The Vatican’s Child Protection Commission criticizes senior Catholic leaders in an annual report released Thursday for failing to act quickly enough to help victims of clergy sexual abuse and to implement new protection efforts around the world.
For decades, the 1.4 billion-member Church has been rocked by worldwide scandals involving abuse and cover-ups, damaging its credibility and costing hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements.
The new report criticizes Church leaders for not providing information to victims about how their reports of abuse are being handled, or whether negligent bishops have been punished.
It also says that the commission’s own requests for information about protection protocols were not always responded to and that the Church did not provide all the details.
“In many cases, victims report that the Church responded with empty agreements, performative gestures, and a persistent refusal to engage with victims in good faith,” the report states.
Commission
The Vatican commission, created by Pope Francis in 2014, has been rocked by the resignation of several of its members over the years and only published its first annual report last year.
The new report, at 103 pages, is the commission’s most substantial text to date and frequently criticizes church leadership without naming individuals.
Its main subject is the issue of reparations for victims of abuse, but it also evaluates the Church’s protection efforts in 22 countries and in senior Vatican departments.
The department researched is the Dicastery for Evangelization, a broad operation that is responsible for overseeing Church operations in most developing nations.
The report states that the dicastery has just one employee tasked with dealing with protection issues. It also says that a lack of clarity in the distribution of work in abuse cases with other Vatican departments “can create confusion and delays in initiating investigations and handling complaints.”
Among the countries assessed in the new report is Italy, a long-time Catholic stronghold that has been slow to address clergy abuse.
The report criticizes the country’s bishops for not working closely with the Vatican commission, saying that a questionnaire on protective practices sent by the group to all of Italy’s 226 Catholic dioceses was only responded to by 81 of them.
South Korea, another country evaluated, had 100% participation.
The anti-abuse commission is the first of its kind in the Catholic Church. Francis, who died in April, made combating clergy abuse a priority of his 12-year papacy, with mixed results.
Pope Leo XIV, elected in May to replace Francis, met several times with the commission’s members and named a new president for the group, a French archbishop, in July.
One of Francis’ key reforms was the creation of a global system for Catholics to report suspected abuse or cover-ups by bishops. Survivors and victim advocates have called for more action, including a global zero-tolerance policy for priests accused of abuse.
Thursday’s report criticizes the Vatican for a lack of transparency about when bishops are removed from office for issues related to abuse or cover-up.
The Vatican rarely discloses the reasons for removing a bishop, even in cases involving abuse, preferring to simply say that the pope accepted the bishop’s resignation.
“The lack of accountability by Church leaders was an issue frequently raised by victims,” the report says.
“The commission emphasizes the importance of publicly communicating the reasons for resignation and/or removal when the decision relates to cases of abuse or neglect.”
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