Accusations against Pope Francis following his opposition to clergy sex abuse reforms

Pope Francis has been accused of opposing reforms regarding sexual abuse by clergy.

Pope Francis has resisted reforms that would seriously address the problem of sexual abuse of children and vulnerable people by clergy, leading to accusations that he turned a blind eye to priests who raped nuns.

Scandals have plagued the Catholic Church in recent decades, and Pope Francis announced during a meeting in February 2019 that he would spare no effort to bring pedophile priests and bishops who covered up their crimes to justice.

A week before the summit, Pope Francis publicly admitted that priests also sexually abused nuns and forced them to have abortions. Some attendees pledged to do more to combat the problem. Three months after the summit, the Vatican established procedures for every bishop to report allegations of sexual abuse, and Pope Francis lifted the rule of “episcopal secrecy” to improve transparency about sexual abuse.

Now, five years after the summit and the promises made by Pope Francis and other committed attendees, activists supporting victims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests have declared that Pope Francis has not kept his promises and that his laws have had little effect.

On Monday, February 26, Anne Barrett Doyle, co-founder of Bishop Accountability, which has been tracking cases of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy since 2019, highlighted 10 cases of bishops and clergy accused of sexual abuse who have also been supported by Pope Francis. She cited the case of Marko Rupnik, who was excommunicated from the church in 2020 over allegations of sexual and psychological abuse against nuns three decades ago, but was reinstated in his native Slovenia three years later in 2023.

The Vatican has not yet responded to the allegations against Pope Francis.