VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter
Marie Collins | Mar. 1, 2017
Editor’s Note: Marie Collins of Ireland was appointed in 2014 as one of two survivors of clergy sex abuse to serve on Pope Francis’ Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors. She is resigning that position today. She wrote the following statement for NCR about her decision.
The Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors has had difficulties to overcome in its three years of existence.
Obviously I intend to respect the confidentiality of my former colleagues on the Commission and the work they are doing, but some of the main stumbling blocks that I can mention have already been detailed by Commission members who gave testimony Feb. 23 to Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
These stumbling blocks include: lack of resources, inadequate structures around support staff, slowness of forward movement and cultural resistance. The most significant problem has been reluctance of some members of the Vatican Curia to implement the recommendations of the Commission despite their approval by the pope.
In her testimony, Kathleen McCormack, the Commission’s Australian member, summed up the struggles and emphasized the need to keep hope. “Like water on a rock,” she said, “we’ve just got to keep at it.”
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