The Pope met with a coalition of top U.S. Catholic officials last week at the Vatican to discuss the ongoing sexual abuse scandals within the Church and what U.S clergy can do to prevent future incidents and redeem their image.
Those in attendance included Boston Cardinal Sean O'Malley and Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, Archbishop Jose H. Gomez, and Monsignor Brian Bransfield, the president, deputy president, and secretary general for the U.S. Conference of Bishops. DiNardo called the meeting after a Pennsylvania grand jury released a report that detailed 70 years of pervasive abuse among the Catholic Church in the state, including more than 1,000 victims and 301 abusive priests. In addition, the report shows that members of the church took part in protecting the pedophile priests.
On their weekly segment on Boston Public Radio, Reverends Irene Monroe and Emmet Price criticized Pope Francis and U.S. Church representatives for their failure to act and introduce significant changes to prevent further abuse.
“[The Pope] actually should be meeting them in jail,” Monroe said.
Price, who tends to be more trusting of the direction of the papacy, is also fed up with the their inaction. “I’m losing hope here too. We are meeting to figure out who to meet with and then we meet with them to figure out who else we need to meet with, and there is no action. There is not vision for potential action and there is no steps toward healing, and he is meeting with the wrong people,” Price said.
“You have a lot of very good, wonderful people in the trenches who are being hurt by this," Price continued. We have to figure out how do you change culture and how do you change systems, and how to you change cannon law by also not decimating the hope and the faith of these wonderful people who are in the trenches."
Throughout the segment Monroe was emphatic that there is one course of action that could solve many of the churches problems.
“I think the only thing that is just and shows mercy is jail,” she said.
