THE VATICAN HAS published its first annual report on protecting minors in the Catholic Church.
Among the recommendations of the pilot annual report is the “need for a streamlined process for discharge from office when warranted”.
It also calls for the Church to “study damages and compensation policies to promote a rigorous approach to reparations, as part of the Church’s commitment to the healing journey of victims and survivors”.
“Compensation in the Church is not merely reduced to financial aspects,” said the report, “but embraces a much broader spectrum of actions.”
These broader actions include public apologies.
The report said it will “delve into the pillar of reparations in the next edition to better represent all these needs”.
“Economic reparations are particularly relevant, and the Commission will continue to offer its cooperation to key Church bodies,” said the report.
The pilot report also calls for the “professionalisation of safeguarding in the Church, by providing formal academic opportunities and adequate resources for aspiring safeguarding practitioners”.
‘Conversion away from evil’
The Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors presented its first report this morning.
Pope Francis established the Commission, consisting of an independent panel of experts, in December 2014, amid pressure for more action to tackle clerical child sex abuse.
In 2022, Pope Francis asked for an annual and “reliable account on what is presently being done and what needs to change”.
Francis added that he wants a “commitment to conversion away from evil and to healing the wounded”.
The Commission was then incorporated into the Roman Curia, the government of the Holy See which assists the pope in the day-to-day exercise of his role as the leader of the Catholic Church.
In April 2022, Pope Francis called for the annual reports to have a particular focus on the care of survivors of abuse.
He told the Commission: “I urge you to assist in establishing suitable centres where individuals who have experienced abuse can find acceptance and an attentive hearing, and be accompanied in a process of healing and justice.”
The first annual report is described as a “first step towards a process of data gathering and reporting”, and documents “where risks remain, and where advances can be found in the Church’s efforts to protect children and vulnerable adults”.
The pilot report was today launched by the commission’s president, US Cardinal Sean O’Malley, the former archbishop of Boston who has spent decades listening to abuse survivors.
Cardinal O’Malley thanked the media for their presence at the press conference launching the report and said: “We know that the role you have played in forcing the Church to confront our terrible history with abuse has been very, very important.”
He acknowledged that survivors are “tired of empty words” and that nothing the Church does “will ever be enough to fully repair what has happened”.
“Your suffering and wounds have opened our eyes to the fact that as a Church, we have failed to care for victims, and that we didn’t defend you, and that we resisted understanding you when you needed us most,” said O’Malley.
However, O’Malley said the report will help to “ensure that these events never happen again in the Church”.
Review
The annual reports will review safeguarding policies and procedures in around 20 Episcopal conferences each year and ensure there are standardised practices in place.
This will include ensuring resources are in place for universal standards in safeguarding and to create centres of reporting and assistance for survivors of clerical abuse.
While between 15 and 20 Episcopal conferences, representing local churches, will be reviewed each year, it’s hoped that doing so will result in the entire Church being reviewed over a period of five to six annual reports.
Each annual report will also include an analysis of select religious institutes, and the pilot report included a review of the Spiritans.
The annual report will also explore the Roman Curia’s role in promoting a culture of safeguarding, which is deemed to “uniquely serve as a hub for sharing good practices in safeguarding”.
The Commission also aims to create a “higher degree of transparency in the Roman Curia’s procedures and jurisprudence with regard to individual cases of clerical abuse”.
Spiritans
The Spiritans were one of the religious institutions analysed in the pilot report.
It emerged in late 2022 that following an RTÉ radio documentary that 233 people had made allegations of abuse against 77 Irish Spiritans in ministries throughout Ireland and abroad. Of those, 57 people alleged they were abused on the Blackrock College campus.
The leader of the Spiritans in Ireland, Father Martin Kelly, issued an apology in November 2022 to all victims on behalf of the order.
The report voiced concern that in some of the more than 60 countries where the Spiritans operate, “the safeguarding officer is designated in name only and does not have any specific ordinary functions in practice”.
The Commission also noted “cultural resistance to safeguarding in members’ countries of origin and in contexts where members work, some of whom see safeguarding as an imposed Western ideology”.
“This resistance highlights the challenges in bringing safeguarding guidelines to life, in changing the attitudes of the members,” said the report.
It also warned that the Spiritans retain “vestiges of a culture of clericalism with some members”.
The Commission will engage with the Spiritans in the revision of new guidelines, set for publication this year, “with a particular focus on building a culture of safeguarding”.
Transparency
Since becoming pope in March 2013, Francis has taken numerous measures to tackle clerical abuse, from opening up internal Church documents to punishing high-ranking clergy, while making it compulsory to report suspicions of sexual assault to Church authorities.
In 2019, Pope Francise promised an “all-out battle” against abuse, and compared child sex abuse to human sacrifice.
But clergy are still not required to report abuse to civil authorities, unless the laws of that country require it, while any revelations made in confession remain private.
Maud de Boer Buquicchio, a Dutch lawyer and former UN special rapporteur on the sexual exploitation of children who chaired the Commission’s report, said last week it would help promote a “change of mindset in the Church that embraces accountability and transparency”.
During its compilation, “we have been able to explore many of the concerns about the lack of available data”, she added.
Speaking at today’s launch, de Boer Buquicchio said the call for “accountability and justice has gone unanswered in the Church for too long”.
However, she said the first annual report “engages Church membership at the highest levels in acknowledging the urgent need to better answer that call”.
She added today that the reports will ensure abuse is rare and thoroughly investigated if it does occur.
Members of the abuse commission are directly appointed by the pope and are experts in fields related to safeguarding, from clinical psychology to law as well as human rights.
But two members representing abuse survivors resigned in 2017, one of whom was Marie Collins, who was raped by a priest in Ireland when she was 13 years old,
Collins had decried as “shameful” the lack of cooperation from Vatican officials.
At today’s press conference, a journalist asked Cardinal O’Malley about Collins’s resignation.
O’Malley said “Marie Collins was one of our most beloved and valuable members of the Commission” and that he was “sorry when she decided to step away”.
“We understood the reasons and all of us have felt that frustration of the slowness of change coming about, but we believe that the change is taking place, even though it’s often an uphill climb.”
He added: “The fact that the commission is being embedded within the Roman Curia, and given a permanent status, will be very helpful to our work.”
Last year, influential German Jesuit priest Hans Zollner also quit the Commission, complaining about “structural and practical issues”.
Meanwhile, O’Malley was also asked by a journalist if “there is a link between celibacy and child sexual abuse”.
O’Malley said he has “never seen any serious study” pointing to such a link and that “we are satisfied that celibacy is not the cause of paedophilia”.