Hollywood, the USA Gymnastics team, Penn State, the Boy Scouts: Sexual abuse has proved pervasive across institutions. And when it comes to faith groups, no creed, structure, value system or size has seemed immune. Get out of denial mode “We’ve got to stop saying that could never happen in my church, or my pastor would Read more
Hans Zollner, one of the Catholic Church’s leading figures in the effort to prevent sex abuse, has commended the French Bishops’ Conference (CEF) for revealing that 11 of its members are currently under investigation for such abuse or its cover-up. But the 56-year-old Jesuit priest, who is director of the Institute of Anthropology at the Read more
The COVID-19 pandemic has intensified the risk elements in the Church’s sexual abuse response, says Fr Hans Zollner SJ. Zollner is the leading Rome based specialist in addressing the scourge of sex abuse in Catholic institutions. With less money in circulation, he is urging civil and church societies not to blur their focus nor cut Read more
Lawyers acting for almost 50 child sex abuse victims have called for the resignation of England’s Cardinal Vincent Nichols. The lawyers, Richard Scorer of Slater and Gordon, and David Enright of Howe and Co, made the call in a letter to The Tablet. In the letter, they say ‘the Catholic Church‘ is failing its safeguarding Read more
The Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Vincent Nichols, stands accused of putting the Church’s reputation ahead victims of child sex abuse. The accusation, 20 June, came in a government inquiry report. The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) concluded that children could have been saved had the Catholic Church not “repeatedly failed” to alert the police Read more
The website for the New Zealand Catholic Church’s National Office of Professional Standards (NOPS) has just gone live. The website provides a platform for information on reporting abuse, safeguarding information and any related policies or documents. NOPS Director, Virginia Noonan, says “the website provides another channel for reporting abuse and providing information on safeguarding in the Read more
A representative from the New Zealand Catholic Bishops will attend the summit on safeguarding in the Vatican later this month. Cardinal John Dew, Archbishop of Wellington and vice-president of the New Zealand Catholic Bishops Conference (NZCBC), will attend the meeting which will take place 21 – 24 February 2019. Because of recent eye surgery, Bishop Read more
Hans Zollner, S.J., is a licensed German psychologist and psychotherapist with a doctorate in theology and one of the church’s leading experts in the area of safeguarding minors. He is the president of the Centre for Child Protection at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, a member on the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Read more
The Church has to be more than just a fortress of guidelines and norms keeping abusers out and those not abused safe within, a theologian has said. Jesuit Fr James Corkery, a theology professor at Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University, said the Church also must be an open, welcoming home for those who have been wounded Read more
The new Archbishop of Sydney has urged disillusioned Catholic to return and “help us to be a better Church”. At his installation Mass last week, Archbishop Anthony Fisher vowed to improve the Church’s record on safeguarding children. He said the Church would emerge from a period of intense public scrutiny about clerical child abuse “humbler, Read more