On the most explosive challenge facing the Roman Catholic Church – clerical sexual abuse of children, and the bishops who tolerate it – Pope Francis has said the right things but done too little. Even now, 15 years after the revelations of church complicity in enabling and covering up the predations of American priests, not a single bishop has been explicitly held accountable and stripped of his title.

A new book, “Lust,” by a respected Italian journalist, Emiliano Fittipaldi, is an indictment not just of a papal policy that’s failed to live up to its promises about “zero tolerance” for clerical sexual abuse, but of Francis’ papacy.

Fittipaldi details repeated instances where church officials implicated in allegations of abuse and coverups were promoted, often to top positions in the church’s sprawling hierarchy.

One example is Cardinal Francisco Javier Errázuriz, former archbishop of Santiago, Chile, elevated by Francis to the elite, nine-member Council of Cardinal Advisers, a sort of papal kitchen Cabinet in Rome. Errázuriz has long been accused of ignoring accusations of sexual abuse against a priest under his jurisdiction.

Another is Cardinal George Pell, the Vatican’s top finance official. He has long been accused of having shrugged off pedophilia among priests when he was a bishop in Australia. Questioned about it last year by an investigative panel in his home country, he fell back on the canard about the church being no better or worse than society at large.

The pope himself has made some strong statements about clergy sex abuse and taken a few symbolic steps to underscore his compassion for victims. But his deeds to establish real accountability have been hollow. He tried and failed to establish a special tribunal to hold negligent bishops accountable, then issued a decree saying it was unnecessary since the Vatican already was empowered to remove them from office if they turned a blind eye to sex abuse in their dioceses.

Now, seven months later, there is little indication that bishops, the church’s princelings, are truly being held to account.