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Popularly dubbed The Red Hat Report, a new organisation backed by wealthy Catholics is planning to spend $1 million over the next 12 months to evaluate cardinals across the world on the way they handle accusations of clerical sex abuse or cover-up.
The Better Church Governance Group aims to compile dossiers “in the manner of political opposition research” on cardinal electors ahead of the next conclave, the gathering that elects a new pope.
During Sunday’s “Red Hat Cocktail Party” when the evaluation was launched, Better Church Governance’s chief operating officer and development director questioned Pope Francis’s election.
He asked those present if Francis would have been elected pope in 2013 had opposition research been available at the time to the gathered electors.
Philip Nielsen, who is the executive director of the governance group and managing editor of the Red Hat Report, says the Group is “a non-profit watchdog” organisation comprising “academics, Vatican reporters, and about thirty others” as well as anonymous contributors.
Better Church Governance says The Red Hat Report, “is not intended to be a political project and will not endorse or attack any cardinal.”
The team researching the report will follow an eight-point plan to “audit” the cardinals. It will name those credibly accused in scandal, abuse, or cover-up and will also report research on those who have “responded strongly against corruption.”
Better Church Governance says it will also use the information gathered “to edit the cardinals’ English language Wikipedia pages.
“It is well known that at the last papal conclave many of the cardinals’ secretaries used these pages to help the cardinals better know each other,” Nielsen says.
Better Church Governance says it aims to expand its research to the entire episcopacy, not just cardinals, and to become a permanent commission.
Source
- National Catholic Reporter
- Image: Metro
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