ROME
Crux
Inés San Martín
June 10, 2016
VATICAN CORRESPONDENT
ROME- A leading Catholic expert on the fight against child sexual abuse says Pope Francis has just fired a shot across the bow to Catholic bishops across the world, the substance of which is, “They have to follow the rules.”
The pontiff recently issued a legal document laying out a process for removing bishops who are negligent in responding to abuse allegations. German Jesuit Father Hans Zollner said that while it “doesn’t clarify everything,” it nonetheless “gives a clear signal to bishops: they have to follow the rules.”
Zollner, a member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors created by Francis in 2014, is academic vice-rector of the Jesuit-run Gregorian University in Rome and head of its Institute of Psychology, home of the “Center for Child Protection,” which runs a one-of-a-kind seminar on preventing and responding to sexual abuse.
Next Tuesday, the first 19 students in the “Safeguarding of Minors” program will graduate, and the quota for next year’s course is already full.
Of the new graduates, 11 come from African countries, a continent where, according to Zollner, “sensitivity for the issue of safeguarding children’s rights is very underdeveloped,” and not only within the Church but in society at large. …
Speaking of his decades-old experience fighting clerical sexual abuse, he admitted to being “frustrated” at the fact that in some Eastern European countries, as well as parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America, there are still priests who see this as a “Western problem.”
“That’s frustrating, because this is an obvious denial of reality by people who should know better,” he said.
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