After concluding its five-day plenary in Poland, the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors is set to release its second annual report focusing on survivors of abuse and the concept of reparations. Source: NCR Online.
The commission met in Kraków from September 29 to October 3 and “following five days of intensive dialogue, reflection and strategic planning,” it is preparing to publish its second annual report on October 16.
It’s “much better than the first”, Teresa Kettelkamp, adjunct secretary of the commission and retired Illinois State Police colonel, said.
“The statistical data is much stronger, which was one of the criticisms of the first annual report, which was a pilot,” said Ms Kettelkamp, who helped build safeguarding procedures in the church in the United States. She headed the then-newly established US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Secretariat of Child and Youth Protection from 2005 to 2011.
While the 2024 annual report assessed safeguarding elements in several countries, particularly in the Global South, this year’s report will focus on survivors.
The 2025 report “will focus on the concept of reparations and introduces key new external data sources”, PCPM said in an October 3 press release.
The report “continues its exploration of conversional justice as a roadmap for positive change and healing that stems from the theological imperative of conversion rooted in the concepts of truth, justice, reparations, and institutional reform,” PCPM said.
In the future the commission wants to use the report “as a vehicle of not only sharing the good news, but the areas in which accountability needs to be strengthened”, the commission’s adjunct secretary said.
Ms Kettelkamp, who worked with the commission for almost 10 years, was appointed adjunct secretary by Pope Francis in 2024 and is overseeing PCPM’s key project of establishing the Universal Guidelines Framework, which she said is set to be finalised, after years of work, in the following months.
Before leaving Kraków, the commission succeeded in establishing “the final draft” and after the final remarks by members, the guidelines will go for a round of consultations in different dicasteries and the commission will “hopefully get it to the Holy Father for his blessing,” to be finalised and published in the first quarter of 2026, Ms Kettelkamp said.
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Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors will focus its new report on reparations (By Paulina Guzik, OSV News via NCR Online)
