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“Nothing we do will be enough to fully repair what happened,” O’Malley said at a news conference.

By NICOLE WINFIELD, Associated Press

October 30, 2024 | 8:52 a.m.

Pope Francis’ child protection board called Tuesday for victims of clergy sexual abuse to have greater access to information about their cases and the right to compensation, in the first global assessment of the Catholic Church’s efforts. to address the crisis.

The Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors issued a series of conclusions and recommendations in its annual pilot report, focusing on the church in a dozen countries, two religious orders and two Vatican offices with detailed analysis.

On his most critical note, he called for greater transparency from the Vatican’s sexual abuse office, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. He said the slow processing of cases and the office’s secrecy were re-traumatizing women. victims, and his refusal to publish statistics or his own jurisprudence continues to “foster distrust among the faithful, especially the community of victims and survivors.”

Cardinal Sean O’Malley, head of the commission, acknowledged the church’s failure with victims in the past and said the commission would work to continue addressing “the unjust suffering that you have endured.”

“Nothing we do will be enough to fully repair what happened,” O’Malley said at a news conference. “But we hope that this report and those to come, compiled with the help of the center’s victims and survivors, will help ensure a firm commitment that these events never happen again in the church.”

The 50-page report marks a milestone for the commission, which in its 10 years of existence has struggled to find its place in a Vatican that is often reluctant to confront the abuse crisis and hostile to supporting victim-centered policies.

Juan Carlos Cruz, a sexual abuse survivor who sits on the commission, said the report represented an important step forward and gave him hope for further progress.

“We are using words that we didn’t use before. Truth, justice, reparation and guarantee of non-repetition. “Those are very, very harsh words that were previously taboo in many places,” he said at the press conference.

Francis created the commission in 2014, a year after his election, to advise the Vatican on best practices to prevent clergy sexual abuse. He appointed Cardinal O’Malley, then archbishop of Boston, as head of the commission.

After several founding members resigned in frustration over Vatican obstructions and the commission’s own internal problems, the commission has stabilized in recent years, focusing on realistic areas where it can be of use. A key priority has been to provide funding and expertise to churches in poorer countries, where there are fewer resources to develop and implement child protection guidelines and care for victims.

In its report, the commission noted, for example, that the Catholic Church in Mexico is hampered by “significant cultural barriers to reporting abuses that impede the justice process.” In Papua New Guinea, limited funding means insufficient training for church staff and victim services. Even rape kits needed for criminal investigations are prohibitively expensive, according to the report.

His main conclusions, however, were global in nature: Victims, he said, should have the right to information about their cases held by the church, as secrecy and long processing times often serve to re-victimize them. He proposed a special defender or Vatican ombudsman to address the needs of victims.

As a function of restorative justice, called “conversion justice,” victims should be entitled to compensation for their abuse, including financial reparations but also public apologies to help them heal, she said.

And he called for a more uniform definition and understanding of church policies to protect “vulnerable adults” from abuse, moving beyond the tendency to consider child abuse criminal. The call aims to address demands that the church do more to protect religious sisters, seminarians and even ordinary adult worshipers from religious gurus who abuse their authority and prey on adults under their spiritual dominion.

In 2022, Francis asked the commission to produce the report, saying he wanted an audit of progress of what is being done well and what needs to change.

The commission noted that at least in this first effort, the report was not an audit of the incidence of abuse in the church. He said that to become a real audit mechanism, “the commission would need access to more specific statistical information” from the Vatican’s sexual abuse office, which receives all credible reports of child abuse in the church but apparently has not provided the data. to the commission.

One of the commission members, legal expert Maud de Boer-Buquicchio, acknowledged that the report “is far from perfect.”

“But it has a solid methodology that will grow over time to become increasingly complete and robust,” he said, adding that the data could be “significantly improved” by cross-referencing with external sources.

The commission called for greater collaboration and dialogue with the office, and said it was “pleased to note that the dicastery is exploring what measures can be taken” to help bishops and religious superiors care for victims.

He also called for the office to make its work more public, including through lectures and academic conferences, and also offer more material to bishops to help them administer justice.

Earlier this year, Francis allowed O’Malley to retire, five years beyond the normal retirement age for bishops, and recently hinted that leadership of the commission would pass to his current No. 2 official, Bishop Luis Manuel. Ali Herrera.