Survivor advocacy group accuses pope of cherry-picking abuse reforms

ROME – As the one-year mark of Pope Francis’s landmark summit on child protection approaches, survivors of clerical abuse are arguing that the pope, while taking positive steps, is inconsistent in his response to the problem.

Survivors have also called for the publication of the report on the Vatican’s lengthy investigation into former cardinal Theodore McCarrick and criticized Francis for apparently backing out of a commitment to a zero-tolerance approach to the issue.

In the past year, zero tolerance has “dropped out of the pope’s lexicon,” said Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of the Bishops Accountability advocacy group, who spoke to journalists Feb. 17.

“I think zero tolerance is a pledge the pope is choosing not to make. I think he’s picking and choosing the changes he wants to make in the Church, and he’s chosen not to pursue that one,” Doyle said, adding, “I’m not so sure he was keen on doing it anyway.”

She voiced her hope that the situation changes in the near future, “because it is preposterous that the global organization that cares for millions of children still finds it okay to return a child molester to his job under certain circumstances.”

Doyle is currently in Rome alongside other activists from Bishops Accountability and other advocacy groups, such as Ending Clergy Abuse, to mark the 1-year anniversary of Pope Francis’s global summit on child protection.