and their advocates. Which is why, as the conclave to elect a successor to Pope Francis begins this week, many survivors and their advocates are in Rome, where they are pressing the church, once again, for substantive change.
But they are up against a church that has been eager to declare the scandal over and a public that may be tired of hearing about it. “I know what people mean when they say that victims, or people like me, can never be satisfied. But I reject that,” Anne Barrett Doyle, codirector of the watchdog group BishopAccountability.org, told me from Rome. “Those folks are guilty of setting the bar too low.” According to Barrett Doyle, children are still being sexually assaulted “by clergy around the world. Pope Francis could have increased their safety, and he chose not to. Being grateful for his small constructive deeds is a kind of soft complicity, in my view.”
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https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/05/05/opinion/pope-francis-conclave-clergy-sexual-abuse/