Canton Ticino, mandatory reporting obligation for churches
Mandatory reporting obligation for the hierarchies of the Catholic Church and the Reformed evangelical Church, to make the fight against sexual crimes committed by clergy more effective. This is the principle established in Canton Ticino by Parliament last November. Divergences on definitions, scope and application of the law between Parliament itself and the Council of State (particularly on the obligation to report even without the victim's consent) are blocking the concrete implementation of this principle, but it appears to be merely a procedural and temporal matter.
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A vast distance separates this from Italy, where the proposal for an independent commission has never been heeded and the Government and Parliament, despite even appeals from the United Nations, have always turned a deaf ear. Under Francis's papacy, the Italian Episcopal Conference had promoted diocesan listening centers and periodic reports. The reports, as denounced by Rete L'Abuso and the Italychurchtoo coordination, have revealed very little. And regarding the functioning itself of the Church's listening centers there are considerable doubts: Rete L'Abuso published a dossier a few weeks ago highlighting strong criticisms.
Significant disparities between regions and "notable cultural resistance in Italy in addressing abuses" have also been noted in the "Annual Report on the policies and procedures of the Church" (relating to 2024) by the "Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors", which formulated 15 recommendations and expressed a substantial and articulate critical report to Italian dioceses.
A year of Prevost, between trips to Monte Carlo and mercy towards paedophiles
Robert Francis Prevost was elected Pope by the conclave on 9 May 2025. We are, therefore, now just a few weeks from the first anniversary. The choice of Leo XIV to make the first apostolic visit of his pontificate to Monte Carlo aroused criticism and outcry, with a parallel drawn to Francis who went instead to Lampedusa, land of fishermen and migrants; but Prevost is aware that a church in crisis (also economically) must carefully choose its allies. There is, however, another public act of the Pontiff that did not receive the same attention but carries even greater weight: in the message delivered by the Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin to the plenary assembly of the French Episcopal Conference last 25 March, Prevost wrote that "it is positive that priests guilty of abuses are not excluded from this mercy and are the subject of your pastoral reflections. Moreover, after several years of painful crises, the time has come to look resolutely to the future and to offer a message of encouragement and trust to the priests of France, who have suffered greatly". The families of victims of priests responded with an open letter to Pope Leo, expressing all their indignation at his position in favour of forgiveness without justice.
Will these words be programmatic in Prevost's line on sexual abuses in the church? Encouragement and trust for suffering priests, mercy for abusers. In the country of the Ciase commission, to call this a clear step backwards is an understatement.
We have written an extensive commentary on the pope's ill-advised statement on mercy towards abusers here.
In France, the Body Compensating Victims of Priests is "Reborn". In What Form?
Another step backward could arrive in September: the mandate of the National Independent Authority for Recognition and Reparation (Inirr) will expire in September. An organism born precisely on the initiative of the Ciase, the independent commission that investigated pedophilia and sexual abuse within the French Catholic Church between 1950 and 2020. The final report, published on October 5, 2021, had denounced that victims of clerical abuse numbered 216,000, a figure that rises to 330,000 victims if one also counts abuses committed by lay persons with ecclesial mission. The Inirr was born on the initiative of the commission to contribute to the compensation of victims of pedophilia in the French Church.
In the plenary assembly, the French bishops decided to close this authority and replace it with a new organism, Renaître, which has raised concerns among many victims. La Vie interviewed Marie Derain De Vaucresson, lawyer, activist for the rights of minors and founder and president of the Inirr. "The keystone is independence. Without independence, there can be no trust. And without trust, there is no path to healing. For this reason, victims must be able to turn to a third party, to an external entity, and not to the institution responsible for the worst moments of their lives and their suffering (first and foremost the abuses, but also the organized silence that followed)". Independence that, affirms Marie Derain De Vaucresson, will now no longer exist because the new organism will not be external and independent from the French Episcopal Conference.
The Vatican Saves the Emeritus Bishop of Cadiz Zornoza with a Legal Technicality
The accusations of pedophilia against the emeritus bishop of Cadiz, Rafael Zornoza, have been filed away by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. The victim reported having suffered sexual abuse from ages 14 to 21 in the 1990s of the past century. The abuses occurred in the major seminary of the diocese of Getafe and in other places. The victim was notified of nothing, despite the filing having occurred two months ago. An interpretive technicality of canon law prevailed over the victim's request for justice and the struggle against sexual abuse in the Church. According to El Pais, which revealed the news, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith was unable to establish the precise age (ergo, they did not believe the victim...) at which the abuses occurred and therefore whether he was truly under 16 years old. The decision is not subject to appeal and the only person who could revisit it is the pope. Et voilà, the technicality has been served and the monsignor saved. Bewilderment increases in light of another circumstance reported by La Razon: the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith could have applied to the case the "Crimen sollicitationis", which allows homosexual relationships of the clergy to be judged as a "delicta graviora", that is, a serious crime, regardless of the age of the other person. So after years of proclamations, pedophilia is considered a sin or little more. Sin for sin, homosexuality is considered more grave than pedophilia.
Zornoza had been forced to resign as bishop of Cadiz and Ceuta last November. On that occasion, the president of the Spanish Episcopal Conference, Monsignor Luis Arguello, commented: "The opening of the inquiry by the Holy See lends credibility to the accusations. The Church seeks the truth to address the suffering of all parties involved, both of the potential victim and of the bishop, who might have been unjustly accused".
