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	The Church's Way Ahead in Child Protection Times of Malta November 8, 2010 http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20101108/opinion/editorial The new Bill aiming at protecting minors from certain serious crimes seeks to respond to the community's legitimate desire to see the state affording the highest protection possible to children. Among other provisions, the Bill obliges heads of organisations providing a service or activity concerning children to report any abuse allegations involving minors to the Police Commissioner and also sets up an offenders' register. Among the crimes listed in the proposed law are sexual offences. The sexual abuse of minors is, of course, a very sensitive and delicate area that requires a lot of attention and meaningful action by all those sopmehow involved. Gozo Bishop Mario Grech, who before heading the Gozitan diocese used to be a member of the Church's Response Team, recently made the very direct and clear statement that "sexual abuse cases should be reported to the competent authorities, particularly the police". This pronouncement appears to represent a new very important opening in the Church's views. Responding to criticism it will not pass complaints to the police, the Response Team has repeatedly argued, among other things, that, in the great majority of cases before it, the alleged victim, being child or adult, and his or her family, express great reluctance to have the matter under investigation made public and many of the complainants refuse to present themselves to the Response Team before they are assured the matter be kept confidential. Moreover, Mgr Charles J. Scicluna, the Holy See's Promoter of Justice in the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, told The Sunday Times in April a high-level prelate from a country where reporting is mandatory told him he had met people who said going to the police and the courts had done them a lot of harm. Furthermore, referring to the practice in Malta, namely that the police need the consent of the victim in order to proceed, Mgr Scicluna said: "I understand the practice within the context of a very small society like ours where a person may seek redress but prefers to shy away from a public spectacle, which would be more humiliating than empowering." The time will come, following the parliamentary debate and enactment of the new law, when the Church will have to see what the future of its Response Team should be in the light of the new legal provisions and the Church's own forward-looking approach on the matter. Fr Federico Lombardi, head of the Holy See Press Office, has declared that, while civil law intervenes through general norms, canon law must take account of the specific moral gravity of an abuse of the trust placed in persons who hold positions of responsibility within the ecclesial community and of the flagrant contradiction with the conduct they should show. "In this sense, transparency and rigour are urgent requirements if the Church is to bear witness to a wise and just government." The Church knows, more than ever before, that, alongside concern for victims, it must continue to implement, decisively and truthfully, the correct procedures not only for the canonical judgment of the guilty but also for collaborating with the civil authorities in matters concerning their judicial and penal competencies, taking the specific norms and situations of the various countries into account. The Church also knows only in this way can it hope effectively to rebuild a climate of justice and complete trust in the ecclesiastical institution.
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