Fr. Federico Lombardi SJ, Moderator of the Meeting on the “Protection of Minors in the Church”, and other members of the organising committee (including Archbishop Charles Scicluna) addressed a press conference at the end of the meeting to announce a number of concrete initiatives that will be taken by the Church to address the problem.
Lombardi said that a rulebook will be given to Bishops around the world, explaining their juridical and pastoral duties and responsibilities with regard to protecting children. At the same time the Pope will announce regulations to safeguard minors and vulnerable adults within Vatican City State.
The Church will also set up a “task force” of experts who will help those Bishops’ Conferences that may lack the necessary resources or expertise needed to deal with abuse.
It was also announced that the Organizing Committee will be meeting with heads of Vatican Curia departments to discuss further follow-up.
At the beginning of the press conference Archbishop Scicluna speaking of his own experience of the summit said that he was impressed by the final speech of the Pope which defined both abuse and cover-ups as “egregious crimes”.
In answer to a number of questions by journalists the Archbishop said that “There is no going back” and that a change of heart that is important.
Cardinal Oswald Gracias, Archbishop of Bombay, called the summit “timely, useful, and necessary”. He and the other bishops, he said, understood that confronting the problem of abuse is “a priority for the Church”. He also praised the contribution of women at the encounter, highlighting the value of their “feminine insights and perspectives”.
Jesuit Father Hans Zollner, a member of the Organizing Committee and Head of the Centre for Child Protection at the Pontifical Gregorian University, spoke of a “qualitative and quantitative leap along a decade-long journey that will continue”. Attitudes have changed, he said, and people have been transformed: they are determined to “go back home and do something about it”.
