✣ Pope Francis reactivates abuse commission
What happened? Pope Francis has revived the Vatican commission on child protection, as an investigation into a Chile abuse scandal continues. The Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors has a five-year term, which came to an end in December. But the Pope has renewed its term, with some changes in membership. The 16 members – half lay, half clergy – include members from around the world, with Tonga, Brazil, Ethiopia and Australia all represented. What the secular media are saying Nicole Winfield of Associated Press argued that the commission had to prove that the Vatican was really on board with a “victims first” approach. “There have been several well-known cases,” Winfield claimed, where the Pope and the Vatican “sided with the accused over victims”. Speaking to the Irish Times, former commission member Marie Collins expressed concern that “some of the most hard-working, independent, and active members” had not been reappointed, such as the psychologists Catherine Bonnet and Baroness Hollins. They had been leading groups devoted to improving care for abuse survivors. “They were half-way through their work, and I’m worried these groups may now be scrapped,” Collins said. “There is no group in the commission for survivors.” What Catholic media said At Crux, John Allen said that the commission had already done more good than its critics realised: “Commission members have criss-crossed the planet delivering training seminars on abuse prevention, detection and response for Church leaders, including in regions which have resisted the idea that abuse is a major risk in the Church.” Moreover, said Allen, the commission’s slow work in changing the culture within the Church has borne fruit: for instance, in 2016 Cardinal Oswald Gracias set up a child protection panel in Mumbai, saying that he hoped to “bring the spirit of the commission” to his own archdiocese. One new member, Sister Hermenegild Makoro, told Spotlight Africa that the members “share in” the pain of survivors: “You are there to be with them, to assist where possible”.
