Pope Francis has asked Catholic leaders to stay after historic summit to ensure action on sex abuse
Rome — Pope Francis opened an extraordinary summit on preventing church sex abuse Thursday by saying words are not enough, proposing a number of ways to punish predators and keep children safe. Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich is one of the pope's trusted allies in the U.S. and helped organize the summit. He hopes it will be seen as a "turning point."
He told CBS News Pope Francis asked him and other Catholic leaders to stay after the summit's end to discuss ways to implement concrete steps addressing clergy sex abuse.
"There's not only going to be concrete aspects of this that will be clear to people but I can tell you there will be concrete steps," Cupich said.
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Cupich was one of five bishops in Wednesday's historic Vatican meeting with 12 victims, who are calling for zero tolerance, particularly the removal of any Catholic leaders who cover up sexual abuse.
"If there is an investigation by the civil jurisdiction, we back off," Cupich said.
Mark Rozzi, both a victim and Pennsylvania state legislator fighting for statute of limitations reform, spoke in Italian parliament on Thursday and has a message for the pope.
"Tell your bishops to stand down, stop spending millions of dollars on lawyers and lobbyists and let the chips fall where they may in the civil courts," he said.
Cupich will be speaking in Rome on Friday about "joint responsibility." The theme of day two of the Vatican's summit is accountability.