Pope Francis’ child protection board called Tuesday for victims of clergy sexual abuse to have greater access to details about their cases and the suitable to compensation, within the first-ever global assessment of the Catholic Church’s efforts to handle the crisis.
The Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors issued a series of findings and suggestions in its pilot annual report, zeroing in on the church in a dozen countries, two religious orders and two Vatican offices with detailed evaluation.
In its most crucial note, it called for greater transparency from the Vatican’s sex abuse office, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. It said the office’s slow processing of cases and secrecy were retraumatizing to victims, and its refusal to publish statistics or its own jurisprudence continues “to foment distrust among the many faithful, especially the victim/survivor community.”
The 50-page report marks something of a milestone for the commission, which in its 10-year existence has struggled to seek out its footing in a Vatican often immune to confronting the abuse crisis and hostile to endorsing victim-focused policies.
Francis created it in 2014, a yr after his election, to advise the Vatican on best practices to stop clergy sexual abuse. He named Boston’s then-archbishop, Cardinal Sean O’Malley, because the commission’s head.
After several founding members resigned in frustration, fed up with Vatican stonewalling and the commission’s own internal problems, the commission has stabilized in recent times, specializing in realistic areas where it could be of service. One key priority has been providing funding and expertise to churches in poorer countries where there are fewer resources to craft and implement child protection guidelines and are likely to victims.
In its report, the commission noted, for instance, that the Catholic Church in Mexico is hampered by “significant cultural barriers to reporting abuse that prevent the strategy of justice.” In Papua New Guinea, limited funding means insufficient training for church personnel and services for victims. Even rape kits which can be needed for criminal investigations are prohibitively expensive, the report found.
Its essential conclusions, though, were of a worldwide nature: Victims, it said, will need to have the suitable to details about their cases held by the church, for the reason that secrecy and long processing times often serve to revictimize them. It proposed a special Vatican advocate or ombudsman to take care of victims’ needs.
As a function of restorative justice — termed “conversional justice” -– victims will need to have the suitable to compensation for his or her abuse, including financial reparations but additionally public apologies to assist them heal, it said.
And it called for a more uniform definition and understanding of church policies to guard “vulnerable adults” from abuse, moving beyond the tendency to only consider abuse of minors as criminal. The call is supposed to handle demands that the church do more to guard religious sisters, seminarians and even atypical adult faithful from religious gurus who abuse their authority and reap the benefits of adults under their spiritual sway.
Francis in 2022 asked the commission to provide the report, saying he wanted an audit of progress of what’s being done well and what must change.
The commission noted that in at the least this primary effort, the report wasn’t an audit of the incidence of abuse within the church. It said so as to turn out to be an actual auditing mechanism, “the commission would wish access to more specific statistical information” from the Vatican sex abuse office, which receives all credible reports of abuse of minors within the church but apparently didn’t provide the information to the commission.
The commission called for greater collaboration and dialogue with the office, and said it was “pleased to notice the dicastery is exploring what steps could be undertaken” to assist bishops and non secular superiors are likely to victims.
It also called for the office to make more public its work, including via academic lectures and conferences, and in addition offer more material to bishops to assist them administer justice.
Francis earlier this yr allowed O’Malley to retire, five years beyond the traditional retirement age for bishops, and recently hinted that leadership of the commission would pass to its current No. 2 official, Bishop Luis Manuel Ali Herrera.
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