VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis is assembling a panel of experts to advise him on sex abuse in the clergy, a task that will involve looking at how to protect children from pedophiles, how to better screen men for the priesthood and how to help victims who have already been harmed.
But it remains unclear if the experts will take up one of the core issues behind the Catholic Church's sex-abuse scandal: how to make bishops who shelter abusive priests accountable.
Cardinal Sean O'Malley, the archbishop of Boston, announced the creation of the commission Thursday at the conclusion of a meeting between Francis and his eight cardinal advisers who are helping him govern the church and overhaul the Vatican bureaucracy.
Boston was the epicenter of the 2002 clerical sexual-abuse scandal in the U.S.
