ROME (Italy)
Crux
October 6, 2018
By John L. Allen Jr.
Charles Dickens famously described the French Revolution as the “best of times, the worst of times.” Catholicism too seems to be experiencing a revolutionary moment fueled by the clerical sexual abuse scandals, and the opening week of this month’s Synod of Bishops in Rome has, in that sense, seemed a highly Dickensian experience.
On Friday, the Centre for Child Protection (CCP) at Rome’s Jesuit-run Gregorian University formally launched a new master’s program in child protection, a significant expansion of its efforts to raise up a new global cohort of experts.
“Our aim is to build a network of skilled and committed personnel, safeguarders for the Church,” said German Jesuit Father Hans Zollner, direct of the CCP and a member of the Vatican’s Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors.
The CCP was founded in 2012, originally in Munich as a response to the abuse scandals that exploded in Germany in 2010 and 2011. It later relocated to Rome and has become the primary beachhead in the Eternal City for abuse survivors, advocates and experts committed to the cause of reform.
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