VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — The Vatican’s Commission for the Protection of Minors has issued a groundbreaking first annual report into the Church’s safeguarding procedures, highlighting “current deficiencies” and outlining seven areas for improvement.
In its tenth year of existence, the Tutela Minorum Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors (PCPM) issued its first report assessing the Catholic Church’s procedures and policies regarding safeguarding for children and vulnerable persons. Born out of a direct request of Pope Francis, the commission’s report examined policies of the Roman Curia at the Vatican, of bishops conferences who made ad limina visits during the consulting period, and of two religious congregations.
Issuing the report, Tutela Minorum Prefect Cardinal Sean O’Malley spoke about the past 40 years as “a deceitful period where Church leaders tragically failed those we are called to shepherd.”
NEW: Cardinal Sean O’Malley of @TutelaMinorum cites Church’s “terrible history of abuse” & spoke of previous decades as “a deceitful period where Church leaders tragically failed those we are called to shepherd.”
O’Malley is issuing 1st annual report into Church safeguarding pic.twitter.com/NQkqYoKgVy
— Michael Haynes 🇻🇦 (@MLJHaynes) October 29, 2024
“It is an unprofessional period where Church leaders make decisions without any adherence to policies, procedures or basic standards of concern for the victims,” he added. “It is a dark period where distrust obstructs the Church’s ability to be a witness to Christ.”
He also thanked the work of media outlets for their “role played in forcing the Church to confront our terrible history of abuse.”
The report “will allow the Church to offer victims and their communities an honest account of progress and persistent gaps over time – accompanied by recommendations for those who are in a position to do so, to fill these gaps,” said Maud de Boer-Buquicchio, who chairs the annual report project.
Report’s contents
The groundbreaking text offers recommendations for each of the Roman curial bodies, bishops’ conferences, and religious institutions examined in 2023, with future reports in successive years to gradually examine all the bishops’ conferences and curial offices in turn.
The report – perhaps unsurprisingly – does not touch on the potential role of the Pope intervening in abuse cases, something which has been a large part of the scandal surrounding the Rupnik case, the McCarrick scandal, and the currently brewing Principi scandal, although Francis has always denied intervening to protect abuser clerics.
One of the curial bodies examined is the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, under whose broader umbrella PCPM operates, while officially maintaining independence of action. The DDF has responsibility for handling all cases of abuse in the Church, and earlier this year an official said that around 77 percent of abuse cases are involving minors.
PCPM highlighted “challenges” in the DDF’s operations, including “lengthy canonical proceedings” which “can be another source of re-traumatisation for victims.” It also highlighted a need for transparency in the DDF’s style of operating, something which has been criticized by advocates.
It further identified that, of the bishops’ conferences examined, a certain number of them had “significant cultural barriers to reporting abuse that prevent the process of justice.”
The report outlines seven chief issues in its overall findings:
- A need to “better promote victims’/survivors’ access to information, to address the concern of opaque canonical processes as a source of re-traumatisation.” This includes explaining the rights of “any individual” regarding information relating to him, “especially the circumstances and responsibilities related to their case of abuse – with due regard to data protection laws and requirements.”
- A need for “a holistic approach to the definition and enforcement of vulnerability in the Church’s safeguarding provisions.” The report calls for “a more uniform definition of vulnerability” to be developed.
- A need for clarifying the boundaries of the various bodies of the Roman Curia: “consolidation and clarity around the jurisdictions held by dicasteries of the Roman Curia, to ensure the efficient, timely, and rigorous management of cases of abuse referred to the Holy See.”
- A need for “a streamlined process for discharge from office,” which would allow “a smooth and simple pathway for the resignation or removal of a Church leader, when warranted.”
- A need to “further develop the Church’s magisterium on her safeguarding ministry,” and also “to promote conversion within the Church regarding child dignity and human rights in relation to abuse.” Such an endeavor “must be through a unified and theological-pastoral vision.”
- It also highlighted a need 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/survivors.”
- Furthermore, it called for promoting the “professionalisation of safeguarding in the Church, by providing formal academic opportunities and adequate resources for aspiring safeguarding practitioners.”
Purpose of report and future
The commission writes that its report is “intended as an application of spiritual practices necessary for those occasions when the Church confronts widespread evil, exploitation, and abuse within the Church.”
The report, the PCPM writes, comes as part of a “process of ongoing conversion” which is made up of two stages.
The first stage involved “a move away from times of widespread sexual abuse that was frequently mishandled and covered up – to a new period when policies for safeguarding, reporting, investigations, and care for victims/survivors make abuses rare, and provide appropriate responses.”
A second part of the “ongoing conversion” is “properly addressing the aftermath of periods of widespread abuse and mishandling of cases, by providing or facilitating care for victims/survivors and by addressing the impacts on the entire Church.”
The text implicitly accuses the Church or individuals in it of permitting the spread of abuse, as it writes that “renouncing evil requires the first transition of turning away from practices that facilitate, tolerate, and permit widespread abuse, through acknowledging the truth, providing or facilitating justice and reparations for victims/survivors, and making personal and institutional reforms that provide guarantees of non-recurrence.”
The highlighted process of changing the Church’s procedures is aimed “first to Church authorities and then to the whole People of God,” the PCPM wrote.
But the report also warned that it should not be read as “an audit of the incidence of abuse within Church contexts.”
The PCPM expressed the wish that future reports would “address the incidence of abuse, including the question of progress in reducing and preventing abuse.”
The document comes days after the one-year anniversary of the Vatican re-opening an investigation into disgraced ex-Jesuit Father Marko Rupnik, who is accused of committing a vast number of varied forms of abuse, including sexual and spiritual.
READ: Pope Francis asks Vatican to review case of alleged serial abuser Fr. Rupnik
The investigation is being handled by the DDF, after the commission’s notable intervention in September 2023 to reconvene the Rupnik investigation.
Commission’s investigational work questioned
However, the commission has also been somewhat plagued by allegations of being unable to effectively pursue its purpose. High profile members have resigned in recent years, citing cultural resistance to effecting change in the Vatican on the issue of abuse.
Notably, last spring a prominent member of the small team, Father Hans Zollner, S.J., announced his departure from the commission on March 29 and his move to the Diocese of Rome as a safeguarding consultant. Zollner cited “issues that need to be urgently addressed and which have made it impossible for me to continue further” as part of the group.
Zollner stated he became “increasingly concerned” with how the commission was working on the areas of “responsibility, compliance, accountability, and transparency.” He cited a “lack of clarity” regarding new appointments and “inadequate … financial accountability.”
The priest also implicitly criticized the Pope’s curial reforms, saying he was “unaware of any regulations that govern the relationship between the commission and the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith.”
READ: Vatican sex abuse summit kicks the can down the road
Cardinal O’Malley first praised Zollner’s work in the commission, but then in an amendment after Zollner’s public statement was released, took issue with the Jesuit’s criticisms of the group. O’Malley said he was “surprised, disappointed,” and “strongly” disagrees with Zollner’s “publicly-issued assertions challenging the commission’s effectiveness.”
We do both share the view that the protection of children and vulnerable persons remains at the heart of the Church’s mission and the commission will continue to manifest that conviction. The commission has a plenary meeting scheduled in the next few weeks during which we can address these and other matters more fully as a group.
Zollner’s departure was widely regarded as a significant loss for the commission, and came after former abuse survivor and fellow member of the commission Marie Collins also resigned in 2017. Collins, a member since the group’s inception, cited “cultural resistance” in the Vatican body:
The reluctance of some in the Vatican Curia to implement recommendations or cooperate with the work of a commission when the purpose is to improve the safety of children and vulnerable adults around the world is unacceptable.
Collins spoke about “constant setbacks” for the commission, which were “directly due to the resistance by some members of the Vatican Curia to the work of the commission. The lack of co-operation, particularly by the dicastery most closely involved in dealing with cases of abuse, has been shameful.”
Questioned on the PCPM’s relationship with Zollner today, O’Malley spoke of it being a positive one.