What Can We Expect From the Vatican Summit?

REGISTER SYMPOSIUM: Key Church leaders reflect on the root causes of clerical sexual abuse, and the most effective path forward to healing

Gustav Doré (1832-1883), “Christ in the Synagogue”
Gustav Doré (1832-1883), “Christ in the Synagogue” (photo: Public Domain)
THE EDITORS
What to Expect From the Vatican Summit?
CARDINAL WILFRID NAPIER
Love, Care and Justice Must Be Paramount
MARIE COLLINS
Plea for Commitment and Transparency
CARDINAL GERHARD MÜLLER
The Rotten Fruit of Secularization
JANET SMITH
Overcoming a Credibility Crisis
ARCHBISHOP CHARLES CHAPUT
Mix Appropriate Anger With Confidence
ROBERT ROYAL
Create Space for Bishops to Take Action
ARCHBISHOP CARLO VIGANÒ
The Lord Will Never Abandon His Church
FATHER ROGER LANDRY
Renewing Spiritual Fatherhood
AL KRESTA
Stay With Us, Lord, For It Is Nearly Evening

As Catholics everywhere await the start of the Feb. 21-24 Vatican summit on the clergy sex-abuse crisis, the Register has assembled this special symposium in support of the stated desire of the Holy Father and the bishops of the United States to comprehensively address the scourge of clergy sexual abuse.

In this Register symposium, key Church leaders with specialized knowledge regarding the problem have been asked to reflect on two central elements: the root causes of clerical sexual abuse, and the most effective path forward with respect to bishops being held accountable and helping victims to heal.

The contributors include:

Cardinal Gerhard Müller, prefect emeritus of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith

Cardinal Wilfrid Napier of Durban, South Africa

Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, former apostolic nuncio to the U.S.

Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia

Marie Collins, a survivor of clerical sexual abuse and former member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors

Janet Smith, a professor of moral theology at Sacred Heart Seminary in Detroit

Father Roger Landry, a priest of the Diocese of Fall River, Massachusetts; and

Robert Royal, founder and president of the Faith & Reason Institute in Washington, D.C.

Al Kresta, president and CEO of Ave Maria Communications and radio host (“Kresta in the Afternoon”)