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February 28, 2019
Junno Arocho Esteves
Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY – While the four-day Vatican summit on the protection of minors has ended, the work to ensure that laws and concrete actions are in place is just beginning, said Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi.
During a press briefing Feb. 24, Father Lombardi, who served as moderator of the Feb. 21-24 summit, said Pope Francis will soon publish a new set of laws and guidelines concerning child protection for Vatican City State.
The measures, he said, will be issued “motu proprio,” on the pope’s own accord, and will be “presented and published in the near future.”
Another initiative that will be available in “a few weeks or a month or two” is a handbook or vademecum for bishops, prepared by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Father Lombardi told journalists that the handbook will list a set of guidelines and “will help bishops around the world clearly understand their duties and tasks” when handling cases of abuse. He said the pope also wants to amend the current law concerning the crime of a cleric acquiring, possessing or distributing pornographic images of minors by extending the age from 14 years old to include young people under the age of 18.
Lastly, Pope Francis has also expressed his intention to establish task forces “made up of competent persons” that will assist dioceses and episcopal conferences “that find it difficult to confront the problems and produce initiatives for the protection of minors.”
Meanwhile, a number of survivors and advocacy groups were disappointed the pope and the Vatican did not go further with more direct mandates, especially in ordering bishops to implement what laws already exist.
But Anne Barrett Doyle of BishopAccountability.org said in a press statement that the summit was only a failure in terms of needed internal reforms.
“But in a larger sense, it achieved a great deal” by increasing global awareness of clergy sex abuse and facilitating “connections between journalists and survivors from many countries,” she said.
“This was public education on a massive scale,” Doyle said.