Victims of ill -treatment are asked if Pope Francis did enough to stop predators

While 133 Cardinals meet in Rome to determine the next Pope, questions about another legacy will wave on the horizon on their discussions.

For the Catholic Church, there is no aspect of Pope Francis more sensitive or controversial than dealing with sexual assault on children by clerics.

While it is widely recognized that he went beyond its predecessors in recognizing the victims and repairing the internal procedures of the church, many survivors do not believe that he went far enough.

Alexa McFireson’s mistreatment by a Catholic priest began at the age of three and lasted for six years.

When we met the waterfront in Boston: “When I was nine and a half years old, my father caught him as he was trying to rape me on the sofa of the living room.”

“For me, it was largely a daily event.”

Upon discovering the abuse, her father called the police.

A hearing of a court to obtain a criminal complaint against the priest, Peter Kanchong, accused of assault and battery on a minor, was appointed on August 24, 1984.

But without family knowledge, there was something unusual behind the scenes.

The Church – an institution that practices an enormous authority in a deepest Catholic city – believes that the court was next to it.

“The court is trying to deal with the matter in a way to help Father Peter and avoid the church’s scandal,” Bernard Lu wrote in a letter that will remain hidden for years.

Thinking about the events of more than four decades, Mrs. McFireson realizes that her abuse occurred long before Francis became the Pope.

But during that same period, through a series of global scandals that are still revealing, the issue of systematic sexual exploitation for children has become the greatest challenge of the modern church.

It is a challenge that she believes that Pope Francis failed to rise to him, as she explained when she asked her how her reaction was to the news of his death.

She replied, “In fact, I don’t feel I had a big reaction.”

“And I do not want to get out of the good he did, but there is a lot that the church, the Vatican and the responsible people can do.”

A 1984 letter from Bishop Bernard was sent to the bishop in Thailand.

They mentioned the accusation of “sexual harassment for children”, which he wrote two months after the Boston Court hearing, which has already concluded without a scandal of the church.

Peter Kanchong – who was originally from Thailand – was saved from official criminal charges and was told for a year, provided that he remained away from the McFireson family and underwent psychological treatment.

However, the head of the bishops indicated that even the psychological evaluation of the Church had decided that the accused priest “was not enthusiastic and does not respond to treatment”, and therefore he must be “forced to face the consequences of his actions” under civil law and the church.

But instead of behaving based on this advice, the Thai bishop immediately appealed to Peter Kanchong to his diocese in Thailand, and for the second time he mentioned the danger of a “serious scandal” if he would remain in the United States.

Although time press reports indicate that the church authorities in Thailand agreed to return it, Peter Kanchong ignored the retrieval, where he found work in the Boston area in an adult facility with learning difficulties.

In 2002, more than 18 years after Mrs. McFireson’s father took the first time to the police, the head of the bishops were published.

In the rule of a teacher, it was one of the thousands of pages that a court in Boston ordered the Catholic Church to release it.

A local newspaper, Boston Globe, for the first time, began challenging the institution’s authority in the city seriously, by placing the stories of the victims on its front pages.

Soon after, hundreds offered and their lawyers were fighting in the court for an open contract award from the internal records of sexual assault on children.

The Church tried to argue that the first protection of the amendment to freedom of religion has the right to maintain the confidentiality of these files.

The arrangement of canceling the episode led to the moment of water gatherings.

He was contacted at that time, Peter Kanchong denied these allegations.

“Do you have evidence? Do you have witnesses?” Boston Globe, who found him still lived in the area, was told.

However, Mrs. McFireson was one of more than 500 victims who won a civil case of $ 85 million for the abuse they suffered from dozens of priests.

The internal files showed that, over and over again, the head of bishops dealt with his knowledge of abuse in the same way in which he tried to deal with Peter Kanchong – as soon as the priests were transferred to new dioceses.

After the settlement, at that time, Bernard’s law resigned from his post in Boston and moved to Rome.

For the survivors, the feeling of impunity was exacerbated when he got an honor for a seven -year center, such as the Bishop of Bazilica de Santa Maria Maglor, the same building where Pope Francis was now buried.

Many people who are familiar with the church are credited with Francis to go further than its predecessors to address the issue of abuse.

In 2019, more than a hundred bishops summoned Rome to attend a conference on the crisis.

In the misuse of children, tell them, “see the hand of evil.”

The conference led to a review of the church law on the “papal secrecy”, which allows cooperation with civil courts when necessary in cases of abuse.

However, the change is not compelled to reveal all information related to child abuse, only to detect it in specific cases when it is officially requested by a legal authority.

Likewise, a new law requires referring allegations to the hierarchical sequence of the internal church does not stop referring to the police.

Lawyer McFireson, Mitchell Garpidyan, a man who was filmed in the spotlight in Hollywood about the Boston abuse scandal, told me that there are many ways in which the church continues to practice confidentiality.

“We have to charge the court to obtain documents, and nothing has really changed,” he said.

His legal victory in 2002 may be a decisive moment, followed by a group of these cases in dozens of countries, but he has no doubt that knowing violations are still hidden in churches all over the world.

Mrs. McFireson told me when she asked for her evaluation of Pope Francis’s record on this issue: “While he did some things, it is not enough.”

She wants the church to reveal everything she knows.

“One of the biggest things is the delivery of predators and the people who covered and accountable them in a regular legal court and not to protect and hide them anymore.”

Watching the endless news about the funeral of the Pope and preparations to appoint his solid successor.

She told me: “It is the mistreatment that is celebrated, in some way, because the cover -up operations are still present, and they are protected behind the Vatican walls and the laws of their law.”

It is a news coverage and found it hard to escape because of her mother’s continuous belief in the Catholic Church.

“This is all I heard on the news, and it is obsessed with watching this, so I feel criticized and immersed with it.”

Now, 85 years old, in the meantime, he has not been convicted of a crime charge.

He was not stripped of his priesthood, although he was prevented from occupying any official position in Boston diocese.

The list published by the Church of the accused clerics indicates that it was “not resolved yet” without any final decision for guilt or innocence, indicating that he is “AWOL” – absent without leave.

“I have been trying for years to carry it, because it could only be ignored as it was appointed, which was in Thailand, or by the Vatican,” said Ms. McFireson.

And it indicates that the church has faced a problem in changing the name of the parish as it was abused – he believes, in an attempt to start again after what happened there.

BBC asked Boston’s diocese its views on the legacy of Pope Francis, as well as a response to the allegations that the Catholic Church maintains a culture of confidentiality on its internal records.

We did not receive any response to these questions.

We also asked whether the current bishop can do anything to help the victims seek to remove a priest from the priesthood.

The Vatican has been indicated.

Since the Catholic Church now determines the election of the new Pope, McCPherson does not have little hope for a more comprehensive reform.

“You say you want to go forward. You say you want to return people to the barn,” she said.

“But you cannot do anything from this until you really acknowledge these sins, and you are accountable for these people.”