Michael Dooley, the Catholic Bishop of Dunedin, says a Vatican conference on sexual abuse is just ”the beginning”, despite the lack of concrete action.
Last week he told the Otago Daily Times Insight the international gathering of bishops was about getting ”attitudes right”.
Pope Francis had indicated new guidelines would follow on the response to the sexual abuse crisis within the church, and it was hoped those would contain concrete steps to address the issue, Dooley said.
He was also positive about the Pope’s commitment to ”spare no effort” in tackling abuse, despite outrage from survivors who wanted a ”zero tolerance” commitment from the Vatican.
”My gut feeling is that Pope Francis wants to deal with this,” Dooley said.
”I think the ‘spare no effort’ is, to my mind, a strong indication to do something. I would take it in a positive light – that we are to do everything we can.”
In New Zealand, the Vatican statements gave fresh ”impetus and encouragement” to cement new safeguarding principles for clergy and volunteers within the church, he said.
He was also hopeful the church was moving towards the kind of greater disclosure demanded by victim and survivor advocate Dr Murray Heasley.
”I think what [Dr Heasley’s] resolution wanted was very much what the general thrust of the summit was, but they mightn’t be quite up to there yet.”
Many activists and survivors were expecting more from the Vatican Summit.
Time Magazine reports that Francis offered no detailed plan on how to prevent abuse or binding rules on how to deal with abusers and cooperate with law enforcement.
A promise to issue a new guidebook for bishops received short shrift from advocates.
“Over the years, we’ve seen many church leaders write new guidelines, which are then developed, watered down, published and ignored,” says Colm O’Gorman, an Irish survivor of clergy abuse who now heads the Irish branch of Amnesty International.
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