DENVER (CO)
Crux
October 5, 2017
By John L. Allen Jr. and Ines San Martin
Baroness Joanna Shields, an American-born expert on internet safety and child protection who’s now a member of the British House of Lords and a former UK Government Minister, says that when she looks at the Catholic Church and child welfare she doesn’t just see a mixed past but a potentially game-changing future: “When the pope speaks, people listen,” she said.
Rome – For Catholics who’ve lived through the carnage of the Church’s clerical sexual abuse scandals, put the words “Vatican” and “child safety” into a sentence, and inevitably, understandably, the mental associations are with where Catholicism has failed.
Someone like Baroness Joanna Shields, however, brings a fresh set of eyes. One of the world’s leading experts on child protection, she’s hardly unaware of the Church’s mixed record. However, when she looks at Catholicism today, what she sees isn’t so much the problem but a potentially key ingredient of the solution.
“When the pope speaks, people listen, especially young people,” Shields said. “I think a lot of young people are really into how he connects with them. His Ted Talk, for instance, I thought was extraordinary. He talked about technology, and how it would be great if technology empowered everyone equally.”
“Well, just adding to what he said and his wisdom, I think it’s equally important that technology protects everyone equally,” Shields said on Wednesday.
Shields, born in Pennsylvania but today a member of the British House of Lords and a former UK Minister for Internet Safety and Security, is the founder of the WePROTECT global alliance, led by the UK government and supported by over 70 countries, 30 technology companies, and NGOs to combat the global crime of online child sexual abuse and exploitation.
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