Pope Francis gives greater support for the Vatican to fight sexual abuse
His long-awaited reform program includes new institutional weight to efforts tight clerical sex abuse. He also envisages more decision-making roles for lay members of the Catholic Church.
ROME â Pope Francis released his long-awaited reform program of the Holy See bureaucracy on Saturday that envisages greater decision-making roles for the laity and gives new institutional weight to efforts to fight clerical sex abuse.
The 54-page text, titled "Praedicate Evanglium," or "Proclaiming the Gospel," replaces the founding constitution "Pastor Bonus" that was penned by St. John Paul II in 1988.
Francis was elected pope in 2013 in large part on his promise to reform the bulky and inefficient Vatican bureaucracy,
