Editor’s note: Marie Collins of Ireland is a clergy sexual abuse survivor who resigned March 1 from Pope Francis’ Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors. Cardinal Gerhard Müller, the head of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, gave an interview shortly following Collins’ resignation. Collins has written an open letter to Müller in response to that interview, which she asked NCR to publish below.
Dear Cardinal Müller,
I read with interest the answers you gave to the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera March 5 in reply to items in my statement following my resignation from the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors. There are some things you say in this interview to which I feel I need to respond.
You state you “cannot understand the talk of lack of cooperation” between the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) and the pontifical commission.
Maybe I can help with an example. In 2015, invitations went to your Congregation from some of the commission’s working groups asking that a representative attend their upcoming meetings in Rome to discuss issues of mutual interest.
The invitations were declined and then the members were informed by the Commission Secretary, Msgr. Robert Oliver, that face-to-face meetings would not be possible and any communication with dicasteries must be done in writing.
Things changed eventually, but this took over a year. It was September 2016 before a representative of the CDF was made available and attended Commission working group meetings. The discussions which ensued were very helpful, hopefully for your Congregation as well as the Commission.
You say that “in recent years there has been a permanent contact” between the commission and the CDF.
I don’t know what form this permanent contact took. All I can say is the members of the Commission did not receive any formal reports or see any positive results generated by such contact. Continue reading
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