VATICAN CITY
Deutsche Welle
Peter Saunders, an abuse survivor, has been dumped from Pope Francis’ sex abuse advisory committee. The victims’ advocate had been highly critical of the Vatican’s sluggish progress in protecting children.
A high-profile British sexual abuse survivor and member of a papal sex abuse committee was voted off the panel, the Vatican said.
“It was decided that Mr. Peter Saunders would take a leave of absence from his membership to consider how he might best support the commission’s work,” the Vatican said following a commission meeting on Saturday.
In an interview with the Associated Press, Saunders said the commission members voted, with one abstention, against his further participation in the group. He said the members concluded that they could no longer trust him to work within the scope of the commission’s mandate.
“I do not want to prevent the work of the commission, the good work that the commission is doing, from going ahead, so I had no choice but to step aside,” Saunders said.
The outspoken critic, who had been abused by a priest as a child, said the Vatican’s lack of immediate action to protect children in the face of continuing rape and molestation cases, “made me lose faith in the process and lose faith in Pope Francis.”
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