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Israel Salas-Rodriguez, senior news reporter at the U.S. Sun says that the recent death of Pope Francis at age 88 has renewed anguish among survivors of clergy sexual abuse, many of whom say they fear the Vatican’s momentum toward accountability and transparency will stall without meaningful reform. Francis passed away from a stroke and cardiac arrest following several years of declining health, including a recent five-week hospitalization for double pneumonia.
As the first Jesuit and Latin American pontiff, Pope Francis led the Roman Catholic Church for 12 years and was known for his more liberal stance on LGBTQ+ inclusion and other modern reforms. But his papacy also coincided with ongoing demands for justice from survivors of clerical abuse and criticism that his efforts fell far short.
Boston-based attorney Mitchell Garabedian, who represented sex abuse victims in the Boston area during the Catholic priest sexual abuse scandal in the early 2000s, said the institutional weight of the Church proved too great, even for Francis. “The Catholic Church has not changed its ways in preventing child abuse or helping survivors trying to heal,” he told The U.S. Sun. “Survivors do not have much faith in the Catholic Church all of a sudden changing.”
“Pope Francis said the right things, but the bureaucracy was just too much for him. For instance, when he created a committee in order to protect children against religious sexual abuse, and in that committee he appointed two lay people, but both lay people quit because there was no change coming. I think many survivors feel as though the church never cared about survivors and never will.”
Robert Hoatson, founder of Road to Recover, a nonprofit that supports clergy abuse survivors and who is himself an alleged survivor of clerical abuse, echoed the sentiment. “He kind of folded. And I know he was not a healthy man, so, I don’t know whether it was his lack of ability to sustain, but he really wasn’t helpful to the victims. And I’ve been spending the last two days on the phone, constantly trying to talk victims down. In other words, they’re being triggered by all this. He didn’t do anything for us, the millions of victims waiting for justice.”
Francis’ death initiates the centuries-old conclave tradition, where cardinals from around the globe will meet to select the next pope. But for Hoatson, expectations remain grim. “Little to no hope,” he said, predicting that transformative steps on abuse accountability are unlikely. He also voiced concerns about the makeup of the College of Cardinals. “The other scary thing is Francis appointed cardinals from all over the world from very, heretofore, unknown countries, so to speak, in the church terms.”
Hoatson recalled a recent trip to Africa where his own testimony was met with disturbing reactions. “I went to Africa for a few weeks to talk about the sexual abuse of children, and I told them about my abuse, and they said, well, it was my fault because I was a gay man. Therefore, I was immediately gay because I was abused by priests, and in some countries like Uganda, they have regulations that homosexuals ought to be killed. So, I just hope that none of these people who are from these countries that treat people strenuously or seriously are going to be elected.”
Throughout his papacy, Pope Francis appointed more cardinals than his two predecessors, drawing from outside Europe in an effort to diversify the hierarchy. Survivors and advocates now hope that his successor will adopt more aggressive transparency measures.
“Pope Francis was a ray of hope for survivors, but not many survivors even thought that Pope Francis would change the ways of the church with regards to pedophilia,” the attorney said. He called for the next pontiff to declassify the Church’s secret archives. “There needs to be transparency within the church. The Pope should be auditing all bishops and archbishops to release worldwide the Canon Law 489 files, which are the secret archives, written documents, describing how priests sexually abused children and how the abuse was covered up. The scandalous documents that are kept under the lock and key by the bishop or archbishop.”
Canon 489 documents, which dioceses are required to keep sealed, include records of criminal complaints and administrative actions against clergy. In many cases, they are destroyed once all parties have died or 10 years have passed since the original sentence.
“When he was elected, I was hopeful, not very hopeful because I had just run into constant walls whenever we tried to get anything done, you know, justice for victims, etc. But Francis really didn’t do much of anything for us,” said Hoatson, a former Catholic priest of 12 years. “Pope Francis had the power and authority to effectuate the firing and removal of any bishop or priest who abused or covered up the abuse, but his firings were few and far between. He did not act effectively, and the scandal and crisis has never abated to this day.”
He added: “No doubt, millions of members of the ‘flock’ continue to be denied justice and healing. The healing of these innocent members deserved and deserves better by the Vatican, and we fear that a retaliatory cabal of Bishops and Cardinals will resume the tactics that placed the crisis under cover for centuries.”
The papal conclave is expected to take place between May 6 and May 11. Out of the Church’s 252 cardinals, only 135 are eligible to vote due to the age limit of 80.
