IMAGE: CNS photo/Paul Haring
By Carol Glatz
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Responding quickly and appropriately to the problem of
abuse must be a priority for the Catholic Church, said Cardinal Sean P.
O’Malley, president of the Vatican’s Pontifical Commission for the Protection
of Minors.
“Recent events in the church have us all focused on
the urgent need for a clear response on the part of the church for the sexual
abuse of minors” and vulnerable adults, he told Vatican News Sept. 9.
“Bringing the voice of survivors to leadership of
the church is crucial if people are going to have an understanding of how
important it is for the church to respond quickly and correctly anytime a
situation of abuse may arise,” he said.
The cardinal, who is the archbishop of Boston, spoke at
the end of the papal commission’s plenary assembly in Rome Sept. 7-9. Afterward, Cardinal
O’Malley remained in Rome for the meeting Sept. 10-12 of Pope Francis’ international
Council of Cardinals.
Cardinal O’Malley told Vatican News that in cases of abuse “if
the church is unable to respond wholeheartedly and make this a priority, all of
our other activities of evangelization, works of mercy, education are all going
to suffer. This must be the priority that we concentrate on right now.”
The pontifical commission, he explained, is an advisory body set up to make
recommendations to the pope and to develop and offer guidelines, best practices
and formation to church leaders throughout the world, including bishops’
conferences, religious orders and offices in the Roman Curia.
The
commission is not an investigative body and does not deal with past abuses or current allegations,
but its expert-members try, through education, leadership training and advocacy,
to “change the future so that it will not be a repeat of the sad
history” the church has experienced, he said.
“There are other dicasteries of the Holy See that
have the responsibility for dealing with the cases and dealing with individual
circumstances of abuse or negligence on the part of authority, and our
commission cannot be held accountable for their activities,” he said.
Most
allegations of clerical sexual abuse are handled through the Congregation for
the Doctrine of the Faith.
Commission
members, however, have spoken with officials at various Vatican offices,
including the doctrinal congregation. For those meetings, Cardinal O’Malley
said he always brings a survivor with him “to talk to them about
the church’s mission of safeguarding, and I think those (moments) have been
very successful.”
Safeguarding
training for bishops, priests and religious around the world is meant to help them
become “aware of the seriousness” of abuse and negligence, “to be
equipped to be able to respond” and to be able “to put the
safeguarding of children and the pastoral care of victims as their
priority,” said the cardinal.
A critical part of building awareness, he said, has been
making the voice of survivors be heard directly by leadership. Every year when
new bishops attend a course in Rome, the commission also addresses the group.
Cardinal O’Malley said he usually invites former
commission member, Marie Collins — a survivor of Irish clerical sex abuse — to speak to the new
bishops “so that they can hear directly from someone who has experienced
this horror in their own life, to explain to the them the consequences and
repercussions for the individual, their family and the whole community.”
Even though Collins was unable to attend this year, she
made “a wonderful video” that the cardinal shared with the
approximately 200 bishops appointed
in the past year, he said.
Year after year, the cardinal said, “so many bishops
have come up to me and told me that Marie Collins’ testimony was the most
important conference that they had heard during their entire week of
conferences for the new bishops.” That is why, he said, it is so crucial for the voices of
survivors to be heard by leaders if they are ever to understand the importance
of responding quickly and appropriately.
The cardinal also mentioned a number of new initiatives
and resources the commission has been working on, such as special auditing
instruments for bishops’ conferences to measure the implementation and
compliance of safeguarding policies as well as the idea of setting up “survivor
advisory panels” in different countries to advise local bishops and the
papal commission.
– – –
Copyright © 2018 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. www.catholicnews.com. All rights reserved. Republishing or redistributing of CNS content, including by framing or similar means without prior permission, is prohibited. You may link to stories on our public site. This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To request permission for republishing or redistributing of CNS content, please contact permissions at cns@catholicnews.com.