Vatican report demands clear rules for abuse compensation

The Catholic Church needs to unify policies on compensating victims of sexual abuse by clergy, the Vatican's child protection commission has said in its first annual report.

For decades, the church has been shaken by scandals across the world involving revelations of sexual abuse by catholic clergy and its cover up.

The Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors 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".

It said compensation was not only financial, "but embraces a much broader spectrum of actions ... such as acknowledging mistakes, public apologies and other forms of true fraternal closeness to victims/survivors and their communities".

It added it would delve deeper into the issue of reparations in its report next year.

Pope Francis's commission to protect minors said a better way was also needed to rid the church of priests who have been sanctioned more than once for sexual abuse.

The reality of priests who commit recurring abuse shows the need for a "disciplinary or administrative" process for an "efficient path for resignation or removal from office", its inaugural report said.

Pope Francis faced some of the strongest criticism yet levied against him over clergy abuse during a September visit to Belgium, where both King Philippe and Prime Minister Alexander De Croo called for more concrete actions for victims.

A Vatican summit of world bishops ended on Saturday with a final text apologising several times for the "untold and ongoing" pain suffered by catholics who were abused by clergy.

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

It noted that past "actions and/or inactions" by church leaders "have been the source of additional harm to victims/survivors of sexual abuse", revealing the need for "a disciplinary or administrative proceeding that provides an efficient path for resignation or removal from office".

The Vatican anti-abuse commission was established by Pope Francis in 2014 and was the first of its kind.

It has faced sharp criticism from abuse survivors, who say it has not implemented effective reforms to protect children.

"The global church must implement true zero tolerance on sexual violence by clergy," Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of the US group Bishop Accountability, which documents abuse in the Church, told AFP earlier this year.

She called for the Catholic Church to name convicted priests and insisted that "any priest found to have abused a child or vulnerable adult or credibly accused of abusing a child or adult must be permanently removed from public ministry".

For all his efforts so far, she said: "Pope Francis has shown an absolute aversion to transparency."

Maud de Boer Buquicchio, a Dutch lawyer and former UN special rapporteur on the sexual exploitation of children who chaired the abuse commission report, said last week it would help promote a "change of mindset in the church that embraces accountability and transparency".

During its compilation, "we have been able to explore many of the concerns about the lack of available data", she added.

Members of the abuse commission are directly appointed by Pope Francis and are experts in fields related to safeguarding, from clinical psychology to law as well as human rights.

But two members representing abuse survivors resigned in 2017, while last year, influential German Jesuit priest Hans Zollner also quit, complaining about "structural and practical issues".

Francesco Zanardi, founder of Italian survivors group Rete L'Abuso (The Abuse Network), told AFP in 2023 that the commission was "absolutely useless".