The Catholic Church must provide greater transparency and streamline civil and canonical processes for cases of abuse, the commission created by Pope Francis for the Protection of Minors urged this Tuesday in its first annual report.
The document, which has analyzed a total of twenty countries and several religious institutions and congregations, concludes with the need to “promote better access for victims” to the information they need to “face the problem of opacity.”
Likewise, the text advocates “streamlining and accelerating the resignation processes” of ecclesiastical officials.
The Vatican released this Tuesday the first Annual Report “on guardianship policies and procedures in the Church” carried out by the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors created in 2014 by Pope Francis in his fight against the scourge of minors. abuses, which have affected the Church throughout the world.
This is a pilot document in which the Commission analyzes the cases of the countries whose bishoprics have gone to Rome in 2023 on an ‘ad limina’ visit, the trip they must make to the Holy See every five years, including those of Colombia and Mexico.
Among the most notable observations, the report recognizes “the right of each citizen to access any information that affects them”, also in cases of abuse, and also points out the “need” to study “compensation” policies for victims. .
Likewise, it is recommended to “consolidate and clarify” the powers of each dicastery (ministry) of the Roman Curia to “guarantee efficient, rapid and rigorous management” of each possible case of abuse that reaches the rooms of the Holy See.
The document admits that for “victims and survivors” the “civil and canonical processes can be difficult, slow, and even a source of continued victimization,” which is why it recommends expediting it because, it emphasizes, “justice cannot come at the cost of greater trauma.” “.
The report reviews the legislation put in place by the last three popes, from the first changes in the Code of Canon Law of John Paul II in 1983 to the latest measures by Francis, such as the obligation to report protected in his motu proprio from 2023 You are lux mundi.
With this context, in addition to analyzing the lights and shadows of the management of abuse in the local churches of the planet, it also delves into important institutions of the Vatican.
For example, he points out several “challenges” for the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, which channels canonical judgments on this type of crimes, such as “the need to avoid long processes.”
It also recognizes “the complexity of case management due to their volume” and underlines “the importance of adequate resources at the central and local levels” to carry them out more effectively.
Furthermore, it demands greater transparency: “The Commission knows that the dicastery communicates cases mainly internally with the local ecclesiastical authorities (…) It would be useful to jointly study how to give more transparency” to possible future disciplinary measures.
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