Pope Benedict XVI recently invited the bishops of Ireland to the Vatican for a two-day conference concerning the Irish Bishops’ response to the priest sex-abuse scandal.

The Catholic News Service (CNS) noted the discrepancy between the participants’ assessment of the meeting and the outside media coverage. According to CNS, the Pope and the Bishops saw the meeting as “major accomplishment, combining a frank admission of mismanagement with truly collaborative discussions on how to avoid such mistakes in the future.”

To those observers outside the Vatican, the meeting seemed to make no substantive progress. Three elements were absent. There was no ecclesiastical reorganization or firings, meeting with the victims of the abuse, or any mention of future plans to visit Ireland.

Concerning anything along the lines of ecclesiastical firings, the dynamic of this meeting was not particular directives like that. CNS explains that the meeting was not meant to go “over specific points of proposed sex abuse norms.” A conference in 2002 dealt with that topic. This meeting was different from 2002, because the Irish bishops have now set many plans in place to protect children and cooperate with authorities.

Concerning the lack of a papal meeting with the abused, it should be noted that when such meetings took place in the United States and Australia, there was minimal outside coverage. Similarly, any future meeting that could occur would occur away from the spotlight.

Finally, regarding the absence of any plan to visit Ireland, the pope is nevertheless still reaching out to the Catholic community there. He has a forthcoming pastoral letter that is anticipated prior to Easter, addressing the Irish Catholic Church.

CNS reported, “‘Papal whitewash’ and ‘The pope has ‘washed hands’ of our abuse’ were two not untypical headlines in Irish newspapers the next day [after the two-day meeting ended].”

These headlines, sadly, miss the very fact that the pope called these meetings himself—signaling his underlying desire to help the Church there. Still, his desire to help does not equal an intent to overpower and do the work of the Irish bishops for them. Upon his return to Ireland, Archbishop Martin of Dublin reflected, “I believe the future of dealing with this question [of clerical sex-abuse] is in the hands of the Irish church.”

CNS conveyed that the Vatican is beginning to realize that the sex-abuse scandal is not a disparate set of instances relegated to a few countries. Rather, it may be a wider problem—evidenced by the reports surfacing in Germany of abuse while this very meeting between the Irish bishops and the Pope was occurring.

Despite this, there are good signs from the Vatican. A paradigm shift seems to have taken place.

CNS explained, “By all accounts, there’s been a shift in attitude inside the Roman Curia since 2002. At that time, the sex abuse crisis in the United States still found many Vatican officials in denial or very defensive; today, according to the Irish bishops, virtually all of the 10 Vatican department heads in attendance offered genuine support and help.”

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