Vatican commission publishes first report as Pope Francis aims to tackle clerical child sex abuse

Nevin Al Sukari - Sana'a - Activists of Ending Child Abuse (ECA) hold a protest against paedophilia within the Catholic Church ahead of Papal Synod in Rome with the Vatican in the background, on September 27, 2023. — AFP pic

VATICAN CITY, Oct 29 — The Vatican today publishes its first annual report on protecting minors in the Catholic Church, a move requested by Pope Francis amid pressure for more action to tackle clerical child sex abuse.

The Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors said its report will be a “first step towards a process of data gathering and reporting”, and will document “where risks remain, and where advances can be found”.

Pope Francis set up the independent panel of experts in December 2014 amid an avalanche of revelations of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy across the world, and its cover-up.

But the commission has faced strong criticism over its organisation, funding and role, with several high-profile members quitting.

In 2022, Francis incorporated the commission into the Roman Curia — the government of the Holy See — and asked for an annual, “reliable account on what is presently being done and what needs to change”.

The first of these will be published on Tuesday, launched at the Vatican by the commission’s president, US Cardinal Sean O’Malley, the former archbishop of Boston who has spent decades listening to abuse survivors.

In a statement ahead of the launch, the commission described the report as a “new tool”, part of a process to set out clear standards on protecting children and vulnerable adults.

It will be divided into four areas — a review of safeguarding policies in 15 to 20 local churches each year, trends across continents, policies within the Vatican and the Church’s broader role in society.

“It collects resources and practices to be shared across the Universal Church, and makes specific recommendations to promote further progress in safeguarding,” it said.

Embracing transparency

Since becoming pope in March 2013, Francis has taken numerous measures to tackle abuse, from opening up internal Church documents to punishing high-ranking clergy, while making it compulsory to report suspicions of sexual assault to Church authorities.

But clergy are still not required to report abuse to civil authorities, unless the laws of that country require it, while any revelations made in confession remain private.

“The global church must implement true zero tolerance on sexual violence by clergy,” Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of the US group Bishop Accountability, which documents abuse in the Church, told AFP earlier this year.

She called for the Church to name convicted priests and insisted that “any priest found to have abused a child or vulnerable adult or credibly accused of abusing a child or adult must be permanently removed from public ministry”.

For all his efforts so far, she said “Pope Francis has shown an absolute aversion to transparency”.

Maud de Boer Buquicchio, a Dutch lawyer and former UN special rapporteur on the sexual exploitation of children who chaired the abuse commission report, said last week it would help promote a “change of mindset in the Church that embraces accountability and transparency”.

During its compilation, “we have been able to explore many of the concerns about the lack of available data”, she added.

Members of the abuse commission are directly appointed by the pope and are experts in fields related to safeguarding, from clinical psychology to law as well as human rights.

But two members representing abuse survivors resigned in 2017, while last year, influential German Jesuit priest Hans Zollner also quit, complaining about “structural and practical issues”.

Francesco Zanardi, founder of Italian survivors group Rete L’Abuso (The Abuse Network), told AFP in 2023 that the commission was “absolutely useless”. — AFP