ROME
Boston Globe
By John L. Allen Jr. | GLOBE STAFF MARCH 24, 2014
Pope Francis on Saturday named eight people with reputations as reformers in the fight against child sexual abuse as members of a new “Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors,” a line-up that includes German Jesuit Fr. Hans Zollner, who’s long been on the front lines of the church’s recovery efforts.
Born in the Bavarian city of Regensburg, more or less the hometown of Pope Benedict XVI, Zollner serves as the academic vice-rector of the Jesuit-run Gregorian University in Rome and head of its Institute of Psychology. He holds degrees in philosophy and theology, and was licensed as a psychologist and psychotherapist in 2004.
In 2010 and 2011 he served as a member of the scientific working group of the “Round Table on Child Abuse” created by Germany’s federal government. Zollner has studied the church’s rocky history on the abuse issue at length, publishing the 2010 book, “The Church and Pedophilia – An Open Wound: A Psychological and Pastoral Approach along with fellow Jesuit Fr. Giovanni Cucci.”
In 2012, Zollner was chair of the organizing committee for a major international summit on the sex abuse crisis held at the Gregorian, and co-sponsored by several Vatican departments. Among other things, that summit marked the debut of a “Center for Child Protection” and an e-learning curriculum for church practitioners, intended to distill “best practices” in preventing abuse, detecting it when it occurs, responding to it in terms of civil and canon law, and reaching out to victims.
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