From left, Monsignor Luis Herrera, Cardinal Sean Patrick O’ Malley, jurist Maud de Boer-Buquicchio and clergy sexual abuse survivor and victim advocate Juan Carlos Cruz pose for a photo at the end of a press conference to introduce the first Global Annual of the Vatican. Report on the protection of minors at the Vatican press center, Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024. AP Photo

Pope Francis’ council for the protection of children called on Tuesday for victims of clergy sex abuse to have greater access to information about their cases and the right to compensation, in the first global review of the Catholic Church’s efforts to address the crisis.

The Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors issued a series of findings and recommendations in its annual pilot report, focusing on the church in a dozen countries, two religious orders and two Vatican offices, with detailed analyses.

In his most critical note, he called for greater transparency from the Vatican’s sexual abuse office, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. It said the bureau’s slow processing of cases and secrecy have been retraumatizing for victims, and its refusal to release statistics or its own case law continues to “foster mistrust among believers, particularly in the victim/survivor community.”

Cardinal Sean O’Malley, the head of the commission, acknowledged the church’s failure to deal with victims in the past and said the commission would work to continue to address the “unjust suffering you have endured.”

“Nothing we do will ever be enough to fully repair what happened,” O’Malley told a news conference. “But we hope that this report and those to come, compiled with the help of victims and survivors at the centre, will help ensure a firm commitment that these events will never happen again in the church.”

The 50-page report marks a milestone for the commission, which in its 10 years of existence has struggled to find its footing in a Vatican often resistant to confronting the abuse crisis and hostile to supporting victim-centered policies.

Juan Carlos Cruz, a sexual abuse survivor who sits on the commission, said the report was a significant step forward and gave him hope for further progress.

“We’re using words we didn’t use before. Truth, justice, reparation and a guarantee of non-recurrence. They are heavy, heavy words that used to be taboo in many places,” he said at the press conference.

Francis created the commission in 2014, a year after his election, to advise the Vatican on best practices to prevent clergy sexual abuse. He named Cardinal O’Malley, then Archbishop of Boston, as head of the commission.

After several founding members resigned in frustration over Vatican deadlock and the commission’s internal problems, the commission has stabilized in recent years, focusing on realistic areas where it can be useful. A key priority has been to provide funding and expertise to churches in poorer countries, where there are fewer resources to develop and implement child protection guidelines and they tend to be victimized.

In its report, the commission noted, for example, that the Catholic Church in Mexico is hampered by “significant cultural barriers to reporting abuses that impede the process of justice.” In Papua New Guinea, limited funding means insufficient training for church staff and services for victims. Even the rape kits that are needed for criminal investigations are prohibitively expensive, the report found.

His main takeaways, however, were global in nature: Victims, he said, must have the right to information about their church-held cases because secrecy and long processing times often serve to revictimize them. He proposed a special Vatican advocate or an ombudsman to deal with the needs of victims.

As a function of restorative justice – referred to as “conversion justice” – victims must be entitled to compensation for their abuse, including financial reparations, but also a public apology to help them heal, it said.

And he called for a more uniform definition and understanding of church policies to protect “vulnerable adults” from abuse, moving beyond the tendency to criminalize only the abuse of minors. The appeal is meant to respond to calls for the church to do more to protect religious sisters, seminarians and even adult lay faithful from religious gurus who abuse their authority and take advantage of adults under their spiritual sway.

Francis in 2022 asked the commission to produce the report, saying he wanted an audit of the progress of what is being done well and what needs to change.

The commission noted that at least in this first effort, the report was not an audit of the incidence of abuse in the church. It said that to become a real auditing mechanism, “the commission would need access to more specific statistical information” from the Vatican’s Office for Sexual Abuse, which receives all credible reports of abuse of minors in the church, but it appears that did not provide the data. to the commission.

One of the commission’s members, legal expert Maud de Boer-Buquicchio, admitted that the report “is far from perfect”.

“But it has a solid methodology that will grow over time to become increasingly comprehensive and robust,” she said, adding that the data could be “significantly improved” by cross-referencing with external sources.

Anne Barrett Boyle of BishopAccountability.org, an advocacy group that pursues abusers, said the commission’s findings were “hindered by their limited scope.”

“The only test of protection that matters is whether bishops remove abusers,” she said. “The report gives no measure in this regard, because the commission itself is powerless to do so.”

The commission called for greater collaboration and dialogue with the Vatican Office for Sexual Abuse and said it was “pleased to note that the dicastery is exploring what steps can be taken” to help bishops and religious superiors care for victims.

He also asked the office to make its work more public, including through academic lectures and conferences, and also to provide more material to bishops to help them administer justice.

Francis earlier this year allowed O’Malley to retire, five years beyond the normal retirement age for bishops, and recently suggested that leadership of the commission would pass to his current No. 2 official, Bishop Luis Manuel Ali Herrera.