Fine words butter no parsnips. Nor indeed can jargon take the place of an attempt to serve a better quality of vegetable. At the risk of seeming excessively negative, this about sums up my views on the recently concluded Vatican summit on the abuse of minors.
It is good to hear promises of zero tolerance and transparency, but we have promised these before. If the daily press conferences were supposed to model this new transparency, there is frankly little hope of progress. Difficult questions were ignored or met with opaque jargon about synodality and radical listening. I do not doubt that the promises of improved procedures are sincerely meant, but by their fruits shall ye know them. It remains to my mind essentially an admission of failure that after 20 years of revelations, the world’s bishops can now assent to a self-evident truth in such a way as to act decisively on it – a truth any parent could tell you – that the sexual abuse of children is terrible and should not be concealed.
