26 TIMESeptember 3–10, 2018
TheView Opener
and exposed the perils of unchecked
power exercised by another cardinal,
Boston’s Bernard Law. That reporting
led to Law’s resignation, the removal and
prosecution of priestly ofenders, and
a promise from U.S. bishops to install a
“zero tolerance” policy on sexual abuse.
Sixteen years later, the phrasewitch
hunt calls to mind President Trump’s as-
sault on the free press, the rule of law,
and our constitutional system of checks
and balances and the separation of pow-
ers. What happens when those curbs
on executive power are weak or nonex-
istent? Too often we look to places like
Vladimir Putin’s Russia to answer that
question. Instead, we should look to the
Catholic Church; we can see the conse-
quences in the broken lives of thousands
of victims and the anguish of our Cath-
olic neighbors—because the crisis of
priestly sexual abuse is a crisis of execu-
tive power run amok.
HISTORICALLY, A BISHOPwas a priest
drawn from an area’s Catholic people,
and the Pope—the bishop of Rome, suc-
cessor to Jesus’ disciple Peter—was con-
sidered the “bishop of bishops.” But the
papacy gained power until the Pope was
an absolute monarch. Then, in 1959,
Pope John XXIII called the world’s bish-
ops to Rome for a council. Known as
VaticanII, that assembly airmed the
authority of the bishops under the Pope,
empowering them to lead the faithful ac-
cording to regional needs and customs
around the world.
Pope John Paul II changed that.
Elected in 1978, he turned those bishops
into municipal upholders of the power
of Rome. Over three decades, he made
appointments based on candidates’ un-
ambiguous orthodoxy and loyalty to the
organization, rather than holiness, wis-
dom, imagination or grasp of the local
situation. He built a class of subordinates
to the church’s chief executive.
So when the U.S. bishops faced
charges of sexual abuse and cover-up,
they struck back through assertions
of executive power. They accused the
press of anti-Catholic bias, prosecutors
of interfering in church afairs and vic-
tims’ lawyers of greed and opportunism.
They acted as if they—not preyed-upon
youth—were the victims.
After the scandal of 2002, the bishops
actually entrusted themselves with
addressing the crimes—ones in which
they were implicated—by organizing a
review board under their supervision
and promising to report abuse claims to
law enforcement. The 60 million–plus
member American Catholic populace
had no formal say in this. We went along
with it and hoped for the best. Is it any
wonder that the crisis of priestly sexual
abuse hasn’t been dealt with?
Now there is talk of the need for pro-
found reform of the church’s structures
of governance. But while it’s a worthy
long-term goal, that rebuilding would
take decades, and it is unlikely to take
hold in the deeply undemocratic church
at a time when checks and balances are
under strain in robust democracies.
The best structure for accountabil-
ity, then, remains the one in place—that
which has shaped the crisis from the
exposé in Boston to the grand-jury re-
port in Pennsylvania: the press, pros-
ecution and the people. A free press
pursues claims of priestly sexual abuse
aggressively—and adversarially, if need
be. Victims take their claims to the
media, the police and the courts (not just
the church)—and the perpetrators are
exposed and prosecuted. The Catholic
people, and good people generally, fully
express our sense of betrayal and feel the
pain of the victims all over again.
This arrangement, though, doesn’t
give us much hope for change. But there
is a fourth part of all of this: the Pope.
The historic power of the papacy
means that change in the church often
comes, inally, at the prompting of the
Pontif—as in, through the exercise
of executive power. By calling for
Vatican II, John XXIII sparked
crucial reforms. John Paul II was
personally committed to repair-
ing the church’s tortured rela-
tions with the Jewish people,
and his commitment
led to change. The
church needs some-
thing similar from
Pope Francis.
The current
Pontif ’s record
on priestly sex-
ual abuse is farfrom sound. But his willingness earlier
this summer to change his position on
priestly sexual abuse in Chile in a mat-
ter of weeks—from angry defensive-
ness to an admission of wrongdoing to
welcoming to victims in Rome—shows
what is possible when a Pope commits to
doing the right thing rather than stand-
ing blindly by his subordinates. And his
Aug. 20 letter—personal, aggrieved, but
short on speciics—suggests that he, too,
is searching for a way forward.
Pope Francis could appoint succes-
sors to the active bishops who igure in
the grand-jury report, installing fresh
leaders for the good of the church. He
could institute a Year of Repentance for
Priestly Sexual Abuse, akin to the Year
of Mercy he called in December 2015.
He could urge victims to come forward
to law enforcement without fear of stat-
utes of limitations. He could meet jour-
nalists on their own turf for an open
session—no question refused—and urge
them to keep up their reporting on the
church. He could welcome prosecu-
tors and victims’ attorneys to Rome and
thank them for doing the work of scru-
tiny and calling priests to account.
For all his power in the church, a
Pope’s power in the world is that of lead-
ing through gesture and symbolism. It is
greater than executive power.
As John Paul, at the Wailing Wall,
paid homage to over 5,700 years of
Jewish heritage in 2000, so too could
Francis bend the knee to democratic
traditions of separation of powers, ac-
countability and a free press. It would
not be enough to expunge the evil of
priestly sexual abuse. But it would
airm what events have already
made clear: when it comes to
priestly sexual abuse, the Cath-
olic Church is incapable of
ixing itself.Elie, a senior research
fellow at George-
town’s Berkley
Center for Reli-
gion, Peace and
World Afairs,
is writing a
book on art,
religion and
controversy in
▷Pope Francis the 1980sALESSANDRO DI MEO—POOL/EPA-EFE/SHUTTERSTOCK