POPE APOLOGIZES TO THE INDIGENOUS PEOPLE OF CANADA
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APRIL 1, 2022. Pope Francis has made a historic apology to Indigenous peoples for the “deplorable” abuses they suffered in Canada’s Catholic-run residential schools. About 150,000 children were taken from their homes. Many were subjected to abuse, rape and malnutrition in what the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 2015 called “cultural genocide”. CNN REPORT
Evelyn Korkmaz, one of ECA’s Founding Members and a St. Anne’s residential school survivor said “I am disappointed in his apology. There was no mention of the lost souls who were recovered on the residential school grounds across Canada. There was no mention of releasing the documents, so we can identify those that never made it home. There was no mention of reparations for the harm the Church has caused and done everything they could to annihilate and destroy our indigenous people. There was no mention of releasing monies promised in the IRSSA signed in 2006.. it is very difficult.”
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THE TIME IS RIPE FOR A CLERGY ABUSE INQUIRY IN LATIN AMERICA
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MARCH 29, 2022. Adalberto Méndez López, one of the Founding/Board Members and Legal Coordinator of Ending Clergy Abuse (ECA) Global Justice Project, said “there are growing hopes that, like many in Europe, Latin American nations will soon launch independent inquiries into historical cases of clerical sexual abuse.”
“While this current wave of inquiries in Europe follows in the footsteps of those previously held in countries like Canada, Ireland, Belgium and Australia, there are regions in the world where the political will to expose the truth and deliver justice to survivors remains largely stagnant or non-existent. This is particularly the case in Latin America, home to the world’s largest Catholic population, where no government has yet announced a national inquiry into the issue. This is despite several estimates pointing to the scale of clergy abuse in Latin America being similar to that in Europe, and the region’s impressive history of conducting effective truth commissions in response to large-scale human rights abuses. READ MORE HERE
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VATICAN REFORMS BRINGS TOGETHER THE PONTIFICAL COMMISSION FOR THE PROTECTION OF MINORS WITH THE CDF
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MARCH 19, 2022. New Vatican reform brings the pope’s advisory commission on preventing sexual abuse into the Vatican’s powerful doctrine office which oversees the canonical investigations of abuse cases. Previously, the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors existed as an ad hoc commission that reported to the pope but had no real institutional weight or power. It often found itself at odds with the more powerful Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which reviews all cases of abuse.
Now the advisory commission is part of the newly named Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, where presumably its members who include abuse survivors can exert influence on the decisions taken by the prelates who weigh whether predator priests are sanctioned and how. READ MORE HERE.
However Irish Abuse Survivor, Marie Collins, says the Curia reform undermines the independence of the Commission. Marie Collins, whose advocacy led to an Irish government inquiry into the handling of abuse allegations in the Dublin Archdiocese, was one of the founding members of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors in 2014. Collins told The Irish Catholic newspaper that the Curia reorganization unveiled by Pope Francis March 19, which will see the commission become part of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, will further undermine the work of the body she was once part of. READ MORE HERE.
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INDEPENDENT COMMISSION ON CLERGY SEX ABUSE TO BE CREATED IN SPAIN
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MARCH 11, 2022. Spain’s parliament has voted to create an independent commission of experts to conduct an official investigation into pedocriminality in the Spanish Catholic Church.The move on Thursday marks a major step in the fight against Church-related abuse in Spain and effectively by-passes the country’s bishops who have long been accused of trying to hide the phenomenon.The new and unprecedented initiative, which was spearheaded by the ruling Socialists and the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), was approved by a wide majority… READ MORE HERE.
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MARCH 10, 2022. The Brave Movement is a new powerful and global survivor-centered and advocacy movement to end sexual violence against children.
As a first step, the Brave Movement has mobilized survivor advocates and allies in advance of the G7 Summit in Germany in June 2022 with a call for a G7 survivors council, domestic resource mobilization in G7 nations and a $1bn commitment to scale prevention, healing and justice in low- and middle-income countries through a transformed End Violence Fund.
In addition, the movement has launched a Global Challenge to develop survivor-centered national calls to action leading up to a Global Survivors Action Summit on 27 April 2022 to endorse a global call to action to end childhood sexual violence.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO.
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ABUSE IN ITALY’S CHURCHES TOO
NEWFOUNDLAND SURVIVORS RECEIVE SETTLEMENT
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FEB. 28, 2022. A settlement has been reached involving millions of dollars raised in a Chase the Ace fundraiser for a St. John’s-area parish nearly five years ago.
The cash got tangled up in ongoing insolvency proceedings involving the Roman Catholic church in eastern Newfoundland (Canada) and efforts to compensate victims of historic abuse at the Mount Cashel orphanage.
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