section_path: Papacy (2013–2025)/Sexual abuse response
section_name: Sexual abuse response
paragraph_text: Sexual abuse response
  
  In 2010, then-Cardinal Bergoglio commissioned a study which concluded that Father Julio César Grassi, a priest convicted of child sexual abuse, was innocent, that his victims were lying, and that the case against him never should have gone to trial. However, the Supreme Court of Argentina upheld the conviction and prison sentence against Grassi in March 2017.
  
  Early in his papacy, Francis chose a more lenient sentence for Mauro Inzoli, an Italian priest accused of child sexual abuse. A church tribunal had ruled that Inzoli should be laicized (defrocked), and he was defrocked in 2012 by Francis's predecessor Benedict. Francis, however, reversed this decision in 2014; Francis agreed with the bishop of Crema that Inzoli should remain a priest but be removed from public ministry and ordered to retire to "a life of prayer and humble discretion." Inzoli was convicted of sexually abusing children in Italian civil court in 2016, and sentenced to prison. In unscripted remarks to the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors in September 2017, Francis admitted that he mishandled the Inzoli case, saying that as a new pope, "I did not understand these things well and chose the more benevolent of the two sentences but after two years the priest had a relapse. I learned from this." In the same remarks, he commented that the church "arrived late" in dealing with sexual abuse cases.
  
  In 2015, Francis was criticized for supporting Chilean bishop Juan Barros who was accused of covering up Catholic Church sexual abuse cases in Chile, including crimes committed against minors. In 2018, Francis acknowledged he had made "grave errors" in judgment about Barros, apologized to the victims and launched a Vatican investigation that resulted in the resignation of three Chilean bishops: Barros, Gonzalo Duarte, and Cristián Caro.
  
  In 2019, Francis defrocked Theodore McCarrick, a former archbishop of Washington, who maintained a prominent position in the church for decades despite repeated reports of sexual misconduct against him dating back to the 1980s. In 2017, after renewed allegations against McCarrick, Francis commissioned a Vatican investigation, which found that McCarrick had sexually molested both adults and minors. In July 2018, McCarrick resigned from the College of Cardinals; in October 2018, Francis ordered a review of the Church's "institutional knowledge and decision-making" related to McCarrick. Francis authorized the release, in November 2020, of the report of the Vatican's two-year investigation into McCarrick's career. The report largely faulted Pope John Paul II, who appointed McCarrick as archbishop in 2000 and accepted the churchman's denials of sexual abuse, despite multiple reports. The report also found that Pope Benedict XVI placed informal restrictions on McCarrick, but these were never enforced, and Benedict did not investigate or formally sanction McCarrick even after he disregarded those restrictions. The report concluded that Francis, before 2017, "had heard only that there had been allegations and rumors related to immoral conduct with adults occurring prior to McCarrick's appointment to Washington" and continued the approach of his predecessors John Paul and Benedict.
  
  Francis convened a summit on sexual abuse in February 2019, organized by Hans Zollner; some abuse survivors expressed disappointment that the summit did not result in concrete rules on abuse prevention, responses to abuse, and Church cooperation with law enforcement authorities. In December 2019, Francis abolished the " pontifical secrecy " privilege in sexual abuse cases, clarifying that bishops do not need authorization from the Vatican to turn over materials from canonical trials upon request of civil law enforcement authorities. The lifting of the confidentiality rule was praised by victim advocates, but did not require the Church to affirmatively turn over canonical documents to civil authorities.
  
  In November 2021, Francis thanked journalists for their work in uncovering child sexual abuse scandals in the church. He also thanked journalists for "helping us not to sweep it under the carpet, and for the voice you have given to the abuse victims".
  
  In November 2022, French Cardinal Jean-Pierre Ricard admitted to having sexually abused a 14-year-old girl in the 1980s in Marseille. French authorities opened an investigation into the case while Francis commented that now that "everything is clearer more cases like this shouldn't surprise ", and condemned sexual abuse as "against priestly nature, and also against social nature". Francis did not deprive Ricard of his status and privileges as a cardinal.
  
  Francis visited Ireland in 2018, marking the first papal tour of the country since John Paul II's historic trip in 1979. He has apologized for sexual abuses by clergy in the United States and Ireland.
  
  The case of Slovenian priest Marko Rupnik, accused of psychological, spiritual, and sexual abuse against multiple women, including nuns, drew significant controversy due to the Vatican's handling of the allegations. Initially, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) declined to prosecute, citing the statute of limitations, despite acknowledging there was a case to answer. Rupnik was expelled from the Society of Jesus in 2023 for disobedience rather than for the abuse allegations and was later incardinated into the Diocese of Koper. Following widespread public outcry, Pope Francis ordered the case to be reopened and re-examined. After his conviction, Rupnik preached in 2020 a Lenten meditation for priests working in the Roman Curia, including Pope Francis and Luis Ladaria Ferrer, and met privately with Pope Francis in January 2022. Criticism intensified after it was revealed that artwork by Rupnik remains in use by the Vatican, including in Pope Francis's personal residence, despite calls from Cardinal Seán Patrick O'Malley, head of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, for its removal. The controversy fueled broader scrutiny of the Vatican's response to clergy abuse cases and its commitment to transparency and justice. In January 2025, Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández confirmed the DDF was working to establish an independent tribunal to move forward with judicial proceedings.