One of the worst accusations against the integrity of the Catholic Church arise from the continuous sexual abuse scandals that have emerged in recent decades.
In particular the “Spotlight scandals” of clerical abuse in Boston found their way into the news in 2002.
The Church authorities responded by saying they were shocked and appalled, offered heartfelt apologies, held meetings, and promised to make changes, insisting abuse would not happen again.
When Cardinal Theodore McCarrick’s long history of abuse finally made its way on to the public stage in 2018, Church authorities responded again by saying they were shocked and appalled, offered heartfelt apologies, held meetings, and pledged to make changes, so that abuse would not happen again.
Yet while Pope Benedict XVI took action against Cardinal McCarrick, one of Pope Francis’ first acts was not only to reinstate him but invest him with diplomatic responsibilities with the Chinese government.
The record of Pope Francis in providing sanctuary and employment to clergy who have been accused either of sexual predation or covering up for sexual predators has added to the impression that the Church has been continuing to put the protection of clergy before the protection of the vulnerable and innocent.
Matters have been made considerably worse with the latest clerical abuse scandal involving the (former) Jesuit mosaic artist Fr Marko Rupnik.
The allegations against this “celebrity priest” are shocking: he stands accused of abusing more than 25 women religious, engaging in a sexual threesome with two nuns to imitate the Holy Trinity, and the diabolical abuse of Eucharistic chalices as part of sexual games.
He is also accused of infringing code 977 of the Code of Canon Law by invalidly absolving an Italian novice, with whom he had sexual relations, an offence which carries the penalty of automatic excommunication.
Only the Pope has the power to lift such an excommunication and because Fr Rupnik was subsequently rehabilitated it is reasonable to conclude that the Holy Father duly obliged.
At the same time, it was reported that the Pope refused to meet the victims of Fr Rupnik or that he answered their letters asking for help.
In a further recent letter to Pope Francis last month, Rupnik’s accusers complained bitterly that they held both the Pope and the Diocese of Rome accountable for what seemed to them a whitewashing of Rupnik’s conduct.
They declared that they were “left speechless” by Rome’s cover-up of the actions of a man they believe to be a serial abuser.
“We see that the Church does not care about the victims and those who seek justice” the letter alleged, adding that from their perspective the “zero tolerance of abuse in the Church” was nothing more than “merely a publicity campaign, which was in fact followed by covert actions which instead supported and covered up the abusers”.
Many commentators wrote about the danger that the whole venture of exploring synodality would be overshadowed by this scandal.
Matters came to a head as the General Assembly of the Synod on Synodality released the Letter to the People of God in which it repeatedly referred to the importance of including and listening to laypeople – both men and women – in a synodal Church.
Ghanaian theologian Nora Kofognotera Nonterah told a press conference that the Church is enriched when it listens to women and includes them in decision-making processes.
“A synodal Church must be willing to sit at the feet of women,” she said.
As journalists rushed away to write their reports the bigger story – that Fr Rupnik was to be incardinated in his home Slovenian Diocese of Koper – was breaking elsewhere.
In this, there was more than a whiff of the old charge of the Church moving abusers from parish to parish while their victims accumulate.
It produced both a wave of revulsion around the Catholic world as well as an incredulity that while the Synod was celebrating its success in listening to activist political women, those who complained of Rupnik’s alleged abuse had failed to succeed in getting the Church to hear their voice, their pain and their compelling sense of injustice.
The injustice of this raised the prospect of the synodal claims to be nothing more than administrative rhetoric.
It was at that point that Pope Francis announced his intervention in the case by lifting the statute of limitations which had acted as an administrative bar to a Church prosecution of Fr Rupnik for the crimes of which he is accused.
Supporters of Pope Francis commended this swift intervention at such a critical moment. Other commentators wondered why it had taken the Pontiff so long to act and if there was something expedient about his sudden change of heart.
This gap between promise and performance in the matter of dealing with sexual abuse and clerical abusers goes to the heart of the integrity of the Church and its reputation.
Even critics of the Synodal process may find themselves grateful that this sordid affair has at least highlighted an unsustainable contradiction in the life of the Church.
It has provided the possibility of accountability and justice in the latest sexual scandal to overshadow the integrity of the Church and the opportunity to root out corruption.
Even those Catholics who love Pope Francis and who are deeply loyal to him, may privately admit that in this scandal His Holiness does not come out as well as they might have hoped.
To those who have struggled with much of his edicts, his war on tradition and his propensity to create confusion as he turns back the clock to the 1970s, might on this occasion more than ever find themselves wishing that this Jesuit Pope from the Drinan, Boff and Cardenal era might learn that in the handling of abuse claims the Church has moved on.
It is time for the Holy Father to catch up.