ROME
The Times (UK)

Ellen Coyne
March 28 2017
The Times

The Catholic church’s commission on child safety has called on the Vatican to react “directly and compassionately” to letters from victims of clerical sex abuse after concerns were raised by Marie Collins.

Ms Collins, who was abused by a Dublin hospital chaplain when she was 13, was one of two victims on the 16-person Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors. She resigned because a separate Vatican body was not responding to letters from victims and had refused to co-operate with the establishment of a tribunal into alleged abuse, which was announced by the Pope and promised significant resources in 2015. The tribunal has since been scrapped.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, a Vatican body that oversees the theology of the church, had claimed that letters from victims were being deferred to local…