ROME
Crux
By Ines San Martin
Vatican correspondent April 1, 2016
ROME – A former colonel in the Illinois state police and former official of the U.S. bishops’ conference, recently tapped by the Vatican to help develop anti-sex abuse policies around the Catholic world, says she has “no doubt at all” that Pope Francis is personally committed to the cause.
“If the pope was wavering, I don’t think he’d give the commission the support he’s been giving it,” said Teresa Kettelkamp, referring to the Vatican’s Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, established by Francis in 2014 to advise him on anti-abuse measures.
Kettelkamp, a veteran law enforcement professional who headed the U.S. Bishops’ Child Protection Office from 2005 to 2011, was hired in January by the commission to develop a template for anti-abuse guidelines and a set of “best practices” for use by bishops’ conferences around the world, especially in places such as Africa, Asia and Latin America that have not yet developed strong policies.
Kettelkamp spoke in an exclusive interview with Crux on Thursday, her first since assuming her new Vatican position.
Of late, some critics have questioned Francis’ seriousness about reform on the Church’s clerical abuse scandals, pointing, among other things, to his appointment of a bishop in Chile known as an apologist for that country’s most notorious abuser priest.
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