"Accountability" is the big theme of the second day of the abuse conference in the Vatican. As the first speaker, the Archbishop of Mumbai, Cardinal Oswald Gracias, speaks about the great responsibility of the bishops. "We have not done enough to stop abuse," he said. " We all make mistakes and we have to learn from them, we have to repent."

Media reports from the past few days suggest that a " me " might have been more appropriate in this context. According to a research by the BBC, Gracias is said to have failed to inform the police when he visited a family in the Diocese of Mumbai in 2015 and reported that her son had been raped a few days earlier by a priest. According to the report, the cardinal is said to have confined himself to praying with his parents - then he left on a business trip to Rome, without informing the authorities.

In a second case in the diocese of 2009, a priest is said to have been left in office, even though a woman had reported sexual abuse. "The man is still working in my community," says Indian solicitor and representative Virginia Soldanha. The abused boy from 2015 was severely injured by the crime and did not even receive medical help.

"He is one of the figureheads for the lack of accountability"

The BBC told Gracias that the 2009 incident is a "complicated case" he can not quite remember in 2015. In Rome, Gracias now stated that in "problematic behavior" of colleagues, he insists on a "correctio fraterna", a corrective among brothers. Priests and bishops are called to confide in each other and not to be afraid of disclosing missteps. "We should have the humility to realize that we are not perfect." A strangely chummy attempt to protect children could be imagined.

"Why was Gracias even allowed to speak at the conference?" Asked Anne Barrett Doyle of the US online platform "BischopAccountability". "He is one of the posterboys for the lack of accountability that church leaders make, especially in developing countries."

Although the Church continues to defend air superiority over internal information, not everyone seems to know or want to know everything about the other. The case Theodore McCarrick has impressively shown. Punctually at the beginning of the conference in the Vatican, Francis had dismissed the bishop for abusing minors from the clerical state.

The case had become a political issue when former Vatican diplomat Carlo Maria Vigano accused the pope of ignoring clues to the bishop's long-term misconduct. Instead, Francis McCarrick even promoted.

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US Cardinals Sean O'Malley and Bubble Cupich said at today's press conference that they expected the case to be published soon after the publication of Vatican findings. The report should contain information from the US dioceses in which McCarrick was active.

Cupich called legal framework conditions, how to deal with suspicious bishops.

  • Lay people and experts should be involved in the investigation, as well as in accordance with the canon law of the competent Metropolitan. All this, without questioning the authority of the Holy See.
  • The Metropolitan should have been authorized by the Holy See and authorized to recommend disciplinary measures against the suspect to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
  • The investigations should be carried out swiftly and completed promptly.
  • The procedures by which a suspected abuse of a bishop can be displayed should be transparent and known to the faithful. There should be independent bodies, such as a telephone hotline or website, to receive complaints and forward them directly to the apostolic nuncio.
  • No one should be discriminated against for such a claim by a leader.
  • Victims and their families need to be treated with dignity and respect and should receive psychological and other support. The diocese of the accused bishop should bear the costs.
  • Lay people, men and women, should accompany the entire process to guarantee transparency.

Asked by journalists whether the Congregation of the Faith will finally publish figures and statistics on thousands of documented acts of abuse, the Maltese Archbishop Charles Scicluna said bleakly: "There is a desire to work on it."

"We need a system that sanctions the inactivity of a responsible person in suspicion," said the head of the German bishop conference Reinhard Kardinal Marx on the sidelines of a meeting with stakeholders of the international network "Ending Clergy Abuse".

Marx promised to tell the pope about the talks. On Saturday the Cardinal will give his talk in the Synod Hall. Although there will be no final document, he hopes "that we will make a joint commitment at the end of the conference".