VATICAN CITY — Cardinals attending Pope Francis’ summit on preventing clergy sex abuse called on Friday for a new culture of accountability in the Catholic Church to punish bishops and religious superiors when they fail to protect their flocks from predator priests. ADVERTISEMENT“We must repent and do so together, collegially, because along the way we have failed,” said Mumbai Cardinal Oswald Gracias. The Pope summoned the bishops for the four-day tutorial on preventing sex abuse and protecting children after the scandal erupted again last year in Chile and the United States. The US conference proposal, which called for a code of conduct for bishops and a third-party confidential reporting system, would have been voluntary. Pope Francis, the first Latin American pope, called the summit after he himself botched a well-known sex abuse cover-up case in Chile last year.

Source: Philippine Daily Inquirer February 23, 2019 23:15 UTC