Protection of Minors: Press
briefing announces concrete initiatives
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| Press Conference on the Meeting on"The Protection of Minors in the Church" |
The “Protection of Minors in the Church” Meeting concludes
with a Press Briefing in the Vatican and the announcement of concrete
commitments and initiatives to protect children, and to combat abuse.
By Vatican News
There have been four Press Conferences, coinciding with the
four days of the Meeting. Each one has provided a synthesis of the day’s
discussions and reflections, and allowed journalists an opportunity to engage
with participants and speakers in what was often a lively Q&A session.
One implicit (and explicit) question underscored the
concluding press briefing on Sunday: “What now”? Expectations were high,
especially given Pope Francis’ mandate to participants, at the start of the
Meeting, to come up with “concrete” initiatives to help the Church in
protecting minors.
Concrete initiatives
It fell to Fr. Federico Lombardi SJ, as Moderator of the
Meeting on the “Protection of Minors in the Church”, to announce three such
initiatives:
1. The imminent publication of a Motu proprio by the Pope,
providing rules and regulations to safeguard minors and vulnerable adults
within Vatican City State.
2. The distribution of a “vademecum” (or rulebook) to
Bishops around the world, explaining their juridical and pastoral duties and
responsibilities with regard to protecting children.
3. The creation of an operative “task force”, comprising
competent experts, to assist those Bishops’ Conferences that may lack the
necessary resources or expertise to confront the issue of safeguarding minors,
and deal with abuse.
There was a fourth response to the “what now” question: the
fact that the Organizing Committee will be meeting with heads of Vatican Curia
departments to discuss follow-up and reflect on a related question: “What
next?”
Media relationships
The “Protection of Minors” Meeting in the Vatican has
received extensive coverage throughout the media over the last few days. The
Prefect of the Vatican Dicastery for Communication, Paolo Ruffini, acknowledged
as much when he thanked journalists for their work. He stressed the role of
journalists as that of “searching for and reporting the truth”. He spoke of the
importance of “listening without prejudice”, and confirmed how
“there can be no communication if everyone is talking and no one is
listening”. Ruffini, and others on the panel at the Press Conference, praised
Mexican journalist, Valentina Alazraki, for her “courageous” contribution to
the Meeting on Saturday, when she addressed the Bishops on the theme of
transparency: “Communication
to all people”.
Addressing the Press Conference, Valentina Alazraki
encouraged “working together with the Church” on this issue, but reminded the
Bishops never to say “no comment”, and to be sure to provide media with “timely
and fair information”.
Last impressions
Asked for his take-away on the “Protection of Minors”
Meeting, Cardinal Oswald Gracias, Archbishop of Bombay, called it “timely,
useful, and necessary”. He and his brother Bishops, he said, came away with a
universal understanding and consciousness that confronting the problem of abuse
is “a priority for the Church”. He also praised the contribution of women at
the encounter, highlighting the value of their “feminine insights and
perspectives”.
Archbishop Charles Scicluna of Malta provided his own
“flashbacks of these four days”. He said he was struck by the Holy
Father’s concluding
speech and his clarity, defining both abuse and cover-ups as
“egregious crimes”. “There is no going back”, said the Archbishop. He also said
that the presence of victims-survivors was a vital part of the experience. “We
cannot not listen to victim-survivors”, he added. Archbishop Scicluna stressed
how “at the end of the day, it is a change of heart that is important”. We need
the right motivation and, for that, we need to listen to different voices –
including those of women, who (in the case of this Meeting) provided a “breath
of fresh air”.
Jesuit Father Hans Zollner, is a member of the Organizing
Committee and Head of the Centre for Child Protection at the Pontifical
Gregorian University. He spoke of a “qualitative and quantitative leap along a
decade-long journey that will continue”. Attitudes have changed, he said, and
people have been transformed: they are determined to “go back home and do
something about it”.
Right now, concluded Fr. Zollner, “we need to focus on what
we have done here” at this Meeting in the Vatican, and to tackle “the systemic
roots of the problem”. These, the themes of the three days of the Meeting,
reflect both the problem and the solution: Responsibility, Accountability, and
Transparency.
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