Conference focuses on preventing abuse

Published: 12 February 2012

Addressing abuse: Cardinal William Levada was to deliver the opening address at a Rome conference on clerical sexual abuse

ROME (CNS): Representatives of most of the world's bishops' conferences and 30 religious orders have met in Rome to launch a global initiative aimed at improving efforts to stop clerical sexual abuse and better protect children and vulnerable adults.

The conference, "Toward Healing and Renewal," was to be held from February 6-9 at Rome's Pontifical Gregorian University and was supported by the Vatican Secretariat of State and several other Vatican offices.

Cardinal William Levada, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which deals with priests accused of abuse, was to give the opening address.

Other speakers included a victim of abuse; mental health professionals who have worked in the areas of prevention and treatment; and bishops from different parts of the world, who talked about responses to the abuse crisis in their countries.

The conference was designed in part to help bishops' conferences and superiors of religious orders respond to a 2011 circular letter from the doctrinal congregation requiring all dioceses in the world to develop guidelines on handling allegations of abuse.

After the conference, the Gregorian University and other institutions were to launch an e-learning centre - the Centre for the Protection of Children - which will offer online resources in five languages.

The centre will be based in Munich, Germany, and is designed to help Church leaders respond pastorally to the issue of sexual abuse in the Church and society as a whole.

The centre has been funded for an initial three-year period.

According to the conference program, participants were to have an opportunity to attend workshops in their own languages, including one designed for those who are not bishops or priests, "to reflect upon and bring forward perspectives that can often be missed by ordained leaders due to their particular role within the Church".

Other workshops focused on "the Internet and pornography", protecting vulnerable adults, best regional practices and the financial cost of the abuse crisis, which the program said already has reached "more than $2 billion in legal expenses".