(Vatican Radio) The Pontifical Gregorian University on Monday began its first Diploma Program on the Safeguarding of Minors.
The one-semester course is conducted under auspices of the Centre for Child Protection, as a unit of the University’s Institute of Psychology.
In a speech to the first class of the programme, the Rector of the Gregorian University Father François-Xavier Dumortier, S.J., said it was a “relevant part” of the academic structure of the Pontifical Gregorian University.
“Since 2011-2012, we did our best to confront the sad phenomenon of the sexual abuse of minors – especially within the Church,” Fr. Dumortier said. “Responding to Pope Benedict XVI’s and to Pope Francis’ call to root out this evil, we set up this Centre for Child Protection … In the face of situations and facts that wounded, so deeply, many people but also damaged the Church’s witness and credibility, there was a crucial need to address this challenge.”
The diploma course is designed for those presently working in the field of safeguarding, or who will be doing so in the future. This would include child protection officers for dioceses, religious congregations, and other institutions; as well as those who advise or offer training on the issue in educational institutions such as seminaries, formation houses, and schools.
Father Dumortier said the Gregorian University was offering the course because “if the sexual abuse of minors is a sad reality, it’s also a complex and many-sided reality.”
The twelve-week course will be interdisciplinary, bringing together psychology, social sciences, theology, and canon law. The seminar method of teaching will allow students to actively participate and to discuss practical problems and case-studies with respect to sexual abuse and the safeguarding of minors.
“The way of proceeding is marked by courage – the courage of confronting problems and tragedies – of intelligence in order to understand better the roots of such events – and of humble commitment to get rid of this evil,” said Fr. Dumortier.
The full remarks by Father François-Xavier Dumortier, S.J., are below
I am very happy to be with you this evening and, as Rector of the Gregorian University, to welcome and to greet all of you at the beginning of this Diploma Program. I wish you a good and fruitful time of formation and I thank especially Professor Demasure for offering such a valuable program, with this seminar method of teaching and taking an interdisciplinary approach.
This one-semester program of a Diploma in the Safeguarding of Minors is a new proposal and a very significant one.
It has been proposed and is under the responsibility of the Centre for Child Protection, as a unit of the Institute of Psychology, and for this reason it is a relevant part of the academic structure of the Pontifical Gregorian University. Why? I would like to share with you some reasons:
1.- First: since 2011-2012, we did our best to confront the sad phenomenon of the sexual abuse of minors – especially within the Church. Responding to Pope Benedict the sixteenth’s and to Pope Francis’ call to root out this evil, we set up this Center for Child Protection conceived, founded and promoted by Fr. Hans Zollner. In the face of situations and facts that wounded, so deeply, many people but also damaged the Church’s witness and credibility, there was a crucial need to address this challenge. The CCP was established in January 2012 in Munich in conjunction with the Symposium “Towards Healing and Renewal” at the Gregorian University in Rome, as a global initiative within the Catholic Church and beyond for the prevention of the sexual abuse of minors. After a first successful stage until the end of 2014, the CCP moved to Rome in January 2015. At the opening of the new location, His Eminence Cardinal Sean O’Malley, OFM Cap, head of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors said: “The prevention of sexual and other kinds of abuse of minors is of greatest importance for the universal Church. I am confident and pray that the CCP will make a substantial contribution to this long-term effort”.
The CCP aims at growing into an international and educational facility of excellence in training and education. For this reason, the CCP, in addition to the elearning training program for the prevention of sexual abuse, conducts interdisciplinary research and a doctoral program, organizes international conferences on abuse prevention and safeguarding, and has developed this program, that is, the “new born” of the Centre. The “Diploma in Safeguarding of Minors and 2 Vulnerable Persons” is aimed primarily at people who work in abuse prevention or want to specialize in it. You are the first students of this program … and we are very happy to welcome you and to give you the best of our support.
2. – Second: why did the Gregorian want to give its own response to such a challenge? Because, if the sexual abuse of minors is a sad reality, it’s also a complex and many-sided reality. Moreover, it’s not only a Church issue: protection of children must be a major concern for our contemporary societies. Therefore, it was obvious that a University such as the Gregorian, which has many intellectual resources that are crucial for coping with this issue, would allow and offer an interdisciplinary approach; such an approach is indeed crucial and decisive.
As you know, there were and there are many people prompt to denounce and to condemn, but there were and there are few to respond proactively to facts which are not only sins but crimes because the wounds caused by such acts run deep. So, the problem was not only: how to help to respond to the tragedy of child abuse? How to study with an interdisciplinary approach?… but also: how to prevent it by promoting a policy and a culture of effective safeguarding?
3. – Third: how can this be done as an academic unit belonging to the Institute of Psychology of the Gregorian University?
– according to a way of proceeding
– and aiming at a specific target
3.1. The way of proceeding is marked by courage – the courage of confronting problems and tragedies – of intelligence in order to understand better the roots of such events – and of humble commitment to get rid of this evil.
3.2. The specific target is to train people who will be promoters of such a policy and of a culture of safeguarding, who will be multipliers because they will transmit to others what they understand and know better.
In conclusion, I would say:
– it’s an issue of paramount importance for the Church and for our societies and it requires the best of our human abilities, the best of our hearts and minds.
It will be a long-term task and it’s a wonderful commitment. So …. I wish not only that you would specialize in the field of safeguarding, but also in that of creating, or participating in the creation of, safeguarding strategies.
We share indeed the same desire of moving ahead because the awareness of the crucial needs of the Church and of the world are pushing us to contribute “to this long term effort”.
François-Xavier Dumortier February 15, 2016
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) Msgr. Simon Kassas, First Secretary of the Holy See’s Permanent Observer Mission to the United Nations, spoke on Monday to the UN Security Council on ” The Respect to the Principles and Purposes of the Charter of the United Nations as Key Element for the Maintenance of International Peace and Security “.
Msgr. Kassas reminded the Security Council of Pope Francis’ words to the General Assembly on Sept. 25, 2015 .
On that occasion, the Holy Father said, “When the Charter of the United Nations is respected and applied with transparency and sincerity, and without ulterior motives, as an obligatory reference point of justice and not as a means of masking spurious intentions, peaceful results will be obtained.”
He also mentioned the address by Holy See’s Secretary for Relations with States, Archbishop Paul Gallagher, on Oct. 2, 2015 and his four areas of reflection “that could be useful to furthering the mission and commitment of the United Nations, including two that are especially relevant to the work of this Council: the “responsibility to protect” and the respect for international law”.
Concluding, Msgr. Kassas reiterated Pope Francis’ call for the restriction of the arms trade. “As technological advances are applied to weaponry, it appears to my delegation that we may know more about killing than we do about providing for the living. Have the words of the Charter to save future generations from the scourge of war been fulfilled? Each of us in the Chamber knows in the depths of our being the answer to that question.”
The full text of Msgr. Simon Kassas’s intervention is below:
New York, 15 February 2016
Mr. President,
My delegation extends to the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela its thanks for bringing this topic to the attention of the Security Council.
As extremist ideologies grow within the human community, giving rise to terrorist groups and various non-state actors, it is important to look closely at the thoughts of the United Nations founding members as they were reeling from the devastation of two world wars in less than half a century. Their desire to save future generations from the scourge of war and to forbid war as an instrument of foreign policy speaks to a moral and ethical value to be highly esteemed as integral to human development.
Mr. President,
When Pope Francis addressed the General Assembly last September 25, he spoke of the means by which the hopes enshrined by the UN’s founding members in the Charter would be realized or frustrated. He stated, “When the Charter of the United Nations is respected and applied with transparency and sincerity, and without ulterior motives, as an obligatory reference point of justice and not as a mean of masking spurious intentions, peaceful results will be obtained. When, on the other hand, the norm is considered as an instrument to be used whenever it proves favorable, and to be avoided when it is not, a true Pandora’s Box is opened, releasing uncontrollable forces that gravely harm defenseless populations, the cultural milieu and even the biological environment.”
Mr. President,
In his address to the General Assembly last October 2nd, Archbishop Paul R. Gallagher, the Holy See’s Secretary for Relations with States, suggested four areas of reflection that could be useful to furthering the mission and commitment of the United Nations, including two that are especially relevant to the work of this Council: the “responsibility to protect” and the respect for international law.
What is needed, as Archbishop Gallagher highlighted, is a genuine and transparent application of Article 2 of the UN Charter, which established the principle of non-intervention, excluded all unilateral force against another member of the United Nations, and demanded full respect for lawfully constituted and recognized governments. Pacta sunt servanda, he said, and Article 2 of the Charter has definitively banned concepts like “preventive war,” attempts to redesign geographic areas and peoples under the pretext of a principle of security, or interventions of third party States in favor of one side in a situation of civil conflict. He added, however, that Article 2 cannot be used as an alibi to excuse grave violations of human rights. Where such violations persist and further intervention is considered necessary, there is no other recourse than to apply the measures set forth in Chapters 6 and 7 of the Charter.
Mr. President,
As the Holy See has indicated in previous interventions on the topic of war, hidden beneath the rhetoric of impunity against civilians and the difficulties of providing humanitarian aid to those suffering, is the harsh reality that the industrial complexes of the world are providing weapons and munitions either for money on the open or black market, or perhaps as gifts to client groups, governments or non-state actors. The arms trade must be restrained. Rather than attaining peace and stability, weapons proliferation has resulted in more deaths and injuries and has produced waves of fleeing refugees. To market and sell weapons for self-defense is one thing, but the aggressive nature of current technologies is cause for grave ethical concern. Indiscriminately to kill civilians is a heinous crime. As technological advances are applied to weaponry, it appears to my delegation that we may know more about killing than we do about providing for the living. Have the words of the Charter to save future generations from the scourge of war been fulfilled? Each of us in the Chamber knows in the depths of our being the answer to that question.
Thank you, Mr. President.
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis on Tuesday begins the 4th day of his Apostolic Journey to Mexico with a trip to one of the country’s most drug-ridden states. Veronica Scarisbrick is with the Holy Father and sent us this report, entitled ” Horror and Hope in Michoacán “.
Listen to the report:
Pope Francis on Tuesday, 16 February, travels to Morelia, capital of Michoacán, the Mexican state most identified with the drug trade. A place where there are performances of stupefying violence. Although I’ve been told there are worse places still in terms of the drug scene across Mexico.
Francis who comes to Mexico as ‘messenger of peace’ has called drugs ‘messengers of death’. The scenario related to drugs here is complex and multi- faceted. To set a strategy that might break the organized crime model is not an easy task, the law is one thing and implementation is another. Also government anti-corruption cartels are not sufficiently powerful to counter the power of narco billions.
It’s not that the problem has been ignored, the military and federal police have been called in on various occasions and in turn accused of the same crimes they were out to crush. And the result was so weak that the local communities decided to set up their own militias, the vigilantes’ with the result that you have lemon and avocado pickers turned gunmen.
There are contradictions as well. Traditional crime groups are often deeply tied to religion. Furthermore they offer benefits people find hard to refuse and are often obliged to accept.
Among the consequences of this situation are economic and social disintegration and a connection with the escalating number of ‘desaparecidos’ in the area.
Overall in Mexico there are more than 20.000 people who have disappeared in ten years. Although UN sources have stepped up that number to over 26.000. But these numbers don’t relate exclusively to Michoacán.
But significantly it’s in the capital of Michoacán, Morelia that Pope Francis has chosen to meet with young people in an effort to bring a much needed message of hope.
He’ll be meeting with them in the afternoon at the stadium ‘José Maria Morelos y Pavòn’. It promises to be a moving moment, one they will treasure. Let’s recall how Pope Francis said in his first speech to the nation. ‘One of Mexico’s greatest treasures is that it has a youthful face”.
It’s in Morelia too that earlier in the day Pope Francis will go to the heart of this stunning colonial city, to the Cathedral in the characteristic pink stone of the area which dominates the city. There he will meet with fourteen deans of Mexican Universities and six leaders of other Christian religions.
But he will start the day by celebrating Holy Mass in the local stadium with priests, men and women religious, consecrated people and seminarians.
All in the presence of the man he created Cardinal a year ago, the Archbishop of Morelia Alberto Suarez Inda.
With the Pope in Mexico, I’m Veronica Scarisbrick.
(from Vatican Radio)…
On Monday evening Pope Francis flew to the city of Tuxtla Gutierrez, the capital of the Mexican southeast state of Chiapas, where he met with families in the city’s stadium (the stadium of Tuxtla Gutierrez). Before addressing the gathering, he listened to testimonies by people from different family situations who included a civilly married couple of divorced parents who are actively involved with charitable work, a disabled adolescent who found joy in being accepted by the church and is now active in the evangelization of other youth, a single mother who was rejected by society but welcomed with love in the Church, and a catholic family of the diocese of Tapachula.
In his prepared remarks, Pope Francis noted that the testimonies he had heard represented the joys, hopes and determination by which many families confront sadness, disillusion and failings. He observed that “living in a family is not always easy, and can often be painful and stressful”. He added that he would prefer a wounded family that makes daily efforts to put love into play to a society that is afraid of love.
Before travelling to Tuxtla Gutiérrez, the Pope visited the cathedral of San Cristóbal where he offered flowers to the statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary and a gift of a chalice and a Chasuble to the cathedral. Inside the Church, he was welcomed by groups of the elderly and the sick. Before reciting the Marian prayer with them he told them that they help Jesus to carry his cross, by taking a piece of it. He prayed to God through the intercession of Our Lady to give them strength and peace of heart and to comfort them.
Here below is the Pope’s full speech in English to the Families in the stadium of Tuxtla Gutierrez.
Dear brothers and sisters,
I am grateful to be here, on Chiapaneca soil. It feels good to be here on this soil, on this land; it is good to be here in this place which, with you here, has a family flavour, a home flavour. I give thanks to God for your faces and your presence; I give thanks to God because of the heart-beat of his presence in your families. I also thank you, families and friends, for giving us your witness, for opening to us the doors of your homes and your lives; you have allowed us to sit with you sharing both in the bread that nourishes you and in the sweat of your brow as you face the difficulties of every day. It is the bread representing the joys, the hopes and the hard sweat with which you confront sadness, disillusion and failings. I thank you for allowing me to enter into your families, your homes, and to sit at your tables.
Manuel, I thank you for your witness and especially for your example. I liked the expression you used “to put your heart into it” [echarle ganas] describing the attitude you took after speaking with your parents. You began to put your heart into your life, your family, your friends; you put your heart into us gathered here. I believe that this is what the Holy Spirit always wants to do in our midst: to put a new heart into us, giving us reasons to keep on taking risks, dreaming and building a life that has this sense of home, of family.
This is something which God the Father has always dreamt of and for which he has fought for a very long time. When everything seemed lost that afternoon in the Garden of Eden, God the Father put a new heart into that young couple and told them that everything was not lost. When the people of Israel felt that they could not go on journeying through the desert, God the Father put his heart into it by giving them manna from heaven. When the fullness of time came, God the Father put his heart into it by giving humanity the eternal gift of his Son.
Similarly, all of us here have had this experience, in different moments and different ways; God the Father has put his heart into it for us. We can ask ourselves: why? Because he cannot do otherwise. He knows how to put his best into us; why? Because his name is love, his name is gift, his name is self-giving, his name is mercy. This he has shown us with complete power and clarity in Jesus, his Son, who risked everything to the end so as to once again make possible the Kingdom of God. A Kingdom that invites us to share in a new mindset, that puts into motion a dynamic power capable of opening the heavens, capable of opening our hearts, our minds, our hands and capable of challenging us with new possibilities. This is a Kingdom which has the feeling of family, the flavour of a life shared. In Jesus and with Jesus this Kingdom is possible. He is capable of changing our perspectives, attitudes, and feelings, which are often watery and dull, into the wine of joy and celebration. He can heal our hearts and invite us again and again, seventy times seven, to begin anew. He can make all things new.
Manuel, you asked me to pray for the many adolescents who are disillusioned and on a wrong path, many who are deflated, tired and without aspirations. And as you yourself rightly said, this attitude often comes from a feeling of loneliness, from not having someone to talk to. And this reminds me of the witness which Beatrice gave us. If I am not mistaken Beatrice, you said: “the struggle has always been difficult because of uncertainty and loneliness”. Uncertainty, insufficiency, and often not having the bare essentials, can lead to despair, can make us deeply anxious because we cannot see a way forward, especially when we have children in our care. Uncertainty is not only a threat to our stomach (which is already serious), but it can also threaten our soul, demoralizing us and taking away our energy so that we seek apparent solutions that in the end solve nothing. There is a kind of uncertainty which can be very dangerous, which can creep in surreptitiously; it is the uncertainty born of solitude and isolation. And isolation is always a bad counsellor.
Both, unknowingly, used the same expression; both showed us that very often the greatest temptation we face is to cut ourselves off, and far from putting our heart into things, this attitude of isolation ends up, like a moth, drying up our souls.
The way to overcome the uncertainty and isolation which makes us vulnerable to so many apparent solutions, can be found on different levels. One is through legislation which protects and guarantees the bare necessities of life so that every home and every person can develop through education and dignified employment. There is, on the other hand, what the witness of Humberto and Claudia made evident when they explained how they tried to convey to others the love of God that they experienced through service and generous giving. Laws and personal commitment make good duo that can break the spiral of uncertainty.
Today we see how on different fronts the family is weakened and questioned. It is regarded as a model which has done its time, but which has no place in our societies; these, claiming to be modern, increasingly favour a model based on isolation.
It is true that living in family is not always easy, and can often be painful and stressful but, as I have often said referring to the Church, I prefer a wounded family that makes daily efforts to put love into play, to a society that is sick from isolationism and habitual afraid of love. I prefer a family that makes repeated efforts to begin again, to a society that is narcissistic and obsessed with luxury and comfort. I prefer a family with tired faces from generous giving, to faces with makeup that know nothing of tenderness and compassion.
I have been asked to pray for you and I want to do so now, with you. You Mexicans have something extra; you run ahead with an advantage. You have a Mother, la Guadalupana. She wanted to visit this land and this gives us the certainty of her intercession so that our dream, which we call the family, may not be lost through uncertainty or solitude. She is always ready to defend our families, our future; she is always ready to put her heart into it by giving us her Son. For this reason, I invite you to join our hands and say together: “Hail Mary…”.
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) One of the highlights of Pope Francis’ six day visit to Mexico was the Mass that he celebrated at the sports centre of San Cristóbal de las Casas in the southern state of Chiapas on the morning of Monday February 15th .
As our correspondent in Mexico, Veronica Scarisbrick reports, it was a colourful celebration for the thousands of indigenous people who turned out to welcome the man they call “amigo Francisco, Papa de la libertad” or “our friend Francis, Pope of freedom”.
Listen:
He had chosen to be with the indigenous people of Chiapas. And they turned up in their gaudy traditional costumes providing a splash of colour in this beautiful mountainous region where nature reigns. And the sound of rather elaborate wooden xylophones filled the air.
It was a highly symbolic celebration, firstly because in this remote area, home to the Mayan people, the altar stood against backdrop of a giant cut out the colorful ocre, rust and white façade of the city’s Cathedral, placed there to indicate the connection with the centuries old evangelization initially by the Spanish Dominicans.
Secondly because the altar in this region of Mayan temples in misty jungles, waterfalls and a wealth of wildlife rested on a Mayan Pyramid symbolic of steps reaching up to heaven. Meaning how Christian faith does not clash with the cultural roots of a people. And the altar itself evoked the waterfalls of ‘Agua Azul’, so an expression of the harmonious contact with nature, of the abundance of the rainforest.
And the Mayan people reached here in great numbers, 150.000 of them, from right across Chiapas. For the record there are 12 federally recognized ethnicities. The largest group being the ‘Chamulans’, a subset of the ‘Tzotzil Mayas’ who make up a third of Chiapas’ nearly one million indigenous people
And the Pope’s presence here took on meaning. He had chosen to be with a people who have long been used and misused by the local ‘ladinos’, those of Spanish origin and the ‘mestizos’, those of mixed race. To put you in the picture not so long ago the indigenous people were only allowed into town for the market but had to return to their homes in the pine forests at night. That’s when they weren’t misused as easy labour.
And in his homily Pope Francis had words of comfort relating to this exclusion of the indigenous people from society. Highlighting how on many an occasion some have considered the values and culture of this people’s traditions to be inferior. How others intoxicated by power, money and market trends had stolen their lands or contaminated them. How sad, the Pope said to this people from whom he insisted we have a lot to learn. Your peoples know how to interact harmoniously with nature which they respect as a source of food, a common home and an altar of human sharing.
And finally, symbolic of the acceptance of these people, Pope Francis made sure these long ostracized Mayans got a chance during this Holy Mass to speak in their own languages: tseltal, ch’ol and tsotil.
(from Vatican Radio)…