IRELAND
National Catholic Reporter
Michael Kelly Catholic News Service | May. 1, 2014
DUBLIN The independent watchdog that monitors child safeguarding procedures in the Irish church pledged to follow the example of Pope Francis and “disturb the peace.”
Speaking Thursday at the launch of the latest report of the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church, Chairman John Morgan pledged to be a “critical conscience” in the church in Ireland.
Teresa Devlin, CEO of the safeguarding board, said “the church has a new energized leader in Pope Francis, who said that we should ‘disturb the peace of any settled ways in the church … .’ I believe, in terms of child safeguarding, that message can be a central theme in the work of the church in Ireland.”
She said the board took inspiration from Pope Francis in setting out a vision for coming years. “He said to the young people of Rio de Janeiro: ‘Kick up a fuss, I want you to make noise in your church — go out and make noise in the street, I want the church to go out into the street.’ ”
The latest report indicates that while there has been significant progress in ensuring robust child protection standards are followed, there is no room for complacency in the church. The body said it was impressed by the church’s “openness to scrutiny” and determination to learn from the past.
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