Church still incapable of saying there is no excuse for a priest abusing a child

They may have attracted positive PR for the Church, but the new measures for dealing with clerical abuse are a million miles away from being good enough

Pope Francis listens to Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle during a Mass to mark 500 years of Christianity in the Philippines at St Peter's Basilica in the Vatican. Picture: Tiziana Fabi/Pool/AFP via Getty Images

I don’t know whether he lacks the will or the courage, or whether he is incapable of asserting real and moral authority. I don’t know whether he has been undermined from within, or is just an old man incapable of seeing anything resembling a bigger picture.

I don’t know whether he or the people around him still regard the institution as more important than the people it is supposed to serve, but sometimes abuses. Or maybe it’s just — and I don’t know the answer to this either — he and those around him think we’re all fools.