Pope Francis Ends Landmark Meeting by Again Calling for ‘All-Out Battle’ to Fight Sexual Abuse – The New York Times

On Sunday, he compared the abuse of minors to “sacrificing human beings, frequently children, in pagan rites.”

“Consecrated persons, chosen by God to guide souls to salvation, let themselves be dominated by their human frailty or sickness and thus become tools of Satan,” he added. “In abuse, we see the hand of the evil that does not spare even the innocence of children.”

Francis, however, had sought to tamp down expectations about the Vatican meeting, fostered by some of his own bishops, that the conference would deliver concrete remedies to end the scourge. He said the meeting had been intended to educate all the bishops on the gravity of the problem of sexual abuse; many were skeptical about such cases in their home countries.

Some advocates for abuse survivors considered the pope’s remarks a failure.

“Pope Francis’ talk today was a stunning letdown, a catastrophic misreading of the grief and outrage of the faithful,” said Anne Barrett Doyle, a leader of BishopAccountability.org. “As the world’s Catholics cry out for concrete change, the pope instead provides tepid promises, all of which we’ve heard before.”

But Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo, the president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, said on Saturday that he was “very pleased” with the meeting, even though specific action still needed to be determined.

“This went far better than I think some of us had hoped,” he said. “Now you have the bishops all saying it’s ubiquitous.”

At first, some countries did not want to admit that they had the same issues as the United States, Cardinal DiNardo said, but in the end, he said, he was impressed with the consensus developed among the global bishops.