The Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors (PCPM) is hosting in November 13-15 a European Conference for Church leaders and safeguarding personnel from across Europe. The purpose of this event is to broaden the European Network started in Warsaw in 2021, to share good practices in the mission of protecting children and vulnerable persons.  

Teresa Delvin chair of the organizing team said:

“This conference will provide us with time and space to meet colleagues and reflect upon our safeguarding practices.”  

Participants from 25 European countries 

Representatives of bishop’s conferences, conferences of religious, dioceses, religious orders and congregations, societies of apostolic life, secular institutes from 25 countries are participating. 

Albania, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Czech Republic, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, and Ukraine (from the Greek-Catholic and the Roman-Catholic church). 

Vatican leaders and officials from the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Lifea nd Societies of Apostolic Life, representatives from the International Union of Superiors General (UISG), the Union of the European Conferences of Major Superiors (UCESM), and the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Union (COMECE) will be also participating in the conference. European leaders from Porticus will also attend. 

The one hundred participants from 25 European countries, who include bishops, priests, religious sisters and brothers, lay men and women, some of them victims and survivors, will gather for their meetings at the Commission’s venue in Rome at Palazzo Maffei Marescotti. 

The Program of the Conference 

The Conference will open, with a video message from Cardinal Seán O’Malley, from Boston. A keynote address by Mons. Luis Manuel Alí Herrera, Secretary of the Commission and Ms. Teresa Kettelkamp, Adjunct Secretary of the Commission will follow.  

The featured keynote speakers for the first day are Dr. Aidan Gordon, CEO of the Irish national board for safeguarding children, who will be presenting the historical development of safeguarding policies in Ireland and future directions. Dr. Laurent Devolvé, lawyer and member of the Paris bar, and Dr. Jan Dohnalik, professor at Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw, will explore the compatibility of canon law and state criminal law from the perspective of confidentiality and the definition of vulnerable adult. Dr. Marcus Pound, Theology professor and Assistant Director of the Center for Catholic Studies at Durham University (UK), will present the Report “The Cross of the Moment”, published in May 2024, and introduce a new study. 

Other keynote speakers include: Archbishop John J. Kennedy, Secretary of the disciplinary section of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. Dr. Maud de Boer-Buquicchio, Chair of the Commission‘s Annual Report, and Dr. Patricia Espinosa, Coordinator of the Memorare Initiative on behalf of the Commission. 

Some initiatives will be presented in plenary sessions: the Archdiocese of Madrid will be presenting Proyecto Repara for the care of victims/survivors and prevention. The issue of the rights of the child will be addressed by the Association of Children’s Rights in Hungary. A case study of the Youth Center John Paul II will be presented as a good experience of developing safeguarding culture in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The safeguarding experience of the Church in Germany will be presented, together with input from the church in Belgium on the approach to victims’ recognition and healing. 

Participants will discuss and share good practices in specific areas of safeguarding in thematic working groups. Teresa Kettelkamp, Secretary Adjunct of the Commission, stated:

“It is no secret that we are stronger and more effective when we work together as a team, and share best practices and collaborate on issues of safeguarding and victim /survivor outreach.”

And underlined: “We are a global Church whose members work on a global stage all with the same goal of making the church a safe place, a welcoming place, and a place where victims/survivors can come and feel safe sharing their stories of abuse in hopes of justice and healing. Isn’t this what Jesus would want?  I think so. And we are here to help make that a reality.” 

The organizers 

Within the Commission, the Regional Group for Europe is formed by Teresa Devlin, Regional Moderator and former CEO of the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church in Ireland; Maud De Boer-Buquicchio, former UN Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children; Ewa Kusz, Deputy Director of the Child Protection Centre at the Ignatianum Academy in Krakow; Mons. Thibault Verny, Archbishop through the Archdiocese of Chambéry (-Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne-Tarentaise); Emilie Rivet, Clinical Psychologist, director of the ‘Action for Integral Human Development’ (AIHD) center; Ernesto Caffo, President of Telefono Azzuro and Foundation Child. The Commission’s Regional Expert for Europe and coordinator of this event is Claudia Giampietro, Canon Lawyer.  

Safe spaces  

Considering that the participants will be involved in a three-day discussion around the topic of abuse and prevention, the Commission has created a “Safe Space” to navigate potential distress, with self-care strategies and the assistance of expert clinicians: Dr. Rosanna Giacometto and Dr. Patricia Espinosa, who will be available during the entire event 

The origins of the European safeguarding Network  

Dr. Ewa Kusz, a polish Member of the Commission and speaker at the Warsaw conference in 2021 explains that: “The conference in Warsaw in 2021 provided an opportunity for those experts in these questions to meet and share experiences.”  

Europe, in its plurality of cultures and languages, has provided a unique challenge to the Commission over the past ten years. From the Atlantic to the Urals, the continent encompasses churches with decades long experience in safeguarding and outreach to CSA victims and survivors and churches that are only beginning their safeguarding journey.   

The goal to establish of a network of people, spread throughout the Church in the region, comprising pastoral leaders and safeguarding practitioners who could act as a system of support and be a resource in the Churches’ efforts to combat the crime of sexual abuse, loomed large.  

As Ewa Kusz explained: “when the tragedy of sexual abuse in the Church began to manifest, our Churches in the Eastern bloc reacted in varying speeds.” And she stated: “only in the last decade we have taken an active way on helping to heal and building a policy of protection.” 

It was in this spirit that in September 2021, the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors together with the Polish Bishop’s Conference sponsored a weeklong seminar on “Safeguarding God’s Children” in the churches of central and Eastern Europe.  

Over the course of a week, bishops and safeguarding delegates from churches in 17 central and eastern European countries attended the Warsaw conference that was chaired by Commission President, Cardinal Seán O’Malley, and co-chaired by founding Commission member Hon. Hanna Suchocka and then President of the Polish bishops’ Conference, Archbishop Stanisław Gądecki. The requests that flowed from this gathering reflected the need of support regarding victims/survivors’ outreach, and the consideration that working with victims/survivors and protection of minors in local churches implies differences and specific modalities of approach. A questionnaire was sent to participants to build on the foundations of the conference and chart a way forward for safeguarding in the region.  

  The ECO Network was established following the 2021 Safeguarding Conferences for Central and Eastern European Churches, gathering safeguarding delegates and practitioners from particular churches throughout the region, under the direction of Commission Member Ewa Kusz.   As she explains: “After the 2021 conference – at the will of the participants – a network for Central and Eastern Europe was created, in which we use webinars prepared for all those interested; we meet periodically in thematic groups, and shared experiences.” 

Now, the November Conference on Safeguarding in the Catholic Church in Europe, aims to build upon their work, broadening out the horizon for collaboration between safeguarding leads across the church on the continent, from the Atlantic to the Urals.