Last month, the Vatican Dicastery (office) for Laity, the Family and Life met with about 100 representatives of Catholic associations and movements to develop abuse prevention and procedures for reporting and handling allegations.

Cardinal Kevin Farrell, who leads the Dicastery, told the representatives that by the end of December every movement and association in the church must turn in formal guidelines and protocols for reporting and preventing abuse cases.

All Catholic movements and associations for laypeople, which are officially recognised through Farrell's office, were told in May last year to draft abuse guidelines.

Farrell says "too many" of the groups either have not responded or submitted inadequate protocols.

He says some Catholics think holding another meeting about abuse shows the scandal has become "a fixation," "an unhealthy obsession" or "a pesky exaggeration.

"In truth, the logic is exactly the reverse," he says.

"It is the sexual abuse of power (and) of conscience that is an evil, an unhealthy obsession, a real manipulation, that suffocates and frustrates even the best pastoral plans, obscuring the good that the church accomplishes."

Farrell says developing protocols is only part of the process of "purging" the culture of abuse within the church.

The church needs a "change of mentality" to eradicate the sense of "taboo" that often led survivors of abuse to keep quiet. The same taboo caused many laymen and laywomen to look the other way, he says.

Linda Ghisoni, the undersecretary for laity at the Dicastery, read out the testimonies of three anonymous members of lay movements.

All three suffered abuse and were further harmed by their group's code of silence.

One survivor says it was difficult to speak about the abuse while still being a part of the association. However, she says she understands her "silence aggravates guilt and hinders the truth, making me an accomplice of evil and sin."

Another survivor, abused by two priests, says she felt she no longer had "access to God."

Comments from critics, including "some bishops who continue to repeat that one of those priests is so good" are "a new betrayal that comes from within the church,"she says.

Ghisoni says these testimonies are "not a way of indulging some morbid curiosity, nor an exercise in pity, but involves our honesty and brings us to an encounter with the flesh of Christ that is inflicted with wounds that, as Pope Francis has repeatedly maintained, never disappear."

Ghisoni says because of their influence on members' identity, formation, growth and freedom, lay movements and associations must have clear rules and regulations that are designed to prevent abuse and allow members to report without fear of retribution or exclusion.

She says groups that boast of strict orthodoxy often have an authoritarian and restrictive managerial style, one that does not include their members in decision-making.

This style spreads "subliminal messages that excludes those who criticize," she notes.

Groups without any real structure that have lax rules are also at risk of creating an environment where sexual abuse can thrive, she says.

Source

• National Catholic Reporter
• Image: YouTube

"Charis" will combine the two bodies that presently provide leadership for the world's Charismatic Catholics.

These are the International Catholic Charismatic Renewal Service and the Catholic Fraternity of Charismatic Covenant Communities and Fellowships, which will cease to exist on Pentecost Sunday (9 June) next year.

Although the statutes governing Charis have been approved "ad experimentum" (i.e. on an experimental basis), the Dicastery for Laity, the Family and Life, which certifies international Catholic lay organisations, says Charis will begin operating on 8 December.

It also says Charis will operate in favour of all expressions of the current of grace that is Catholic Charismatic Renewal.

"Each single charismatic reality will remain as it is, fully respected in its own identity and under the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical authority upon which it currently depends," the Dicastery says.

The Vatican says after 8 December, the Dicastery will formally appoint the following people to various services within Charis for a three-year period from next Pentecost Sunday:

• Dr Jean-Luc Moens from Belgium as Moderator
• Bishop Peter Leslie Smith from the United States for English- and French-speaking North America and the Caribbean
• Andrés Arango from the United States for Spanish-speaking North America and the Caribbean
• María Eugenia de Góngora from Guatemala for Central America
• Pino Scafuro from Argentina for Spanish-speaking South America
• Gabriella Marcia da Rocha Días from Brazil for Portuguese-speaking South America
• Cyril John from India for Asia
• Br James Shin San-Hyun from South Korea for Asia
• Jean-Christophe Sakiti from Togo for French-speaking Africa
• Fred Mawanda from Uganda for English-speaking Africa
• Paolo Maino from Italy for Europe
• Rev. Deacon Etienne Mellot from France for Europe
• Shayne Bennett from Australia for Oceania
• José Prado Flores from Mexico for Diverse Catholic Charismatic Renewal ministries
• Fr Etienne Vetö from the United States for Charismatic priests or religious
• Mr Jean Barbara from Lebanon for Charismatic communities
• Deacon Johannes Fichtenbauer from Austria for Charismatic Communities
• Mr François Prouteau from France for Associations with Holy See recognition
• Ms Giulia Rancan from Italy for young charismatic Catholics under 30 years of age
• Fr Raniero Cantalamessa, OFM Cap. from Italy as the Ecclesiastical Assistant

Charis's ecclesiastical adviser will be the preacher of the papal household, Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa.

Source

• Crux Now
• The Catholic Register
• Vatican News
• Image: The Southern Cross