MASSACHUSETTS
WCVB
VATICAN CITY —Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley has been appointed by Pope Francis to a commission created to advise the Catholic Church on how to protect children from sexual abuse.
Francis named the initial members of a commission to advise him on sex abuse policy Saturday, tapping lay and religious experts – and an Irish woman assaulted as a child by a priest – to start plotting the commission’s tasks and priorities.
The Boston Globe reports that O’Malley is the only American on the commission, but he will not have to move to Rome and will continue to serve as the Archbishop of Boston.
The eight members, four of them women, were announced after Francis came under fire from victims’ groups for a perceived lack of attention to the abuse scandal, which has seriously damaged the Catholic Church’s reputation around the world and cost dioceses and religious orders billions of dollars in legal fees and settlements.
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