VATICAN CITY
Irish Times
Paddy Agnew
Thu, May 1, 2014
The newly instituted Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors meets for the first time this morning for a three-day meeting scheduled to end on Saturday.
The child protection commission is an unprecedented body for the Holy See in that its eight person panel contains four women, five lay people and three anglophones.
Headed by the Cardinal of Boston, Sean O’Malley, the council will look to the expert contribution of four women – French psychologist Catherine Bonnet, former Polish prime minister Hanna Suchocka, British psychiatrist Baroness Sheila Hollins and Irish sex abuse survivor and activist Marie Collins.
The other members are Jesuit Fr Hans Zollner, head of pyschology at Rome’s Gregorian University, Argentine Jesuit Humberto Miguel Yanez and Italian canon law expert Claudio Papale.
In a communique yesterday, the Vatican said the commission’s initial task would be to reflect “on the nature and the aims” of the commission itself and to consider ways to involve “representatives from other areas in the world”.
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