celebrated the Friday morning at the Sistine Chapel at The Vatican in Rome. The former Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost was close to the late Pope Francis, and is expected to focus on some of the same themes Francis did, including advocating for migrants and caring for the poor.
But what remains unclear is what the new leader of the world鈥檚 1.4 billion Roman Catholics might do or say about the church鈥檚 generations-long mishandling of clergy sexual abuse.
During his tenure, Pope Francis acknowledged the church's failure to protect children, apologized for it, and abolished "pontifical secrecy" in abuse cases. He also established church law that required reporting abuse, created steps towards defrocking abusers, and established steps to hold leadership accountable for being negligent in how they handled cases of abuse.
While acknowledging those steps by Francis, Eduardo Lopez de Casas told Houston Matters with Craig Cohen the late pope did not go far enough. Lopez de Casas leads , the local chapter of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, and he is also the vice president of the national organization.
He said SNAP wants to see zero tolerance for abuse, and he believes that does not yet exist within the structure of the Catholic Church 鈥� something he鈥檚 looking to Leo to set it in motion.
鈥淭here are many people that think that with all of the scandals that have happened in the Catholic Church, they just assume that there is zero tolerance. And there isn鈥檛,鈥� Lopez de Casas said. 鈥淲e are truly advocating that they do this as a so that we can really, really make a dent on sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.鈥�
SNAP and organizations like it argue Pope Leo is among a number of Catholic leaders who looked the other way in past instances of abuse and should have done more to ensure priests who were credibly accused of abuse were not allowed to continue to operate within the church.
鈥淚t鈥檚 not so much that we are calling some of these cardinals out because they didn鈥檛 do enough. We are calling these cardinals out because they turned their head to abuse,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hey knew about it, and they didn鈥檛 do anything about it. And that鈥檚 a big difference.鈥�
Lopez de Casas thinks the actions Pope Francis took on this issue were largely symbolic.
鈥淲e at SNAP don鈥檛 see that it has made any difference at all,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t is totally symbolic to us.鈥�
He cited instances where allegations were made and his organization submitted complaints against church officials, including locally, where he said 鈥渘othing was done.鈥�
SNAP has by offering a roadmap of actions the new pope could take in his first hundred days to affect real change on this issue that includes:
- The creation of an independent 鈥淕lobal Truth Commission鈥� addressing the issue with full Vatican cooperation
- A 鈥淶ero Tolerance Law鈥� adopted into canon law
- International legal agreements mandating transparency and accountability
- A survivor-funded reparations fund supported by church assets
- The creation of a survivors council with the authority to enforce compliance
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