Boston, Mass., May 8, 2023 / 16:00 pm (CNA).
In his role as president of the Vatican’s child protection commission, Archbishop of Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley said the body’s recent actions “represent a major shift towards a more impact-focused direction.”
At the plenary assembly of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, which took place from May 3–6, members adopted several new policies and updates in an attempt to address the sexual abuse crisis.
Those changes include a proposal updating the Church’s guidelines for addressing clergy sexual abuse, a forthcoming “audit tool” to “evaluate the adequacy of local churches safeguarding guidelines,” and a new fund supported by bishops’ conferences around the world to support victims, their families, and communities in impoverished areas, according to the commission’s May 8 press release.
“At times, this new direction has been both steep and fast for all of us reflecting the urgency of the challenges. This accelerated pace over the last six months has caused growing pains as we have attempted to respond to both short and longer-term needs,” O’Malley said in the press release.
“In our plenary, we developed key adjustments to our working methodology so as to clarify our different roles and to create a sense of common ownership of our mandate and of our collective responsibility for its implementation,” O’Malley said.
During the plenary assembly, the commission also reviewed a partnership agreement that it has had with the GHR Foundation since December 2022. The GHR Foundation, a U.S.-based Catholic philanthropic organization, provides “regional safeguarding consultants” to the commission, the press release said.
The commission reviewed the framework for the Annual Report of Safeguarding Policies and Procedures in the Church, which Pope Francis requested in April to promote “transparency and accountability” on sexual abuse responses from the local churches around the world.
“The plan adopts a human-centered design methodology that focuses on how the needs of victims and survivors can be prioritized and addressed in the Church’s reporting mechanisms with the purpose of offering proposals to the Holy Father on how gaps can be addressed,” the press release said.
As requested by Pope Francis, the commission brainstormed about ways “to animate the Church to combat the evils of online child abuse,” the press release said.
A five-year plan “identifying objectives, goals, and performance indicators to measure progress and to provide accountability to stakeholders” was also adopted by the commission, the press release said.
Additionally, the commission collaborated with the Dicastery for the Evangelization of Peoples “to further the goals of safeguarding through the work of the Vatican office that oversees the Church’s life in more than half the territory of the globe,” the press release said.
A new study “of the theme of vulnerability in its various forms” was commissioned “so as to equip Church entities with robust measures to combat this emerging area of abuse,” the press release said.
“The Holy Father has asked a lot from us, and we are all committed to making this work,” O’Malley said.
“We have sought the necessary resources to respond adequately, and we are confident in the plan we have laid out and the people we have working with us,” he concluded.
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Where is the commission to investigate the abuses rampant in protestant and other faith communities? Why do we endure this continuing mortification which, among its valid reasons for existence, is also a tool to eradicate the priesthood and the Church? Why only Roman Catholicism. What’s up with the Methodists? Presbyterians? Episcopalians? Moslems? Buddhists? Hindus? Jews?
We’ve done a good job with this enterprise, it needed to be done, indeed it should have always been in place within our operation. But it is decades beyond time to have equal justice. Indeed beyond the faith communities — educational institutions across the board need scrupulous examination and consequences.
Our humility need be emulated across society — but we bite our lip and bend our neck to those possessed by contempt for Christ and His Church.
Equal treatment across the board. Equal justice.
“Impact-focused”, “Audit tools”, “key adjustments to our working methodology.” Don’t you just love this bureaucratic language?
I wonder if AI could rewrite the bible in this kind of phrasing. I am sure it would be great for modern day Church evangelization.
My feeling exactly, Crusader.
Are these people Church leaders or PR flaks and self-help gurus?
Which is to say, do they speak in order to convey truth, or to obscure it?
Unbelievable.
Hilarious. After the entire heirarchy gave Uncle Ted a pass on a career of sexual exploitation, we can’t recognize these commisions for anything other than what they are; clown shows.
Having no insight into this other than the instincts of someone who grew up there, he looks like a typical Massachusetts liberal and my hunch is, “fox, henhouse.”
What is being done about “Case sent to Rome” on the Buffalo Diocese website? chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.buffalodiocese.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Substantiated_2_2023.pdf
As per the website 23 cases have been sent to Rome, the earliest in 1972, followed by a case in sent in 1993. Other cases sent through 2018. No follow up on any of these cases per the Dioecies website. These priests if found guilty have to be Laicized. The Catholic public has to know that they were punished. Then maybe some of the falling away Catholics will see some justice has occurred and might return to the church. I don’t understand why RICO cases haven’t been instituted by law enforcement.