(ITALY)
America the Jesuit Review [New York NY]
September 18, 2025
By By Peter Beer and Hans Zollner, S.J.
Effective protection of minors and adults in the care of the global church is a mandate for all Christians. However, what an effective safeguarding strategy means in different contexts can be rather different. Instead of pursuing universally valid safeguarding strategies, church organizations need to pursue diverse, context-specific approaches in plural form. Only with this approach can we expect and rely upon effective safeguarding to keep children and vulnerable adults safe.
Why the need for diverse, context-specific approaches? On the one hand, those who want to protect human life cannot indiscriminately place cultures on an equal footing when human life is endangered in one culture for structural and systemic reasons and not in another. Female genital mutilation, the forced marriage of children, the sexual abuse of vulnerable groups and the neglect of entire population groups caused in part by a caste system are not only outrageous but intolerable.
On the other hand, the understanding of what can be considered a threat and, conversely, what can be considered safety is itself culturally influenced and therefore relative. What is classified as abuse or an illegitimate transgression, for example, depends to a not insignificant extent on how sexuality is defined and connoted in a particular culture or, more broadly, in a particular cultural circle, how closeness and distance are standardized, how gender relations are defined and what understanding of family, authority, individuality, dignity and honor is prevalent. This makes it correspondingly difficult to combat the risk of abuse with generally standardized safeguarding measures.
Dilemma and conflict
Discussions of such culturally determined difficulties can quickly and easily be misunderstood. For this reason, let us state very clearly here that identifying such difficulties is not about relativizing or trivializing abusers, their actions or their cover-up by those in positions of responsibility who are skeptical or even hostile toward safeguarding. Rather, it is a matter of intellectual honesty in recognizing a problem that cannot be avoided simply because of principles of epistemology and communication theory.
It is important to remember the following factors when establishing safeguarding norms:
First, there are unavoidable cultural influences on all those involved from which no one can escape. These shape each individual in a specific way and thus also impose specific limitations on their encounters and engagement with the world.
Second, the contextual conditions that are additional to cultural patterns and, in comparison to these, tend to be more fluid (such as economic poverty, civil wars, epidemics or political tensions) often result in different approaches to and ways of dealing with the topic of safeguarding.
Third, intercultural issues play an almost omnipresent role in establishing safeguarding measures. Especially in our time, it is no longer possible to assume that cultures are self-contained. With regard to safeguarding measures, the distinction between “us” and “them” is becoming increasingly obsolete. Against this backdrop, our first step must be to better understand ourselves as an “us” made up of a multitude of “others.”
Finally, it is often the case that the introduction of moral judgements and, even more so, the associated moral devaluation of anyone defined as “other,” does not lead to change, but only to defensiveness and denial.
The basis
Intercultural exchange can succeed only if people treat each other with respect and a fundamental openness toward other cultures. In the context of safeguarding, this means that the following principle applies: In every culture, the protection and promotion of children and young people is a matter of course, and empathy and compassion are not unknown concepts. The foundation of such a basic attitude is in turn fed by a positive view of human beings.
The principle of culturally sensitive sympathy mentioned above applies to everyone who strives for interculturality—including the church, which spans different continents and is rooted in a wide variety of cultures. In this context, some specifically ecclesiastical aspects prove to be extremely helpful. These arise both from the church’s self-image and from certain basic theological assumptions.
Particular emphasis should first be placed on the understanding of the church as a community of believers and of different local churches. No one can place themselves above others; they all have the same dignity, and no one is more or less valuable than anyone else. As different members of the one body of Christ, they form what constitutes the church. On this basis, every church community should prohibit the refusal of dialogue and communicative exchange or of mutual help and support, as well as arrogant paternalism. This basically corresponds to the term synodality as a guiding concept of theological thinking and church life in our day.
As regards the theological assumptions that are important for intercultural exchange, we would like to recall here the logos-spermatikos teaching of the church Fathers, which is reflected in the documents of the Second Vatican Council, such as the “Declaration on the Relationship of the Church to Non-Christian Religions” (“Nostra Aetate”), the “Decree on the Missionary Activity of the Church” (“Ad Gentes”) and the “Dogmatic Constitution on the Church” (“Lumen Gentium”). These documents recognize that good and true elements can be found among non-Christians (and thus, logically, also in their cultures) as a preparation for the Gospel (LG 16).
A complementary note can be found in the “Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World” (“Gaudium et Spes”), which states: “For just as the Gospel takes on a new form in the various cultures, so the Church, by the influence of her message on the minds and customs of the various peoples, enriches the spiritual heritage of these peoples and, in a sense, brings it to perfection and purifies it” (GS 58).
Intercultural issues
Intercultural exchange can only succeed if we are willing to question ourselves again and again and if our counterparts are also willing to question themselves. With regard to safeguarding, this means above all exchanging views on three key topics.
First, the fundamental elements that constitute safeguarding must include the image of human beings at different stages of life, the understanding of safety and insecurity, the significance of power and authority, the nature of gender relations and sexuality (especially in the context of safeguarding in relation to sexual abuse) and the perception and shaping of closeness and distance. Anyone who does not deal with these elements in depth and does not seek to understand their respective characteristics will end up having a purely theoretical discussion about safeguarding with his or her counterpart.
Both interlocutors may use the same terms, but mean different things. It is clear that anyone discussing the elements of safeguarding is not talking about safeguarding as an isolated topic that stands alone. That person is talking about the cultural fabric as a whole. Such a “holistic” discussion can naturally be unsettling and exhausting.
Second, our attempts to answer the question of what constitutes appropriate safeguarding often fail because of the controversial issue of whether these measures must be systemic—that is, they take into account structures, processes, individuals and social spaces. This depends to a significant extent on cultural predispositions. If religion is interpreted in a culture as an absolutely separate domain that stands untouchable alongside others, it is hardly surprising that a systemic view of safeguarding is dismissed as too function-oriented and not appropriate for religion. In this case, safeguarding can be seen as a sociological encroachment upon the church and the religious sphere.
Third, when we talk about the complex issue of safeguarding against sex abuse, we often run up against certain taboos. In some contexts, any discussion of safeguarding comes close to admitting that safeguarding is necessary because social coexistence is not working properly or, to put it bluntly, because abuse is taking place and people are suffering harm and pain within their own social system precisely because of that system. In a culture where the basic principle of bella figura, or keeping up appearances in public, plays a major role in regulating social interaction and communication, talking about safeguarding can be seen as an attack. This does not mean that safeguarding is impossible in this cultural context. However, it follows different rules of communication that must be taken into account.
Efforts to clarify the aforementioned issues in an intercultural context can succeed only if we are prepared to engage in learning processes about ourselves and our counterparts based on the questions that arise. These processes must be intercultural in nature; they cannot simply be based on a monologue in which members of other cultures do not participate. For safeguarding, this means that anyone who wants to raise awareness and empower professionals in safeguarding must bring together members of different cultures before meaningful work can begin.
Anyone who wants to acquire safeguarding skills and do so in a sustainable manner must not entrench themselves in the bubble of their own culture nor lose themselves indiscriminately in a foreign culture. Contact and exchange with those from different cultures helps to better understand oneself and others, and to develop both personally and in relation to one’s own safeguarding efforts.
Interdisciplinary implementation
Cooperation between cultures is not the only necessary precondition for enabling and empowering safeguarding efforts. We also must seek cooperation from different disciplines.
Consider, for example, the preferential option for the marginalized and the poor. If this precondition, which is so fundamental and indispensable to the church’s self-image, does not appear as the basis for safeguarding or is not considered conceptually, then this is not only a problem for the possibility of safeguarding itself, but is even more a question for evangelization in the cultural environment that applies here. Safeguarding cannot replace catechesis; at best, it can draw attention to the need for action.
Another case arises when the option for the weak is certainly available in a local church context, but those responsible and accountable at the local level refuse to engage with any aspect of safeguarding. This may come about because of cultural reasons, but it may also be caused by complacency, insensitivity or similar personal shortcomings. In this context, safeguarding cannot replace qualified personnel management but it can provide important suggestions for appropriate interventions.
At this point, important questions arise, particularly in a hierarchical system such as the church: How, by whom and to what extent is policymaking authority exercised? In an intercultural environment in particular, this is less pertinent to the specification of concrete safeguarding measures than it is to the need to make an unambiguous commitment to constructively addressing safeguarding issues in the respective context—and a willingness to refine and further develop them in intercultural dialogue.
If safeguarding is considered essential for one’s own organization (in our case, the church), a culturally sensitive policy for safeguarding is needed that safeguarding itself cannot provide. This must be provided by those in leadership positions at the highest levels without leveling cultural differences. This entails addressing issues of motivation, coordination, identification and communication with regard to safeguarding.
Urgency
Dealing with safeguarding in the context of interculturality is a challenging task. Overly hasty and simplistic answers are out of the question. Nevertheless, one thing must not be forgotten: Victims of abuse and people who are at risk of abuse due to their vulnerability cannot wait until problems in the area of interculturality have been solved.
In this sense, scientific precision and professional appropriateness, on the one hand and real-life hardship, on the other, are in a certain contradiction. Here, the Christian commandment to help those in need all by itself gives the primacy to action. Anyone who has experienced injury and pain within the church’s sphere of responsibility has the right to be helped.
Those involved in safeguarding initiatives also have a number of important invitations to accept: the possibility of becoming aware of one’s own cultural entanglements, of being inspired by the cultural entanglements of others and of achieving progress in understanding for oneself and with others. Hopefully these will contribute to a more attentive attitude toward oneself, toward others and toward the world we share. This is where safeguarding begins.
Peter Beer is head of research and development at the Institute of Anthropology, Interdisciplinary Studies on Human Dignity and Care at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. From 2010 to 2019, he was vicar general of the Archdiocese of Munich-Freising in Germany
Hans Zollner, S.J., is the director of the Institute of Anthropology, Interdisciplinary Studies on Human Dignity and Care, a member of the Safeguarding Committee of the Diocese of Rome and a consultor for the Dicastery for Clergy.