Summit for abuse: the Church analyzes mitigate the papal secret to give more transparency

The Vatican has today put on the table the possibility of dispelling certain aspects of the pontifical secret in order to guarantee more "transparency" in canonical proceedings against priests accused of badual abuse of minors in response to the serious crisis to the Church at the global level on this topic.

The historic summit convened by Pope Francis at the Vatican on Saturday closed its third day of work with an badysis of alternatives to give more "transparency" to the way it addresses the issue, after badyzing the challenges of "" credibility "and" accountability "before the planned closure this Sunday.

The third and final day of work was developed while, a few blocks away, dozens of victims of clergy abuse demonstrated in Rome to demand "zero tolerance" against bad offenders.

"Zero tolerance is necessary for priests who have mistreated minors and for the bishops who concealed it: that they are expelled from the priesthood immediately", complained the founding member of the network End of Clerical Abuse (ECA). Peter Isely, in dialogue with the press during the event.

Another CEA member, the Chilean Juan Carlos Cruz, today acknowledged in an interview with Telam the "very positive change" that the pontiff had brought in his way of dealing with the problem of abuse.

German Cardinal Reinhard Marx, for his part, proposed in his speech "to redefine confidentiality and secrecy and to make a distinction with regard to data protection".

"If we fail, we will lose the opportunity to maintain a level of self-determination on the information or we will expose ourselves to the suspicion of concealment," added the European Cardinal.

Along with the move to change the rules governing the secrecy of the pontifical provisions, Marx stressed the importance of "communicating to the public the number of cases and the relative details as far as possible".

Until this summit, the Vatican has maintained a severe silence on this type of statistics to the point that it is the Italian magazine L'Espresso which revealed today that since 2013, about 2 200 denunciations of abusive priests were counted.

"The principles of presumption of innocence and protection of human rights and the need for transparency are not incompatible," said Marx, a member of the pope's advisory committee for curia reform, called C6.

For the cardinal, "it is precisely the opposite that occurs: on the one hand, a transparent procedure, regulated in a clear and precise manner, ensures that the appropriate measures are taken before those who must pronounce the sentence".

In this line, Nigerian nun Veronica Openibo said today that the church was "more direct, transparent and courageous" in the fight against badual abuse.

"The question today is how to deal with the problem of badual abuse of minors in a more direct, transparent and courageous way as a church," he said. .

In his speech, the religious said that "the first step towards transparency is to admit violations and to make public what has been done since the time of Pope John Paul II to remedy the situation. ".

Although the meeting ends tomorrow without a decisive document, the Vatican hopes that the summit will mark "a point of no return" in the fight against pedophilia.

"In the working circles, the summit has been experienced as a moment of no return in the fight against child abuse," said today Vatican Prefect of Communications, Paolo Ruffini, at the time of the meeting. a report to the press.