Many expressed exasperation and little optimism that an extraordinary four-day meeting of bishops and other participants convened by Pope Francis to grapple with clerical child sexual abuse would lead to even basic changes. The scenes punctuated the enormous pressures on the pope to forcefully address priestly sexual abuse, a scourge that has for decades devastated some areas of his vast church while in others it has been utterly ignored and denied. The meeting was potentially a consequential moment for this papacy and the most visible step taken by the Vatican to impress upon bishops and other church leaders — some of them still skeptical — the enormity of a crisis that has shaken the faithful. Expectations for action were amplified by victims and victim advocates, who converged in Rome to apply pressure from outside the meeting, which took place in a Holy See conference hall. Priest sex abuse scandals have repeatedly emerged around the world even decades after the problem first came to light in the United States, where the systemic shuffling of predatory priests from parish to parish spread abuse like a virus.
Francis claimed child abuse was in fact more scandalous when it was perpetrated within the Church because it did not fit with its moral authority and ethical credibility. Peter Isely, of the victim advocacy group Ending Clergy Abuse, said the pontiff did not go far enough. The Holy See would also set up teams of experts, to be sent to countries to help inexperienced bishops handle reports of clergy abuse. Every bishop in Chile offered to resign last year over a widespread cover-up. The pope accepted seven of the resignations and dismissed two of the bishops from the priesthood.