[1] Cases of child sexual abuse by Catholic priests, nuns and members of religious orders in the 20th and 21st centuries have led to many allegations, investigations, trials and convictions as well as revelations about decades of attempts by the Church to cover up reported incidents.

[2] Many bishops and religious superiors have denied the existence or downplay the severity of sexual abuse cases in an attempt to preserve the reputation of their priests and the church.

[3] During Pope Francis' visit to Chile in January 2018, he defended a Chilean bishop from charges of sexual abuse, stating that accusations without evidence was simply slander.

The public outcry in response to Francis' words prompted him to open a new Vatican investigation into the case, assigning Archbishop Charles J. Scicluna to the task.

Upon realizing his mistake following results of the investigation, Francis apologized in person to the victims of the case, and summoned the Chilean bishop conference to Rome to discuss the failures of the Church hierarchy.

[4] The following June, it was revealed that the Archdiocese of New York had found two accusations of child sexual abuse against the see's former Auxiliary Bishop, Theodore McCarrick, "credible and substantiated.

[13] On August 14, a grand jury report from the Pennsylvania Attorney General was released which detailed over 1,000 child victims of sexual abuse by around 300 priests in six of the state's dioceses between the 1960s and the present.

[20] On 12 September 2018, Paloma García Ovejero, the vice director of the Holy See Press Office, announced Pope Francis' decision to call a global summons for a meeting on clergy sexual abuse.

In response to the intervention from the Vatican, Cardinal Blase Cupich, the archbishop of Chicago, suggested that they continue discussing the proposals, and pass them to DiNardo as recommendations that he could then take to the summit in February.

[30] Pope Francis opened the summit by warning the attending bishops and religious superiors that their constituents were demanding concrete actions, not just words.

Pope Francis ended the summit with a half-hour speech that included condemnations of the abuses by clergy and cautions against being too extreme in response to the crisis.

During the speech, he said clergy who abuse children are "tools of Satan" and that such criminal behavior is "utterly incompatible with [the church's] moral authority and ethical credibility."

[39] Lombardi also said that they would create task forces of "competent persons" to help dioceses and episcopal conferences who experience difficulty in addressing the problems.

[40] At the closing Mass, the Australian Archbishop Mark Coleridge said bishops and priests will not act alone, but will work with all concerned for the good of the young and the vulnerable.

In response to the initial announcement in September 2018, David Clohessy, former director of the victims’ advocacy group SNAP, expressed doubt that anything good would come of the meeting, citing decades of failure to reform.

Christopher Bellitto, a church historian at Kean University in New Jersey, praised the action of holding a summit, but thought that it should occur more quickly than in six months.

JD Flynn, a canon lawyer and editor-in-chief of Catholic News Agency, noted that the gathering "doesn't aim to" resolve issues that largely plagued the church after the revelations regarding McCarrick.

[45] On March 26, 2019, one month after the summit was held,[46] Pope Francis adopted: According to Andrea Tornielli, these: are very specific laws, norms and indications destined, first of all, for those to whom they are addressed: in fact, they concern only Vatican City State, where a large number of priests and religious work, but where there are very few children.

Although they have been conceived and written for a unique reality, in which the highest religious authority is also the sovereign and legislator, these three documents contain exemplary indications that take into account the most advanced international parameters.

CCXCVII requires Vatican City officials, including those in the Roman Curia,[46] and diplomatic personnel of the Holy See, such as the Apostolic Nuncios, to report sex abuse.

[48][51] In addition, all crimes related to child abuse, including mistreatment, are prosecutable "ex officio", even when the purported victim does not file an official report.

[53][54][55] Under the new Motu Proprio, all Catholic dioceses throughout the world are required to establish stable mechanisms or systems through which people may submit reports of abuse or its cover-up by June 2020.

[58]On December 17, 2019 Pope Francis issued a canon law instruction "On the confidentiality of legal proceedings" lifting the "pontifical secret" in the cases relating to: violence or abuse of authority in forcing sexual acts, sexual abuse of minors or vulnerable persons, crimes of paedophilia involving children under 18 years of age or with incapacitated subjects and the concealment of those conducts from ecclesiastical or civil inquiries.

[59] The instruction provides however that the information obtain in a canonical trial be treated in such a way as to ensure its security, integrity and confidentiality with a view to protecting the good name, image and privacy of all persons involved.

In this regard, Prof. Giuseppe Dalla Torre, former president of the Vatican City State Tribunal, observed that: Should the State law provide for the obligation to report on the part of those who are informed of the facts, the removal of papal secrecy and the clarification of the limits of official secrecy allow the fulfilment of the provisions of the law, thus promoting full cooperation with the civil authorities and avoiding unlawful incursions of civil authority in the canonical sphere.

In the latter case, in fact, they must take place through those forms of judicial cooperation between different jurisdictional authorities, for the performance of activities relating to a process (such as the assumption of information or documents, etc.