Anon, 
I don't think there is much hope of making real change on TODAY's abuse of children, if he won't fix that accountability issue.  Sometimes, a bit of "hierarchical fear" can be a good thing.  It's all well and good to want to ASSUME that all employees in an organization are good people, but history says that just doesn't happen.  Society tends to address that through, among some other things, fear of getting caught and being held accountable.

If a bishop gets caught, where is the fear of shame?  Where is the fear of jail?  

Such fear is absolutely NOT the whole answer.  But it's a big and obvious missing piece.  And the sad part, there's no reason it can't be done relatively simply and quickly.

Francis has relegated the abuse commission to writing guidelines for third world bishops.  I think that's a waste of good human capital, and yet ANOTHER strong signal that he's not really serious: one that is being heard by every enabler out there...

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