美国国家公共电台 NPR Vatican's Meeting Of Bishops Is Overshadowed By Abuse Allegations

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NOEL KING, HOST:

As scandals around clerical sex abuse hit the Catholic Church, a three-week-long assembly of bishops¹ is underway in Rome. They're focused on how to make the church relevant to young people. But as NPR's Sylvia Poggioli reports, the assembly, which is known as a synod, will likely be dominated by what many analysts² call Catholicism's worst crisis since the Reformation.

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UNIDENTIFIED SINGERS: (Singing in foreign language).

SYLVIA POGGIOLI, BYLINE³: In the synod's opening mass, Pope Francis urged the more than 250 participating priests, bishops and cardinals⁴ to dare to dream and to hope.

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POPE FRANCIS: (Speaking Italian).

POGGIOLI: And he prayed for God's help to ensure the church does not let itself be extinguished or crushed by the prophets of doom⁵ and misfortune by our own shortcomings, mistakes and sins. Spiraling sex abuse scandals have hurt the pope. A new Pew Research Center poll found Francis' favorability rating in the United States is 51 percent, 19 points down since January 2017. And as the synod opened one block from St. Peter's Square, some 20 abuse survivors⁶ voiced their anger at the church.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Speaking Italian).

POGGIOLI: "We victims must unite," a man shouted. "That's the only way we can bring this evil to an end." Arturo Borelli says he was abused by a priest who fled both civil and church justice. Nearby, some 20 people - Italians and other Europeans - held placards demanding no more cover-ups and make zero-tolerance real.

CHRISTIAN⁷ WEISNER: I think we are in the deepest crisis in the Roman Catholic Church.

POGGIOLI: Christian Weisner is one of the German founders⁹ of the progressive Catholic movement We Are Church. He believes Francis is doing the best he can handling the crisis but needs much more support from bishops.

WEISNER: Especially now at the youth synod, the bishops - they have to face this problem. They have to give answers. They have to take responsibility.

POGGIOLI: It's not the only issue haunting the church. On the eve of the synod, a group of Catholic women activists¹⁰ met in Rome to demand decision-making positions in the church for women. But Chantal Gotz, founder⁸ of the movement Voices of Faith, acknowledged nothing will change as long as clericalism prevails, that culture of clergy¹¹ entitlement and unaccountability.

CHANTAL GOTZ: The whole governance structure is crippled and paralyzed by clericalism. It cannot just be repaired somehow but must die and be resurrected in a totally new form.

POGGIOLI: Celia Wexler, author of a book on women's struggles in the church, said that it's hard for Catholic women to speak out because they have always been taught to obey.

CELIA WEXLER: No. I think we have to come to the point where we don't ask permission. We speak out and speak up and talk to one another.

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UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: Pope Francis, let women vote. Knock, knock. Who's there? More than half the church.

POGGIOLI: Making their voices heard as bishops and cardinals were entering the assembly hall, these women came to protest gender¹² discrimination. At the synod, laymen¹³ participants can vote, but the few laywomen cannot. The peaceful protest ended when police officers in plainclothes and others with bulletproof vests intervened, manhandling several of the women. Sylvia Poggioli, NPR News, Rome.

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