The focus of the abuse scandal in search of new Pope

For decades, the sexual abuse of children was covered up by the church by Catholic priests. But Cardinals listed it as an important challenge for the next Pope on Monday.

In a meeting to prepare for the choice of a successor to Pope Francis.

It was an explanation that was greeted by Anne Barrett Doyle, a long -time activist who was founded with Mitopcountability.org, who gained information on abuse.

“The church worldwide takes care of tens of millions of children through its communities, schools, hospitals and orphanages,” she told AFP.

“The most sacred commitment of the next Pope must be to protect it from abuse. Your security is at stake, as is the moral authority of the Church.”

Francis, who died on April 21, did more than any other Pope to tackle the scourge of abuse that his predecessor, German Benedict XVI.

However, critics say that the actions of the Argentine for 12 years as a Pope as a Pope went back to the “zero tolerance” that he promised.

“What we need from the next Pope is a meaningful action, no longer rhetoric,” said Barrett Doyle.

“We need it to enact a universal church law that permanently deprives all proven child molesters from the public service.

“We need him to publish the names of the thousands of priests that were found guilty according to church law.”

– 'Our shame' –

When Francis took over in March 2013, the church struggled to react to an avalanche of revelations, and many Catholics were horrified.

A 2018 turning point came during a trip to Chile.

Francis, the first Latin American Pope of the Church, initially defended a local bishop against allegations that he defended the crimes of an older priest.

But he admitted that in that case – a premiere for a Pope – he had made “serious mistakes” and later forced the resignation of all bishops Chile.

Within months, he showed that he would take measures by defusing Us Cardinal Theodore McCarrick after he was guilty of sexually abusing a teenager in the 1970s.

McCarrick died in the USA at the age of 94 in the early this month.

In 2019, Francis moved to make sustainable changes in dealing with abuse, which he described “our shame”.

The apostolic letter “Vos Estis Lux Mundi” made it mandatory to report sexual abuse of minors and people in need of protection as well as the cover -up and to present a procedure for dealing with cases.

In a larger shift, the Pope also raised the so -called “papal” secret “secret” secret, attempts and decisions regarding such abuse.

– 'measure half' –

However, the clergy are still not obliged to report the civil authorities as part of the church codes abuse, and everything that is said in the confessional box remains sacrosunch.

Vos Estis Lux Mundi “did not require an external supervision,” said Barrett Doyle.

“It did not require transparency for the public, the disclosure of the public and did not even include reporting to the law enforcement authorities.

“In a way, it was a continuation of what we always had.”

In a stockpake from February 2025, the SNAP victim association said that in reality the Vatican continued to retain documents for abuse cases and condemned the obligatory reporting as a “half-measurement”.

Both now turn up to the next Pope.

Barrett Doyle traveled to Rome to press her case.

And SNAP has set up a dedicated website, Concomalwatch.org, to examine individual cardinal records for dealing with abuse.

“The last three popes have all sexual abuse of clergymen covered. We cannot afford a quarter,” it said.

By Alice Ritchie