British campaigner who was ousted from Vatican child abuse commission accuses Catholic church of treating victims with 'contempt'

By Adam Luck
Mail Sunday
April 1, 2017

https://goo.gl/w3rByh

Not enough: Peter Saunders, head of Children's protection charity NAPAC, said the Pope's response to victims of child abuse was almost 'a slap in the face'

'Zero tolerance': Pope Francis, pictured arriving at Duomo Milan catherdral last month, said he has no threshold for child abuse

A British campaigner who has been ousted from a Vatican child abuse commission has accused the Catholic Church of treating child sex abuse victims with contempt.

Peter Saunders, who was abused by two priests as a child, said he had lost faith in Pope Francis after learning that the only other abuse victim on the commission had resigned because of a lack of progress.

The father of two, who was last year forced to take ‘leave of absence’ from the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, believes that he will shortly be officially dismissed from his role after clashing with other members of the inquiry.

Pope Francis formally set up the commission in 2014 amid a rising tide of abuse allegations surrounding the Catholic clergy and mounting evidence of high-level cover-ups by bishops and cardinals.

Saunders, a devout Catholic who founded the National Association for People Abused in Childhood, was appointed to the commission by the Pope along with fellow abuse survivor Marie Collins, from Ireland, to allay concerns that the voices of the victims would be ignored.

Saunders’s attack on the Vatican is sure to embarrass Pope Francis on the eve of a visit by Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall to the Holy See, where they will have an audience with the Pontiff. 

Saunders said: ‘The Pope has not done enough for abuse victims – he’s made dreadful appointments that are almost a slap in the face for abuse victims and recently he said we should show mercy to abusers.

He said: ‘The church seems to have nothing but contempt for the abused. I have lost my faith in the Pope. In my opinion the commission needs to be dismantled. I have no faith in it being able to deliver anything.

‘In three years the Pope has not visited the commission once. Is that down to him or his officials? Who is in charge of the Vatican? I wish I knew that.

‘They all follow and obey the Pope and, if he is not cracking the whip on this issue, nothing seems to happen.

‘The Pope is surrounded by cardinals and bishops who do not want to proceed because they have covered up abuse or, more seriously, they have been involved themselves.’

Last month Marie Collins, the sole remaining abuse survivor on the commission, resigned citing what she called ‘unacceptable’ resistance to the commission from within the Vatican.

The commission, headed by American Cardinal Sean O’Malley, is meant to develop initiatives to protect children from paedophiles within the church, but has been widely seen as part of a power struggle between conservative cardinals and the liberal Pope Francis.

In February last year, Saunders was told by the commission that he had been put on a ‘leave of absence’ after a vote of no confidence by his fellow members.

He said: ‘The previous day I had put difficult questions to the commission and suggested that hearings should not be private any more. But that was laughed out of the room.

‘I did some interviews that evening and the next morning they told me they could not work with me, they did not have confidence in me and that I was too outspoken.’