The pachyderm in the papal palace

June 26, 2025

Bruce Duncan’s articles do not mention the pachyderm in Francis’ papal palace: child sexual abuse. To give Francis credit, in 2019 he abolished the pontifical secret over child sexual abuse, thus putting to an end, at least on paper, to the cover-up written into canon law from 1922 to 2019. I say, on paper, because Francis continued what he called “office confidentiality” of canonical proceedings.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse recommended in its 2017 Final Report that the Holy See should publish its disciplinary decisions and their reasons, while accepting that the identity of the victims should remain confidential.

The response of the Holy See in 2020 was that the abolition of the pontifical secret allowed publication of such decisions and this would be decided on a case-by-case basis. The Holy See also said that it had an obligation to protect the reputations of all persons involved in canonical proceedings. “All persons” includes the perpetrators.

And that is exactly what its “case by case” basis has meant. The Holy See only publishes its disciplinary decisions, when the proverbial has already hit the press fan. The cover-up continues under another name.