Pope Francis declared an “all-out battle” against sexual abuse on Sunday as he concluded a high-stakes summit that Catholic bishops hailed as a turning point for the church, even as victims lamented that little had actually been accomplished during the unprecedented four-day meeting.
In a closing address in the Apostolic Palace’s opulently frescoed Sala Regia, the pontiff declared priests who abuse children to be “tools of Satan” and described their crimes as “utterly incompatible with [the church’s] moral authority and ethical credibility.” Both, he said, had been further damaged by the hierarchy’s own history of cover-up and inaction.
“In the people’s justified anger, the church sees the reflection of the wrath of God – betrayed and insulted by these deceitful consecrated persons,” Francis said. “This cry will shake the hearts of those dulled by hypocrisy and power.”
Much of the pope’s lengthy speech, however, focused outside the Vatican’s walls, citing abuse in families and other institutions while condemning the spread of internet pornography and “ideological disputes and journalistic practices that often exploit … the tragedy.”
But Mark Coleridge, the archbishop of Brisbane, Australia who delivered a homily before Francis’ speech, laid blame for the scandals that have plagued the church directly at the hierarchy’s feet.
“We have been our own worst enemy,” he said. “We have shown too little mercy, and therefore we will receive the same. We will not go unpunished.”
He called for a “Copernican Revolution” in Church leaders’ thinking on the issue, referencing the 15th-century paradigm shift in which the world abandoned past notions that the sun revolved around the Earth.
“Those who have been abused do not revolve around the church, but the church around them,” he said.
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