Vatican body urges compensation for abused minors, action against priests

Vatican commission’s report is first-ever assessment of church’s efforts to address crisis of sexual abuse by clergy.

The Catholic Church must allow victims of sexual abuse by its clergy the right to compensation and make it easier to remove priests, the Vatican’s child protection commission says in its first annual report.

The 50-page report, published on Tuesday, is the first-ever dunia assessment of the church’s efforts to address the crisis of sexual abuse within its ranks.

For decades, the church has been shaken by scandals across the world involving paedophile priests and the cover-up of their crimes, damaging its credibility and costing it hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements.

The Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, set up by Pope Francis a decade ago, said the church was coming out of a “dark period” in which “church leaders tragically failed those we are called to shepherd”.

US Cardinal Sean O’Malley, a former archbishop of Boston who spent decades listening to abuse survivors, said at a news conference a new period has begun “where accountability, care and concern for victims is beginning to bring light to the darkness”.

The commission stressed “the importance of compensation for victims/survivors, as a concrete commitment to their healing journey” and pledged to work “so that standardised and known procedures are developed in a more comprehensive way”.

There must be a clear policy on compensation that is not only financial, it said, but which also acknowledges “mistakes, [gives] public apologies”.

The commission said it would delve deeper into the issue of reparations in its report next year.

Tuesday’s report also called for victims to be given greater access to documents concerning them, a clearer division of roles between Vatican departments dealing with abuse and more effective punishment of offenders.

Francis was most recently grilled on the issue during his September visit to Belgium, where both the king and prime minister called for more concrete action.

Francis has taken a number of measures to tackle abuse since he became the leader of the church in 2013, such as punishing high-ranking clergy, while making it compulsory to report suspicions of sexual assault to church authorities.

But clergy are still not required to report abuse to civil authorities unless the laws of that country require it while any revelations made during confessions remain private.

On Saturday, a Vatican summit of world bishops ended with the officials apologising in a written statement for the “untold and ongoing” pain suffered by abuse victims.

They stated the need for “a disciplinary or administrative proceeding that provides an efficient path for resignation or removal from office”.

But Tuesday’s report provided no details on how this should be done and did not specify whether action would be taken against priests convicted of abuse or just suspected.

The Vatican commission has faced sharp criticism from abuse survivors who said it has not implemented effective reforms to protect children.

The report cautioned that progress around the world varied dramatically. In some regions, clerical abuse was not yet a “publicised issue within their societies”, it said, while calling safeguards “inadequate” in parts of Central and South America, Africa and Asia.