Pope Francis has named the Vatican's top sex abuse investigator and a close US ally to an organising committee for a February abuse prevention summit that has become a high-stakes credibility test following a new eruption of the scandal in the US and elsewhere this year.
Abuse survivors and women working at the Vatican will also contribute to the preparatory committee.
Notably absent from the lineup announced on Friday was Boston Cardinal Sean O'Malley, who heads the pope's sex abuse advisory commission, though one of his members, the Reverend Hans Zollner, is the point-person for the group.
In addition to Zollner, the committee includes Maltese Archbishop Charles Scicluna, for a decade the Vatican's sex crimes prosecutor, Francis appointee Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich and Indian Cardinal Oswald Gracias, a member of Francis' key cardinal adviser group.
Francis summoned leaders of the world's bishops' conferences to the Vatican on February 21-24 after the abuse scandal erupted in his native South America and again in the US and he botched the case of a Chilean bishop implicated in cover-up.
The stakes of the meeting grew exponentially after the Vatican told US bishops earlier this month not to vote on proposed new measures to investigate sexual misconduct or cover-up within their ranks.
The Vatican still hasn't explained why it blocked the vote on a US code of conduct for bishops and a lay-led board to investigate them, though the proposals were only given to the Vatican at the last minute and were said to contain legal problems. The head of the US bishops conference, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, said the Holy See wanted to delay any vote until after the February global summit.
However, it is unlikely that such a diverse group of churchmen, some representing national churches that continue to deny or downplay the scandal, will over the course of four days come up with any universal proposals that come close to the accountability norms that US bishops were seeking.
