Pope Francis on Friday gave a new mandate to the sexual assault advisory commission, asking its members to work with bishops around the world to create special reception centers for victims and to assess the progress of the Church.
The pope has warned that unless the Church demonstrates more transparency and accountability, the faithful will continue to lose faith in the Catholic hierarchy, after decades of revelations about priests who raped and molested children — and parents. bishops and superiors who concealed these crimes.
Francis released the new rules during a meeting with the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, the ad hoc body he created in 2013 to advise the Church.
“The testimony of the survivors represents an open wound on the body of Christ, which is the Church,” the pope told them.
Although the creation of this commission had been announced with great fanfare, its limited mandate frustrated survivors, its status as an outsider in the Vatican generated resistance, and one of its greatest initial recommendations—a special Vatican tribunal for prosecuting bishops who covered up pedophiles — went nowhere.
But Francis sought to breathe new life into the commission. In his recent reform of the bureaucracy in the Vatican, he gave it greater institutional weight by integrating it into the new Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican office which notably deals with cases of clergy sexual abuse in the world.
In his address to his members on Friday, Francis said he had decided to anchor the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors in the central government of the Church, to prevent it from being a “satellite commission”.
He assured them that he was not trying to restrict their freedom or limit their mandate, quite the contrary: he stressed that the leadership of the commission would continue to report directly to him and to enjoy complete independence.
“It is your responsibility to expand the scope of this mission so that the protection and care of those who have suffered abuse can become the norm in all areas of church life,” said the Pope.
One of the commission’s new mandates is to help bishops’ conferences establish survivor centers, where victims can find healing and justice. This could help address a longstanding complaint from survivors who often report negative experiences with the Church hierarchy when reporting a clergy abuser.
“So many survivors around the world are asking, ‘Where is my case? What’s going on (with my complaint)?’” said Juan Carlos Cruz, a member of the commission and Chilean abuse survivor. He said the “black hole” where canonical cases sit in limbo for years without any information about their status “can be incredibly traumatic” for survivors.
Pope Francis has also asked the commission to conduct an annual audit of what is being done around the world by the Catholic hierarchy and what needs to change to better protect children and vulnerable adults from abuse.