Advocacy groups worked together to create the new qualification which will provide important skills to those working with Pacific families.

Its importance is in no doubt: in New Zealand. Pacific children are 2.5 times more likely than other children to be physically punished.

In addition, family violence is a particular concern. Here in New Zealand, Pacific families are 44 percent more likely than others to experience physical or psychological violence.

Countering family violence

Training for the new qualification begins this October.

From then, frontline services, health and social workers will be able to complete the specialised family violence training to gain a Level 6 micro credential.

The new training programme includes cultural frameworks from eight Pacific nations including Samoa, Niue, Tonga and Fiji.

The Cause Collective (a community organisation that aims to create the conditions for communities to thrive) will deliver the training in partnership with Pacific community groups.

The New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) has granted the course historic accreditation.

Nga Vaka o Kaiga Tapu cultural lead Fa'amatuainu Tino Pereira (back row 4th from left, with facilitators from several Pacific communities) is pleased the course has been accredited.

He says the NZQA accreditation shows the mainstream recognises the important role Pacific communities play in providing solutions that come from their own communities.

"As Pasefika wisdom shows, ‘E fofo e le alamea le alamea' - the toxic fish has its own antidote" Fa'amatuainu says.

"This reflects a victory for Pacific communities who developed the Nga Vaka framework in response to addressing family violence more than 10 years ago."

Fa'amatuainu stresses the importance of high-quality training for practitioners, employers and communities.

"It ensures that practitioners are equipped with the necessary skills and knowledge to engage effectively with Pacific families while adhering to national standards for education and training."

Source

• PMN

Aimed at creating updated diocesan guidelines, the move opens up the consultation process, historically limited to bishops and church leaders, to a broader base of stakeholders.

To collect the feedback, the commission has established an online survey.

According to CNA, anyone can participate in the survey, which is available in English, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese.

New Zealanders' feedback will be combined with feedback from around the world and be instrumental in developing an updated Universal Guidelines Framework (UGF), as announced by the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors last week.

Globally effective and meaningful safeguarding principles

According to its website, the commission wants to ensure the guidelines are globally effective and meaningful.

While acknowledging that "each country and context have their own cultural, linguistic and other individual characteristics," the commission would like these guidelines to be applied everywhere.

Commission member Teresa Devlin told Vatican News that the Global South, particularly Asia, is part of the world most behind in developing its own guidelines and abuse reporting and response structures.

But, she added, "It is up and down across the world."

"Some places are very well developed. Some places have not yet started to address the whole idea of abuse within the Church."

Moving forward

The current draft guidelines have been circulated to bishops' conferences for feedback as part of the review.

The New Zealand Catholic Bishops Conference spokesperson, Mr David McLoughlin, confirmed the Conference received the document on Wednesday.

McLoughlin told CathNews that the relevant people are studying it, and the "document will help positively to strengthen further our comprehensive local safeguarding policies and practices."

The commission plans for the new UGF to be finalised by the end of 2023 and distributed globally.

After finalisation, Catholic dioceses will be asked to revise their safeguarding guidelines in line with local cultural norms.

In 2024, the commission plans to release its first report on the implementation progress of the safeguarding guidelines in various countries and, over time, information regarding the guideline's implementation will be added to when bishops' conferences visit Rome during their five-yearly obligatory visit.

By extending the consultation process to all, the commission wants to underline its commitment to an inclusive approach to child protection, reflecting the need for local context understanding and global collaboration.

Sources

• CNA
• Vatican News
• Crux

Zollner, who is the president of the Centre for Child Protection (CCP) at the Gregorian University says it's all-important to control and guide sex abusers and "to define exactly what they may and may not do, whom they may and may not meet and how they use the internet."

Given the critical importance of keeping close tabs on known abusers, the Church should provide places for them to live on a comprehensive basis.

Just what that accommodation would be like and how it would be managed would be determined according to local cultural norms, he suggests.

"This kind of establishment should be particularly applicable in western, highly specialised societies. In other parts of the world, where communal responsibility is more paramount, parish or spiritual communities could possibly find a way of controlling priest abusers and making it impossible for them to abuse again," Zollner told an Austrian religious affairs programme.

Examples of detention houses for sex abuse perpetrators can be seen in the United States, where they have been used for decades. Offenders are given the option of going to such centres, which are described as "something like a prison". They are located in remote regions and residents are subject to a strict regime with curfews and contact restrictions.

"We know from surveys that a high percentage of sexual abusers are likely to have relapses, that is, to abuse again, although they have served a prison sentence, had therapy and fulfilled other conditions. After that, no one controls them any longer - neither society nor the Church," Zollner says.

Once a prisoner is released, "the bishop or the provincial can no longer control or supervise the perpetrator and that is a quandary we have to live with."

Zollner's main concerns are always about the extent perpetrators are prepared to acknowledge their own guilt and are prepared to work at ways of trying to avoid abusing again. "This is something that you cannot enforce. Unfortunately, there are perpetrators who will not accept that they have destroyed children's and adolescents' lives. They see themselves as the victims," he explains.

The Church's situation regarding how to cater for abusers is difficult. On the one hand, the Church has a duty to look after the perpetrators, while on the other it faces accusations of once again thinking more of the perpetrators than the victims, Zollner says.
It's therefore important to remember that providing lifelong detention facilities is about preventing more minors from becoming victims.

German theologian and psychotherapist Wunibald Müller is welcoming Zollner's suggestion. By setting up prison-like centres for paedophile priests, the Church will be able to protect both the public and the abuser priests. In this way, the Church could "show that it is really trying to deal with the problem," Müller says.

Müller recalls visiting the Vianney Renewal Centre in Missouri (pictured) for study purposes a few years ago. "Celebration of the Eucharist takes centre stage and being able to keep up a spiritual routine is all-important for the abuser priests' process of self-healing. It can only be guaranteed in church-run centres," he says.

Source

• The Tablet
• Image: St Louis Post-Dispatch

But activists and sexual abuse survivors continue to ask that the protection of minors and vulnerable adults in the Catholic Church and elsewhere remain a priority despite losing momentum, as risks of online and domestic abuse grow globally.

"It became pretty clear to us very early on that the attention given to safeguarding and protecting the dignity and safety of children, and vulnerable people in general, moved out of the center of attention for many people and for many institutions," said Hans Zollner S.J., a Vatican official spearheading the fight against sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, in an interview with Religion News Service on Wednesday (Aug. 26).

Zollner heads the Pontifical Gregorian University's Centre for Child Protection and is a member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, created by Pope Francis in 2014. (Also see Interview with Hans Zollner SJ on "Flashes of Insight" YouTube.)

As the pandemic triggered global lockdowns, forcing citizens to stay at home and avoid crowded events, many young people and vulnerable adults found themselves at a heightened risk of suffering physical and psychological abuse.

The largest nonprofit anti-sexual assault organization in the United States, the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, or RAINN, announced in a July news release that it received an unprecedented number of reports by minors of sexual abuse this year during the pandemic.

Throughout Europe, countries have recorded a worrying spike in domestic violence just as "corona divorces" grow in Japan and China after months of lockdown, with many women citing domestic violence as the main cause.

For young people, more time at home also means more access to the internet and social media, where global watchdog organizations have found an increase in sexual predators and grooming efforts. The European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation, called Europol, warned of a "sharp increase" in the exchange of abusive material online in a news release issued in June.

Despite these concerning trends, child protection agencies and survivors told RNS they feel set aside in the global discourse as donations dwindle and media attention is focused on health and financial questions posed by the pandemic.

The head of the largest clergy abuse survivor network in Italy, Rete L'Abuso, said he saw a "massive drop" in attention and action on child protection since the beginning of the lockdown in the peninsula.

"There was a sense of abandonment for many victims," clergy abuse survivor Francesco Zanardi told RNS on Thursday, adding that many centres for reporting abuse and providing services to victims were shut down at the height of the pandemic.

Sexual abuse trials, both lay and canonical, have been stopped or postponed for several months, Zanardi said. He also said many victims in Italy are now seeking to settle deals with dioceses in order to avoid costly fees and receive immediate cash amid a struggling financial outlook.

Meanwhile, donations for the survivor network have "dropped to zero," with many donors withdrawing their monthly subscription, Zanardi said.

"It's too soon to evaluate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the sexual abuse by clergy," Zanardi said, especially since reports tend to emerge years — even decades — after the offense, but continued media attention "gives victims the courage to come forward, as well as providing a better awareness for citizens."

Zanardi highlighted the island of Sicily, located at the tip of the Italian boot-shaped peninsula, as a high-risk region for abuse that lacks adequate safeguards for minors. One such example is the case of the family of an underage girl who authorities say was raped over a four-year period by the head of a lay Catholic association.

The trial for the lay head of the Catholic association, Piero Alfio Capuana, has been postponed numerous times during the pandemic and even the local diocese has fallen silent on the case, which had acquired significant media scrutiny in the past.

"We didn't hear anything from the Curia," said the mother of the victim, who wishes to remain anonymous to protect her underage daughter's identity, in a phone interview with RNS on Thursday.

"We are now forgotten," she added.

Even the church struggled in the early months of the pandemic to continue monitoring and instructing on abuse safety measures as the global attention shifted to health and policy concerns. Zollner said the first two to three months of lockdown showed a drop in communication and collaboration requests from the numerous institutions and dioceses around the world.

"Before (the pandemic) there was much interest in sexual abuse committed by priests even in the past. There was a rise of interest in many media outlets across the globe," he said. "All of a sudden it stopped."

The Swiss priest said that even in conversations with policymakers and activists in several countries, sexual abuse scrolled down the international agendas to benefit concerns over the pandemic's impact on the economy, travel restrictions and public health.

"People got interested in their own well-being, which is understandable, of course, not looking at the dangers for others, in this case for young people, while at the same time those dangers were bigger than before," he said.

He called for a renewed interest by the media in covering cases of sexual abuse, while encouraging reporters to also focus on positive stories of how survivors have found justice and reconciliation.

Current setbacks have also fueled creativity and ingenuity in the Centre for Child Protection, Zollner said, especially through the use of social media and online news conferences that were able to bring together larger numbers than was possible with in-person meetings.

"We learn from different experiences and we come up with new pedagogical insights," he said, adding that the online presence of the centre has "intensified" in recent months, creating the framework for future steps forward.

Over the next few months, Zollner hopes to unveil a concrete new approach that builds on the lessons learned during the pandemic: namely, networking.

"Financial means will be restricted as public attention is decreased," he said. "To come up with something that will bring us back to the previous stage of attention we will necessarily need to come together and work together because this is something that no one can do for themselves or an institution alone."

• Claire Giangravé - Vatican Correspondent RNS. First published in RNS. Republished with permission.
• The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of CathNews.

Zollner is one of the Church's leading experts in child protection.

There are two sides to this problem, Zollner says.

One is with "the hierarchy not involving the gifts of a wide variety of faithful".

The other is with "laypeople who enable a paternalistic attitude by believing bishops to be omniscient and having the power to affect immediate change."

"What I want to affirm is that every baptized person is co-responsible for the holiness of the Church and needs to be prayerful about that and take action so that the community of the Church is ever more a witness to the Gospel."

Looking at the abuse issue from a theological perspective will help understand what went wrong in terms of the image of the Church and its hierarchy that many had, Zollner says.

It will also deepen the concepts of justice, forgiveness and redemption.

"A 'clericalist attitude' could lead one to believe the Church only has a patriarchal structure or that only priests are important," he says.

"However, I think it is important to affirm that it is also very much matriarchal. In every age, prophetic women have been leaders."

He cites Dorothy Day, Mary MacKillop, Frances of Rome, Hildegard von Bingen, the early church "matriarch" Saint Macrina, and Mary the Mother of God herself as examples of women who "carried out their missions, which were often in tension with what some men in their lives wanted".

In the year since the Vatican's summit on the protection of minors and vulnerable people, Zollner says the Vatican City State adopted new laws and guidelines.

These include Pope Francis's motu proprio Vos Estis Lux Mundi, which he announced last May.

This outlined the responsibilities of bishops, extended the concept of protection of "vulnerable persons," and established the obligation to report any case of abuse to church authorities.

Last December Francis announced the abolition of the Pontifical Secret in cases of sexual violence and abuse of minors by clergy.

He modified the legislation raising the age of minors from 14 to 18 years old in what constitutes a crime of possession of material that sexually exploits children under the "delicta graviora".

He also made it possible for lay canon lawyers to take part in the legal processes.

Most recently, Francis established a task force that will help bishops' conferences and others to prepare and update guidelines for protecting minors and vulnerable persons.

Lay movements are a priority area to tackle in terms of the fight against abuse, Zollner says.

The Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life is taking "a very serious approach in this, and they are in the process of collecting guidelines from the various movements, which are very diverse in size and resources," he says.

Source

• Crux
• Image: America Magazine

Francis, who is both the Vatican head of state and the head of the Church new law, wants the new law to be a model for the church globally.

The legal changes reflect a desire to show the Church is finally acting against clerical child abuse after decades of scandals around the world.

They make it obligatory for superiors and co-workers to report abuse allegations; punish failure to report with dismissal, fines or jail; and offer assistance to victims and families.

The new law also provides protection to vulnerable adults.

The new laws define a vulnerable person very broadly. The definition includes anyone "in an infirm state, of physical or mental deficiency, or deprivation of personal freedom, that in fact, even occasionally, limits their capacity to intend or to want or in any way to resist the offence."

The new definition radically expands the definition currently being used by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in its handling of cases from dioceses around the world. That definition says a "vulnerable" person is one who "habitually lacks the use of reason."

This is the first time a unified, detailed policy for protecting children has been compiled for the Vatican, and its embassies and universities outside the city state.

The law sets up procedures for reporting suspected abuse, imposes more screening of prospective employees, and sets strict guidelines for adult interaction with children and the use of social media.

Any Vatican public official who learns of an allegation of abuse is obliged to report it to Vatican prosecutors "without delay."

Failure to do so can result in a fine of up to 5,000 euros ($5,615) or, in the case of a Vatican gendarme, up to six months in prison.

The mandatory reporting provision is significant. Until now, the Holy See has justified not having a binding reporting policy for the universal church saying the accused clergy could be unfairly persecuted in places where Catholics are a threatened minority.

Since that is not a risk in the Vatican, it is now law.

"With this document the Vatican wants to send a message that it takes these crimes seriously, wants to prosecute them, to avoid cover up, and also to create an atmosphere that prevents these crimes from happening in the first place," a canon law professor at Rome's Pontifical Gregorian University says.

The legislation requires that victims be welcomed, listened to and provided with medical, psychological and legal assistance.

It sets the statute of limitations at 20 years past the victim's 18th birthday.

Source

• La Stampa
• Reuters
• DW.com
• The Boston Pilot
• Image: South China Morning Post

In his final address at the Summit, Pope Francis committed the church to do everything possible to eradicate sexual abuse.

He said he wants it gone - not just from the church itself but from society as a whole.

"We are facing a universal problem, tragically present almost everywhere and affecting everyone," Francis said to the patriarchs, cardinals, bishops and priests who participated in the summit.

Concrete actions

The work to ensure new laws and concrete actions are in place is just beginning, Summit Moderator, Father Federico Lombardi SJ says.

Lombardi, says proposed changes include a new set of laws and guidelines concerning child protection, which will be published shortly by the pope for the Vatican City State.

He says these measures will be issued "motu proprio," on the pope's own accord.

In addition, Lombardi says a handbook for bishops will be issued, prepared by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

It will list a set of guidelines to "help bishops around the world clearly understand their duties and tasks" when handling cases of abuse, Lombardi says.

In addition, the pope wants to:

• amend the current law concerning the crime of a cleric acquiring, possessing or distributing pornographic images of minors by extending the age from 14 years old to include young people under the age of 18
• establish task forces "made up of competent persons" that will assist dioceses and episcopal conferences "that find it difficult to confront the problems and produce initiatives for the protection of minors," especially when they lack the needed resources and skilled personnel.

Women influential

Three of the summit's nine keynote speeches were given by women, two of whom are mothers.

They spoke of the "hypocrisy" and "mediocrity" revealed by the abuse scandals and the "disgraceful, shameful" situation in which the Church finds itself.

One of the women spoke of the laity's role in promoting accountability, saying laypersons ought to have a greater role to play, while also noting their presence doesn't necessarily guarantee things will get better.

Copernican revolution

In his homily at the four-day summit's closing Mass, Australian Archbishop Mark Coleridge said that, like Nicolaus Copernicus' discovery that the earth revolves around the sun, the church needs a "Copernican revolution" where "those who have been abused do not revolve around the church but the church around them.

"This is the necessary conversion, the true revolution and the great grace, which can open for the church a new season of mission."

Several survivors and advocacy groups were disappointed more direct mandates were not issued, especially in ordering bishops to implement already existing laws.

Source

• Crux Now
• Catholic News Service
• America magazine
• Image: Al Jazeera

Archbishop Manoel Delson signed the ban after the court ordered the archdiocese to pay almost £2.5 million in compensation over the sexual exploitation of minors. Read more

In 2014, the Vatican was summoned to the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child committee.

It was asked to take concrete steps to remedy decades of institutional complicity and the cover-up of widespread sexual abuse of minors.

The Vatican has now missed the September 1 deadline to submit a report, detailing the steps it has taken to protect children from sexual violence, according to a Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) statement.

Guam, where more than 100 clergy sex abuse lawsuits have been filed, was cited in their statement as an example of the Vatican's failure to increase child protection as well as accountability for perpetrators and those who cover up and conceal the offences.

"The fact that the Vatican did not submit a report to the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child is one more indication that church officials have not taken this process seriously," said SNAP managing director Barbara Dorris,

CCR staff attorney Pam Spees said church officials are quick to decry efforts to hold them accountable, calling it scapegoating or anti-Catholic sentiment, and to deflect the issue by pointing to instances of sexual violence in other religious contexts.
"No other entity on earth has the church's global presence and power to conceal the offences and insulate its perpetrators through the religious, political, and financial influence it wields," Spees said.

SNAP and CCR said the Vatican has not made substantial progress in genuinely acknowledging, internalising, and implementing the full range of policies and practices that would centre children's best interests and protect them against sexual violence.

Source

• Pacific Daily News
• Pacific Daily News
• RNZ
• Image: Japan Times

Often called the C9, the Cardinals and Pope Francis have examined several dicasteries of the curia; the protection of minors; the economy, a range of texts Francis has put forward for consideration, and Holy See lay staff and clergy selection and formation. Read more

However he said there are still challenges to be faced such as unifying the church's approach and dealing with complex migration issues.

Zollner, who has often been described as the Pope's expert in the fight against child abuse, has just visited New Zealand for the first time.

He is a German Jesuit priest and is president of the Centre for Child Protection at Rome's Pontifical Gregorian University.

He is also a member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, set up by Pope Francis in 2014 with the single purpose of developing initiatives that could prevent future abuse within the church.

Zollner said there has to be a national, coherent and proactive approach.

"I would hope [New Zealand] would overcome that parochial system, so that this diocese does that in this province and that order does that, but they don't talk to each other."

Another challenge he identified was the influx of people from different cultures who have a different way to talk about sexuality, a different way to evolve and to live with authority and power.

While in New Zealand he held a safeguarding training day in Wellington for 85 people from all areas of the church, including Cardinal John Dew, the papal envoy and bishops.

He also held a workshop in Auckland for those responsible for the formation of priests and religious

Zollner has seen the movie Spotlight, Hollywood's take on The Boston Globe's investigation into the city's own Catholic abuse scandal, three times.

He believes it a well-made film that is "very close to the facts" and of great benefit to not only the church but wider society.

Far from worrying about how the film would further damage the church's reputation, he said it was more important that the world was aware of what had happened.

"This is not my concern, it's not my concern whether we recover [our reputation] or not, my concern is to do what we need to do and stay focused on this.

"For me this kind of work, what we do, should not be done so we recover our nice image, this is nothing important for the church."

"We need to focus on what we can do in cleaning up the mess that has been created over the years and doing whatever we can do in creating as safe environments as possible."

"There's some expectation that never again such abuse may happen."

"Of course it will happen and it happens in this minute inside the church and outside the church, because this is evil and we won't be able to do away with evil, unfortunately."

Source

• stuff.co.nz
• Image: twitter.com

The National Board for Safeguarding Children published updated guidelines on Wednesday.

They give recommendations if an accused priest dies before an investigation has concluded.

In such a case, "careful thought should be given by the Church authority to the way the requiem liturgy and interment is conducted".

"Publicly praising the respondent's qualities as a priest could have a seriously detrimental impact on complainants."

Some of the content of the new guidelines was reported by the Irish Times.

The guidelines state that when the Church decides to announce a priest is standing aside from ministry due to allegations, a presumption of innocence should be emphasised.

"Confidentiality is required, and advice will be needed on what can be shared, by whom and with whom.

"Parishioners cannot be told everything, but they do need an explanation for the sudden unavailability of the priest for a period.

"What they are told should be the truth."

The preferred approach is for any public communication to be agreed with the "respondent".

The guidelines reiterate the inviolability of the confessional.

While "all suspicions, concerns and allegations of child abuse must be reported to the statutory authorities", the guidelines state that "there is one exception to this rule".

That is "if abuse is disclosed during the sacrament of Reconciliation", the documents state.

The guidelines stated that there must always be available "confessionals with a fixed grate between the penitent and the confessor in an open place, so that the faithful who wish to can use them freely".

However, where abuse is admitted by a perpetrator or alleged by a child/young person in the confessional, the guidelines direct that a priest should strongly advise them to report this to statutory authorities.

Sources

• Irish Times
• Image: Trip Wow

Church of Ireland primate Archbishop Richard Clarke expressed his concerns during his church's general synod, the Irish Times reported.

While emphasising the necessity for strong child protection measures, he spoke of unwanted consequences.

"It is almost abusing children in a different way to deprive them of normal interaction [with adults]," he said.

"The first thing is, we have got to protect children.

"We know what dreadful things happened when we do not protect children, so that's a given," he said.

Children know about the "dangers" of adults and adults are "often scared" that children might "misunderstand" normal interaction, he added.

However, children had learned "almost as their default position" to "mistrust every adult".

The archbishop said it may be "safer", but "is it necessarily something that will create healthy relationship between those of different generations?"

He called for ways to ensure children's safety while dealing with unwanted consequences.

"Is there any way in which we can mitigate what are the unintended consequences of us holding children at arm's length, metaphorically?" Archbishop Clarke asked.

Sources

• Irish Times
• Image: Irish Times

The policy outlines clear steps for investigating abuse within the Church and encourages members of report abuse.

Br Frank Hough, who helped formulate the new policy, said he hoped Church members would find reporting abuse less daunting.

He said societies in the Pacific are often male dominant with a great respect for church leaders and priests.

People also don't want to bring shame upon the Church and are reticent to bring claims against the church or a priest, he noted.

This is especially so in rural areas, Br Hough said.

People wanting to make a complaint will be able to discuss the matter with a contact person, who can explain what options are available to them with Church and/or civil authorities.

The policy aims to create more awareness of child protection and various forms of abuse.

It also provides standards to establish a safe environment for children and is a framework other organisations within the Church can emulate, said one of its co-authors.

The policy reportedly complements the PNG government's 2009 Lukautim Pikini Act, aimed at protecting children, which is up for review in the nation's parliament.

The act has been criticised because of a lack of manpower, political will and funding to carry out its functions.

The PNG minister responsible for Child Welfare, Delilah Gore, said the national government continued to acknowledge its partnership with churches in the country.

The minister urged other churches to come up with their own initiatives on child welfare and other social needs.

Sources

• EMTV
• ABC
• Facebook
• Image: Trek4Education

In the Archdiocese of Wellington anyone who works or volunteers for the church and will have to undergo a fresh check every three years.

Wellington archdiocese Director of Projects and Administration, Dave Mullin, said the changes were about transparency rather than any concerns about abuse within the church community.

"Obviously we are most concerned about people who work with children, young people and vulnerable adults," he said.

He said hundreds of people in the diocese had already been tested since the changes were introduced in May this year; so far, no previous convictions or other problematic behaviour had been uncovered among church staff, priests or volunteers.

If any convictions or other concerns were uncovered it would be up to individual parishes to make a decision on what response should be taken.

Source

• Stuff.co.nz
• Image: instinctivemartialarts.co.uk

The Pope asked the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Archbishop Gerhard Müller, to "continue the line desired by Benedict XVI of decisive action regarding cases of sexual abuse, primarily by promoting measures for child protection".

He also urged the congregation to offer "help for the many who in the past have suffered such violence" and to ensure "due process against those who are guilty".

He also called on Archbishop Müller to continue to seek "the commitment of bishops' conferences in the formulation and implementation of the necessary directives in this area which is of great importance to the witness of the Church and its credibility".

In 2011, the congregation called on bishops' conferences around the world to submit guidelines for helping victims; protecting children; selecting and training priests and other Church workers; dealing with accused priests; and collaborating with local authorities.

Three-quarters of the 112 bishops' conferences have sent in such guidelines, with most of those yet to respond coming from Africa, the Vatican says.

Dr Rebecca Rist, a papal historian at Reading University, said: "The papacy has always taken a strong line on the importance of the purity of life of its clergy. In the 11th century, the medieval papacy took stringent measures against the abuses of 'simony' — the buying and selling of ecclesiastical office — and 'nicolaism' — clerical concubinage.

"Pope Francis is signalling that he regards clerical sexual abuse as the modern-day scourge of the Church."

But a victims' group, the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP), responded to the statement by calling for actions rather than words.

"We must insist on new tangible action that helps vulnerable children protect their bodies, not old vague pledges that help a widely-discredited institution protect its reputation," said SNAP outreach director Barbara Dorris.

Sources:

LifeSiteNews

Reuters

BBC

Image: Kosciol

The former child protection consultant, Alan Draper, who worked for the Motherwell diocese for seven years, said the Church in Scotland could not give any details of a coherent national policy, and that individual bishops were allowed to make decisions piecemeal.

"For too long the bishops have been kings in their castles and accountable to nobody," Draper told the Observer newspaper. "It's very corrosive. Some dioceses may be doing a good job — but we have no knowledge or information about what's been going on."

Draper said he left his position with Motherwell diocese in 2003 because his advice was consistently ignored. He said he had to take Bishop Joseph Devine "kicking and screaming" with him when he tried to implement good practice.

The newspaper said Bishop Devine's handling of abuse cases continued to be controversial. It cited a letter his solicitors sent a letter to a victim of abuse, confirming that her counselling would be stopped despite warnings from her psychotherapist that she had been suicidal "for substantial periods" during treatment.

The letter said there was "no formal protocol or procedure" for an appeal against the bishop's decision. Any appeal would be at the bishop's discretion and would only consider new evidence.

The woman, Ann Matthews, was abused from the ages of 11 to 18 by her parish priest, who admitted the offences. "They are being told someone's life is in danger and all they can say is too bad," said Matthews, who had attempted suicide on four occasions. "I am just a drain on their resources."

The Observer said the secretary of the bishops' conference, Monsignor Hugh Bradley, admitted he "doesn't know" if annual audits exist. "They haven't been done until now," Monsignor Bradley said, adding: "Some have been done — but I don't know if they have been done every year."

Sources:

The Guardian

The Scotsman

Image: Scottish Catholic Observer

Mandatory reporting laws, prosecution of offenders, increased public awareness, and child-safe education programs have certainly contributed to this trend. Mirroring these aggressive efforts has been the remarkable turnaround in the Catholic Church with it currently having one of the most extensive, comprehensive child protection programs in the country.

The temptation now is to think society has done its job. It has "gotten rid" of the offenders by sending them to prison. Likewise, the church is dismissing clergy-offenders from priesthood. But such thinking is short-sighted. The process of making both society and church safe for children is not over. Rather, dealing with this terrible scourge, affecting all corners of our society, is entering a new phase.

I recall being at the bishops' meeting in Dallas 2002 when the clergy sexual abuse crisis was at its zenith. In this intense environment, American public sentiment sent a clear message to the bishops, "Get rid of them." And they did. A few hundred were immediately dismissed and more followed. Child advocates then queried the bishops, "So now, you are supervising these men?" The response came, "Once they are dismissed from priesthood, they are beyond our reach."

The American mantra to such problems tends to be, "Get rid of them" thus giving the United States the highest incarceration rate in the world. But incarceration is only a limited and temporary solution. Civil authorities are able to prosecute some offenders, but lack of evidence and resources, plus criminal statute of limitations limit prosecution rates. Even so, most child abusers will eventually return to society. What then? Megan Laws have tried to keep them away from minors but children are everywhere.

The next phase of child protection is upon us: what to do long-term with laity and clergy alike who sexually molest children? Continue reading

Image: Prisons UK

The report mentions around 30 dioceses as failing to provide safe environment training for all children in parishes or schools.

The auditors said several dioceses assumed that the children had undergone the training in their schools, when they hadn't, reports the Huffington Post.

One diocese, Sheveport, is mentioned as not convening a meeting of its local review board in two years.

In its defense, the diocese offered the view that it had not received any new allegations.

The study, released by the Bishops' Conference, says Dioceses and religious orders said they received 594 credible claims of clergy sex abuse in 2011 (up from 202 in 2010), and all but a few of the allegations involved wrongdoing that occurred decades ago.

US$144 million was paid in settlements and related costs last year.

Source

• Huffington Post
• CNA
• Image Sott Net

Declining numbers of Catholics attending Mass and fewer donations are also significant contributing factors.

The Irish Catholic reports that reserves built up by the diocese have been spent.

A senior administrator for the archdiocese said to make no changes would have serious financial consequences.

Some of the suggested measures include:

• pay cuts for diocesan agencies and parish worker
• reassessment of all central administration positions
• parish-based levies on Catholic families

"Many of the parishes see no possibility in the immediate future of overcoming the debt, so it is certainly no exaggeration to imagine that the diocese might go bankrupt," Deputy Editor of the Irish Catholic, Michael Kelly told UTV.

Payouts over child abuse compensation cases have totalled NZ$23m.

Financial disaster looms Kelly said, 55 cases are still pending and 55 people who allege abuse against Dublin priests still waiting for payouts.

"Well the child abuse payouts have eaten up any reserves that the diocese had or built up over the 20th century.

"One would have to imagine that there must be at least another NZ$10m or NZ$12m on that is going to have to be paid out on that at a time when funds are dwindling."

"A lot of parishioners are very reluctant," said Mr Kelly, "if they feel that their money is going to pay the crimes of others."

Sources

• UTC
• BBC
• Irish Catholic
• Image: YLE Uutiset News