Until Pope Francis complies with two United Nations Committees’ demands to impose mandatory reporting to the civil authorities under canon law, this latest statement is just more smoke and mirrors. Canon law still imposes the pontifical secret on all information about clergy sexual abuse unless the civil law requires reporting. Francis is the senior member of the Italian Catholic Bishops Conference which announced in 2014 that Italian bishops would not report such allegations to the civil authorities because Italian law did not require them to. Cardinal O’Malley stated in February 2016 that quite apart from civil law obligations, everyone in the Church has a moral and ethical duty to report such allegations to the civil authorities. But when the Pontifical Commission’s Guidelines were published in December 2016, that statement was not there, but compliance with canon law was. The Church’s response is still too late because Francis won’t change canon law.