Pope Francis is facing yet more criticism over the “glacial” speed in his handling of the sexual abuse crisis that has plagued the Catholic Church.
The day after the Pope summoned the church’s top officials from across the world to the Vatican for a February meeting to discuss the problem, Mark Vincent Healy, the first male survivor of Irish clerical sex abuse to meet with Francis, told CNN he believes the Vatican is on an “inescapable trajectory.”
While the Pope has come under increasing pressure in recent weeks with cases of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church making headlines across the world, Healy says the Pope’s lack of action has left survivors fearing that little punishment will be handed out to those responsible.
“Pope Francis has had since March 2013, when he was elected, time to deal with the scandal of clergy child sexual abuse,” Healy told CNN.
“From around the world inquiries have reported their findings and received commentary in countless reports, audits, films, documentaries, media flashes and bursts. All the while the Vatican moves at a glacial pace to ‘address’ the scandal with words of apology and acknowledgment of the harm done.
“Clichés come to mind like ‘too little too late,’ ‘action not words,’ ‘conferences within the religious not consultations with survivors’ and so on.”
