The past 48 hours in the news cycle make life very hard for a blog writer trying to keep up.  A matter of hours ago the only Pope being discussed was the one who had died on Easter Monday, and whose funeral had created the powerful image of two leaders having an informal meeting in St Peter’s Rome.  For all its importance, that image of Trump and Zelensky seated facing one another in the Basilica has been swept away by many new images from Rome, cheering crowds and signs of enthusiasm from Catholics all over the world.  Many non-Catholics, including myself, have been delighted to see the juggernaut of extreme right-wing ideas, as embodied by the MAGA forces of Trump, brought to a halt momentarily.  This continues the trend shown in the welcome election results in Canada and Australia.  The democratic instincts of ordinary people, which include a body of conservative men voting in the conclave in Rome, have reassured us that a worldwide drift towards fascism is not after all the will of the mass of people.  We can after all look forward to a future where liberal humane values exist and democratic instincts, despite the way they create untidiness in society, still prevail.

Pope Leo has indicated that he will, in his choice of name and his past record, be likely to keep many of the emphases of his predecessor alive.  This will include care for the poor, refugees and those marginalised by unjust systems, whether political or economic.  As has come to be expected of the majority of senior church figures of every denomination, his record of care for survivors and the pursuit of justice on their behalf is not flawless.  There is an incident recorded in Wikipedia page for Leo which indicates a preference to preserve the reputation of the church institution over the imperatives of justice.  This ‘scandal’ will be mulled over by many people. I mention it, not as a way of suggesting that the appointment should not have been made, but rather to observe that every single Papal candidate in his past will likely have some safeguarding lapse buried, but not forgotten. 

It is with the expectation that, at best, every candidate will have had a mixed record over safeguarding, that we can look back over the reign of Pope Francis and forward to that of Pope Leo.  Many eulogies have been made over Francis but repeating them is not the task of this blog.  What I find interesting is in the way that the good in Francis could be combined with aspects of failure, even evil.  Seeing only the good in someone is always going to create a one-sided, even distorted picture.  This would be the same for any of our lives.  Failing to even comment on serious failings in a person’s life may create an unhealthy situation.  The process of grieving is unlikely to be completed if there is a family myth which members are desperate to preserve at all costs.   To take an imaginary situation which will reflect what most clergy have witnessed.  Grandpa’s cruel behaviour towards his wife over 40 years of marriage has to be hushed up.   The family are not just rallying round to protect the family from the taint of scandal.  They are also aware that any discussion of Grandpa’s unacceptable behaviour will show up a part of the family in their failure to do more to challenge this behaviour and protect Grandma.  Listening to eulogies that are effectively ‘fake news’ is painful and in some way corrupting in equal measure.

Those who will study and scrutinise the life and reputation of Francis have plenty of material to assimilate and discuss.  The question as to whether he struck the right balance in relating to the dictatorial regime of Argentina, when Archbishop of Buenos Aires, will be a topic for historians for many decades to come.  For the purpose of this reflection, the focus is not on his skill in managing to negotiate a path through the tortuous path of Argentinian politics, but whether he served the cause of the victims and survivors of clerical abuse – a situation of enormous shame and harm to the work of the Catholic Church in every part of the world.

I write about child abuse in the Catholic Church with absolutely no desire to sound triumphalist by comparing it with the record of other communions, like the Anglican Church.  No church of any denomination emerges particularly well from the hundreds of cases that have come to light over the past 25 years or so.  While one can argue about the extent of the problem in comparing Catholic and Anglicans, the important question is perhaps which Communion is further ahead in actually dealing with the problem more effectively.  The death of Pope Francis and the new arrival of Pope Leo has brought to the surface once more the cry of survivors and their demand to be heard.  These suggest that late Pope said many of the right things about abuse, spending time with victims and expressing sorrow over their suffering.   Somehow, he seldom seems to have followed up his words with decisive action.   The BBC website carried a story about a woman called Alexa MacPherson who suffered sexual abuse from a RC priest for as long as six years from the age of three.   The priest was eventually sentenced by a court to a period in jail.  What horrified Alexa when she examined the paperwork connected with the case as an adult, was the way that the Church had used its power and influence to obtain favours from the justice system to mitigate the sentence of the offending priest.  The case was one of many that involved the intervention of Cardinal Bernard Law.  Cardinal Law, always anxious to protect the reputation of the institution above checking the poison of clerical abuse, was allowed to find refuge in Rome, being put in charge of a prestigious parish.  He died in 2018, effectively exonerated from his gross failures of care.  Francis did not ever take any action against him but allowed him to remain in post despite his notoriety in the eyes of the public.

 In writing this reflection, I would not want to claim that the record of Catholic bishops and priests is either better or worse than that of Anglicans.  Both hierarchies are guilty of causing terrible suffering to children and vulnerable individuals by a combination of incompetence, sloth and wilful neglect.  To say that the powerful were in the business of preserving the less powerful and the institutions that they worked for is probably not far off the mark as a generalisation.  Where there is a contrast, and this applies to the Catholic Church under Pope Francis, is the attitude shown by senior UK Catholic leaders when faced with the appalling crimes of some of the priests under their oversight.  There were, it is true.,Anglican bishops, such as Eric Kemp of Chichester, who wrapped protective blankets around clergy clearly guilty of crimes.  Their capacity for creating a toxic dangerous culture for the young only stretched to the boundary of their dioceses.  The potential harm that a Pope can do, with a flawed sense of the importance of sticking up for potential victims, is enormous. Francis seems to have been successful at saying the pastorally sensitive words to the survivors, but he seems much less competent at confronting and disciplining those guilty of appalling crimes of abuse.

The UK government report on crimes of child abuse (ICSA) tried to bring into the open the record of Anglican and Catholic attempts to hide away the incidence of child abuse within their structures.  Both Churches had their stories of pain and cruelty committed against young innocent individuals, but the Catholic Church showed itself far less cooperative in releasing documents and generally sharing information which would assist an important Government body to have a full picture.  The Church hierarchy believed that such cooperation would contravene Canon Law and that such non-cooperation was permitted on the grounds that the instructions of the Vatican have the protection afforded to any foreign state.  This refusal to cooperate belied the words of Francis who, in May 2019 had said there needed to be “concrete and effective actions that in involve everyone in the Church” regarding its approach to child sexual abuse. 

It now remains to be seen whether the new Pope will deliver on the implied concern of his predecessor over the need to act in respect of child abuse.  Will he put the need for providing justice and healing for those in pain or will he continue to prioritise the glory and privileges of the Catholic Church?  History will eventually tell us which path is to be followed.