Clerical abuse survivor and campaigner Marie Collins said
she resigned from the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors
because a group of people in the Vatican who had been obstructing its work,
including not following recommendations from the Pope.
Ms Collins had been a member of the 15-person Commission for
the past three years and its only Irish representative, but in a strongly
worded statement yesterday she said she had tendered her resignation to Pope
Francis last month and that her work with the Commission ended officially
today.
"Since the beginning of the Commission in March 2014 I
have been impressed with the dedication of my colleagues and the genuine wish
by Pope Francis for assistance in dealing with the issue of clerical sexual
abuse," she said. "I believe the setting up of the Commission, the
bringing in of outside expertise to advise him on what was necessary to make
minors safer, was a sincere move.
"However, despite the Holy Father approving all the
recommendations made to him by the Commission, there have been constant
setbacks. This has been directly due to the resistance by some members of the
Vatican Curia to the work of the Commission.
The lack of co-operation, particularly by the dicastery most
closely involved in dealing with cases of abuse, has been shameful."
She referred to what she called "a simple
recommendation, approved by Pope Francis" that then went to the dicastery
(a department of the Roman Curia) regarding "a small change of procedure
in the context of care for victims/survivors".
She later explained that this was actually to do with
facilitating and responding to communication from abuse survivors. However, she
said in January she learned the change was refused, alongside a request for
co-operation on "a fundamental issue of Commission work in regard to
safeguarding".
"While I hope the Commission will succeed in overcoming
this resistance, for me it is the last straw," she said.
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