This is the quintessential Francis: words saying what so many long to hear, yet ONLY words.  That Papal Commission is now shrouded in the same kind of silence that hides everything else.  Are they working on tribunals to hold bishops accountable, or writing guidelines to help bishops recognize that pedophilia is wrong, and needs to stop?  How could there possibly be a need for such a thing?

Once again, we hear more of that language from Francis: that emerging language that suggests that we are somehow guilty too... That slow rewrite of history and shifting of blame...

Yet "we" don't have the power to bury records,, "we" can't remove a bishop, "we" can neither amend canon law, nor choose to implement it or ignore it as "we" may choose...

The simple truth is that when I look at the church, I no longer even know what it believes accountability means, but the definition that seems to be emerging is that it involves blaming others, involves saying much, doing little...