Pope Francis’ responsibility is clear

Jesus diagnosed in his tiny band of followers the early stages of the cancerous clericalism that would gnaw at his church, a disease at the heart of the ongoing scandal of clergy sexual abuse. Before the furor over the Pennsylvania grand jury fades, Pope Francis must go beyond words and act decisively to conquer clericalism.

The cancer showed up early, when the mother of two apostles asked Jesus for their future glory: “Grant that one of these two sons of mine may sit at your right and the other at your left in your kingdom,” (Matthew 20:20). The other apostles were angry, and Jesus offered stern advice: Don’t lord it over people. “Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant . . .”

Jesus set the example for radical selflessness and made humble servant leadership the goal for church leaders. But two millennia later, the poisonous notion survives that clerics are close to God and know what’s best, and everyone else should listen. That’s part of the sexual abuse tragedy. The classic abuse pattern is a powerful person using that power to take sexual advantage of a powerless person. But priests and bishops have an element of power that no coach or producer can claim: the notion that ordination confers on them an “ontological” change, elevating them to a special order of beings.

On top of the theology, there are the symbols: the pointed miter on the bishop’s head, the gold-encrusted crozier, a glamorized shepherd’s crook that every bishop carries to show he’s a shepherd, the elaborate vestments, the use of worshipful terms like “your eminence” when people address cardinals. It all adds up to an air of divinely ordained power.

So, in the past, when a child attracted the attention of a priest, the parents would be thrilled by this proximity to godliness. The child would feel compelled to obey this superhuman creature. Father could do no wrong. But too many priests did something horribly wrong.

Francis himself is suspicious of clericalism. He wants the shepherds to smell as if they’ve been in the pungent presence of the sheep. But that has not borne fruit. What can he do next?

He should name clericalism for what it is, structural sin, and appoint a special commission to find ways of eradicating it. That commission should have zero members from the clergy. They are, after all, the problem. And when the commission reports, he should act strongly on its recommendations.

As to how to structure the church’s reaction to future revelations of abuse, Francis needs to restructure the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors that he named in 2014. It ran into Vatican roadblocks, and an Irish survivor of abuse, Marie Collins, resigned in frustration. Francis should add new members, with some seasoned prosecutors on the list, remove all clergy, and instruct the commission to report regularly on obstruction by the Vatican. Its mandate should include positive recommendations for changes in the statute of limitations, which the church has fought diligently and selfishly. The commission also should closely examine seminaries, which are turning out too many young priests who eagerly embrace clericalism.

Before the conclave that chose Jorge Mario Bergoglio as the bishop of Rome, I wrote a column saying that I hoped the new pope, whoever he might be, would recognize that the church was in need of repair, as it was in the time of St. Francis of Assisi, and call himself Pope Francis. He did. But five years later, the church is more in need of repair than ever. Time for Francis to roll up his sleeves and get to it.

Bob Keeler is a former religion reporter and editorial writer for Newsday.