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Pope calls for sexual abuse centre

POPE Francis called on Catholic bishop conferences to create special centres to welcome victims of clergy sexual abuse, warning that the faithful would continue losing trust in the church hierarchy without more transparency and accountability.

Francis urged his sexual abuse advisory commission, which he created in 2013 as an ad hoc body and recently fully integrated into the Vatican structure, to help bishops conferences around the world establish survivor welcome centres where victims could find healing and justice. And he called for the commission to conduct an annual audit of what is being globally done by the Catholic hierarchy, and what needs to change, to better protect children and vulnerable adults from abuse.

“Without that progress, the faithful will continue to lose trust in their pastors, and preaching and witnessing to the Gospel will become increasingly difficult,” he warned.

It was the latest effort by the

Argentine pope to try to address the ongoing credibility crisis in the Catholic Church over its legacy of priestly sex abuse and cover-up, and the Vatican’s often tone-deaf response to the trauma suffered by victims.

Francis created the commission, known as the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, in the first year of his pontificate to advise the church on best practices to protect minors and prevent abuse.

But its limited mandate frustrated survivors, its outsider efforts at accountability hit resistance and one of its biggest initial recommendations, a special Vatican tribunal to prosecute bishops who covered up for paedophiles, went nowhere.