Pope Francis has established a special body within the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to speed up the process of hearing and ruling on appeals filed by priests laicized or otherwise disciplined in sexual abuse or other serious cases. Federico Lombardi, S.J., the Vatican spokesperson, told reporters on Nov. 11 that the members of the doctrinal congregation had been examining an average of four or five appeals, mostly in sexual abuse cases, at each of their monthly meetings. “Because of the number of appeals and the need to guarantee a more rapid examination of them,” Pope Francis has instituted a “college” within the congregation to judge cases involving priests. A case involving a bishop accused of abuse or other serious crimes would continue to be examined and judged by the entire membership of the doctrinal congregation during one of its regular monthly meetings.
Vatican to Speed Up Abuse Appeals
Show Comments (
)
Comments are automatically closed two weeks after an article's initial publication. See our comments policy for more.
The latest from america
So many mourners lined up to see Pope Francis lying in state in a simple wooden coffin inside St. Peter’s Basilica that the Vatican kept the doors open all night.
A church that dialogues is “much more interesting than a church where things fall from up high,” Jesuit Father Arturo Sosa, superior general of the Jesuits, said.
The pope’s attention to migration and climate change were well known, but the pope was also attentive to a number of other global issues and challenges like nuclear disarmament, tax justice, development, and the rise of autonomous (A.I.) weapons systems.
The canonization Mass for the first “millennial saint,” originally scheduled for this Sunday, has been delayed indefinitely.