Perpetrators of abuse are clever; vigilance is critical, speakers say

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The Catholic Church needs decisive leadership in creating a safe, caring and welcoming environment for everyone, and it needs constant vigilance against complacency, said several speakers at a Vatican-sponsored safeguarding conference.

Strength and vigilance are needed, some warned, because those who abuse minors and vulnerable people are clever and skillful, and will exploit every lapse and weakness they find in procedures.

Nearly 150 safeguarding experts working in more than 20 countries in Europe took part in person and online in the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors’ first conference on safeguarding in the church in Europe Nov. 13-15.

Cardinal Seán P. O’Malley, commission president and retired archbishop of Boston, told participants in a video message that the church must: listen to survivors and children; respond with care and compassion to those who have been harmed; follow due process with investigating accusations; and “show strong leadership in taking the necessary actions to, as best possible, prevent any occurrence of abuse in the future.”

The cardinal encouraged experts and survivors present at the conference to learn from each other and to know that their proposals will also influence the work of the commission, which acts as an advisory body to the pope and a resource for local churches.

Teresa Kettelkamp, adjunct secretary of the commission, said, “We come from a church where we automatically trust people. But we have learned in the U.S. a long time ago trust, but verify,” that is, trust that guidelines will be implemented, but verify they are effective and that people are held accountable.

Sometimes, she said, local churches lack the resources to do what is required or personnel lack the training to know what to do, “and that’s where we can help plug the gap.”

The biggest challenge, especially for those countries that have been working on implementing and updating protection guidelines for decades, is complacency, said two speakers from Ireland.

“Until every last victim has an opportunity to tell their story, this will not be over,” said Teresa Devlin, an expert in child protection and former CEO of the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church in Ireland.

No matter how much “we sweated over” each new policy, procedure and set of guidelines, “we thought, ‘Wow, we have this sorted'” out and solved, and then another crisis would emerge of discovering past abuses and inadequate responses that followed, she said.

“We cannot be defensive,” she said. The church must open up to and listen to survivors, children, caregivers, families, communities, priests, religious and the accused to “understand their reality” and learn where the “deficits” are in existing policies to make successive ones stronger and more meaningful.

The many government-mandated public inquiries in Ireland drew out more information and more learning, which led to important changes, she said. “Some people would kind of sigh and be sad and think, ‘Not another inquiry.’ For me it was an opportunity for any victim who had not yet come forward to raise their voice to do so.”

“And one of the most important lessons that I have learned is the more media, the more publicity that you can give, the more opportunity for those who are suffering in silence to come forward,” she said.

Everyone in the church should be involved in the process of building policies because they can never be successfully imposed from the top, Devlin said.

“We’re trying to create in our leaders a strength that knows that their primary focus is to safeguard children, to care for those who have been harmed, to assess risk to children and then to ensure that the church is cared for. Not that the church is protected first, because that’s not what we want, that’s what we used to do,” she said.

“Show your leadership,” she said, appealing to all bishops and leaders of religious congregations to embrace safeguarding, not so they look good in the eyes of others, “but because it is the right thing to do.”

A member of the Russian bishops’ conference’s commission on safeguarding asked how to counter complacency in countries where the church is more isolated from the general population and not so active in schools, health care or society.

Aidan Gordon, Devlin’s successor as CEO of Ireland’s national safeguarding board, said, “The sin of child abuse is everywhere.”

“We know the way abusers work; they will look at our policies, our procedures, our structures, and they will look for the weakness in where our structure is and they will exploit that structure to carry out whatever crimes it is that they are intent on carrying out,” he said.

It is very “risky” to downplay the level of the church’s involvement, he said, because by minimizing the possibility, “there is a real risk there that you will not see what was happening in the areas where you were in ministry.”

Devlin said that countries without a lot of “historical baggage” can focus on making sure everything they do today is safe, and that people are trained, have clear codes of conduct, know what the boundaries are and that there is a mechanism for monitoring compliance.

“But don’t be fooled. There will be people in your church who have an interest, sexual interest in children, and you need to be always alert to that. It is in society and it will be in your church as well,” she said.

Ivanka Rudakevych is project manager of the Child Dignity Center at the Ukrainian Catholic University in Ukraine. As a study and research center, they train people inside and outside the church, including NGOs and medical personnel, and help them develop and implement safeguarding policies.

She told Catholic News Service Nov. 13 that their work with prevention continues even though the full-scale invasion of their country by Russia created new and different problems. They expanded by offering webinars in safeguarding training to support the church in neighboring countries that have taken in refugees from Ukraine.

They also run an international art project to raise greater awareness about child abuse in Eastern European countries that have endured decades of communism and imperialism, which has left an impact in fostering a culture of silence and not say anything about those who are in leadership.

The aims of the European gathering in Rome included: sharing experiences in building safe environments and responding to the needs of victims; creating a wider network for sharing resources and concerns; and spending the next six months creating a “tool kit” for abuse prevention.

Colombian Bishop Luis Manuel Alí Herrera, commission secretary, said that for abuse to thrive, a network had to be built that allowed that crime to continue.

The European meeting was an opportunity to “weave robust and shared networks” to combat abuse and ensure that it never happens again, he said.

In a message to participants Nov. 13, Pope Francis wrote, “It is my hope that your efforts to establish a network of people and good practices will provide a much-needed forum for sharing knowledge, supporting one another, and for ensuring that programs of protection are both effective and sustainable.”

“I encourage the initiatives made to provide comfort and assistance to those who have suffered, as a sign of the Church’s concern for justice, healing and reconciliation,” he wrote, praying that “your deliberations will contribute to a safer and more compassionate Church.”

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