On Monday the northern Italian Bishops’ Conference of Emilia-Romagna elected Archbishop Giacomo Morandi, a former high-level Vatican official seen as being at odds with Pope Francis, to take over for a key papal ally as its new president.
Two decades after the U.S. Catholic Church finally began to confront priest abuse of minors, and many other countries followed suit, Italian bishops who live with the Vatican in their midst are reluctant to break the church's vow of silence and answer to victims.