VATICAN CITY
Telegraph (UK)
Pope Francis appoints British survivor of priestly sex abuse to church commission
By Nick Squires, Rome 17 Dec 2014
A British victim of sex abuse by Catholic priests was appointed by Pope Francis on Wednesday to a special commission set up to advise the church on child protection policies.
Peter Saunders, who as a child was abused by Jesuit priests at a school in Wimbledon, London, warned that the Vatican would face “big trouble” if it failed to “get its act together” by taking concrete measures to bring to justice priests accused of molesting and raping children.
He was among nine people appointed on Wednesday to the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, which was established by the Pope last year to address the scourge of sex abuse within the Catholic Church.
Mr Saunders said the Church had been “intimately involved in cover-ups and denials in the past” but now believes that Pope Francis is genuine in wanting to crack down on abusive priests.
Victims’ groups, in particular the US-based Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), have criticised the formation of the commission, which now totals 17 members, as a meaningless gesture, likening it to “offering a Band Aid to a cancer patient.”
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