Religion

cbayer

(146,218 posts) Sun May 4, 2014, 09:49 AM May 2014

Clear Rules Eyed on Church Sex Abuse

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/04/world/europe/clear-rules-eyed-on-church-sex-abuse.html?_r=0

By ELISABETTA POVOLEDO
MAY 3, 2014

Marie Collins, center, and Cardinal Sean O’Malley, members of a Vatican commission addressing sex abuse in the church. Credit Alessandro Bianchi/Reuters

VATICAN CITY — The Vatican commission advising Pope Francis on sexual abuse policy will develop “clear and effective protocols” to protect children from pedophile priests, including procedures to hold church authorities accountable if they neglect to act on cases of abuse, Vatican officials said Saturday.

The commission will advise the pope on adopting policies developed from the existing “best practices” for the protection of minors, which can be used worldwide. Recommendations to the pope will also include ways of better educating the clergy about the issue of child abuse and its devastating consequences.

“The protocols will address everyone,” regardless of their status in the church, “and will provide clear ways of dealing with those who perpetrate the abuse, and those who were negligent in protecting children,” Cardinal Sean O’Malley, the archbishop of Boston and one of the eight members of the commission, told reporters at a news briefing on Saturday.

Existing canon laws had not adequately or sufficiently addressed this issue, he acknowledged. “Our concern is to make sure that there are clear and effective protocols to deal with situations where people of the church did not fulfill their obligation to protect children,” he said.

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Clear Rules Eyed on Church Sex Abuse (Original Post) cbayer May 2014 OP

Jt's an impressive group. rug May 2014 #1

Yes, it looks to be a very serious group and not just cbayer May 2014 #2

rug

(82,333 posts)

1. Jt's an impressive group.

Reply to cbayer (Original post)

Sun May 4, 2014, 09:57 AM

May 2014

Pope Francis announced the creation of the commission last December. Its members include lay people, among them psychiatrists, a canon lawyer for the Vatican congregation that handles sex abuse cases, a moral theologian and a woman who was a victim of sex abuse by a priest as a child, who has become an advocate for accountability in the church. Four of the eight members are women.

Here's more information on the Commission's members:

The eight inaugural members include Marie Collins, who was assaulted as a 13-year-old by a hospital chaplain in her native Ireland and has gone on to become a prominent campaigner for accountability in the church.

Also named was Cardinal Sean O'Malley, one of Francis' key advisers and the archbishop of Boston, where the U.S. scandal erupted in 2002.

Two other members are professors at Rome's Jesuit Pontifical Gregorian University, which in 2012 hosted a seminar for bishops from around the world to educate them on best practices to protect children. Several participants from that conference are now founding members of Francis' commission, including Baroness Sheila Hollins, a British psychiatrist.

-snip -

Other members include:

—Catherine Bonnet, a French consultant in child and adolescent psychiatry.

—Claudio Papale, an Italian canon lawyer and official of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which handles sex abuse cases.

—Poland's recently departed longtime ambassador to the Vatican, Hanna Suchocka, a constitutional lawyer.

—The Rev. Humberto Miguel Yanez, an Argentine Jesuit who studied with Francis as a seminarian and currently is head of moral theology at the Gregorian.

—The Rev. Hans Zollner, the vice-rector of the Gregorian, a Jesuit psychologist and psychotherapist who organized the Gregorian seminar and also serves on the German government's roundtable on child abuse.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/22/names-of-vatican-sex-abuse-commission-_n_5012597.html

cbayer

(146,218 posts)

2. Yes, it looks to be a very serious group and not just

Reply to rug (Reply #1)

Sun May 4, 2014, 10:15 AM

May 2014

something slapped together as whitewash.

Would love to be an observer in some of their discussions.

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