October 22, 2025 // Pope Leo XIV

Papal Commission on Abuse Releases Second Annual Report

OSV NEWS

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – To improve the Church’s safeguarding protocols, officials with the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors said they relied on extensive input and feedback from victims/survivors in its second annual report.

The report featured a chapter listing more than 20 major concerns drawn up by its victim/survivor focus group. Those concerns included: an ongoing lack of accountability for Church leaders and resistance to safeguarding reforms; the risk of retaliation and rejection for whistleblowers; the continued ministry of known perpetrators; the need to vet all Church personnel properly; and the need for a “mature approach” to reparation.

“The primary need from victims/survivors is not financial compensation but rather recognition of harm, genuine apologies, and meaningful action to prevent future abuses,” according to the 103-page report, which was released on Thursday, October 16.

“In many cases, however, victims/survivors report that the Church has responded with empty settlements,  performative gestures, and a persistent refusal to engage with victims/survivors in good faith,” the report stated. “Figures of authority within the Church who perpetrate or enable abuse have perhaps viewed themselves as too essential and important to be held accountable,” it said.

“The Church believes herself to be central to God’s plan for humanity,” the report stated, “but God’s promises to the Church are not a ‘too essential to fail’ free pass of impunity: to the contrary, the Church needs to remember that judgment begins within the household of God.”

The papal commission’s Annual Report on Church Policies and Procedures for Safeguarding is meant to serve “as both compass and chronicle in the Church’s global pilgrimage toward accountability,” Archbishop Thibault Verny of Chambéry, France, president of the papal commission, wrote in the document’s introduction.

Using data from multiple sources for the 2024 calendar year, including observations from apostolic nuncios and the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child’s reporting mechanism, the report analyzed several Church entities, offering an overview of their current safeguarding measures, ongoing challenges, and recommendations from the commission members.

Each year, the report focuses on a different set of bishops’ conferences, religious institutes, and offices of the Roman Curia, and this year’s report also included a lay association: the Focolare movement.

In addition to providing details regarding Church entities, the report also offers a global analysis of its main findings and observations.

It said there are six areas “that the Church must further address in order to fulfill its fundamental obligations to victims/survivors”: safe spaces for listening and care; better communication, such as with public and private apologies; better spiritual and psychotherapeutic support; financial support that is tailored to each victim’s specific needs; meaningful sanctions and institutional reforms; and more safeguarding initiatives throughout the Church community.

The commission will further develop the six areas into “more detailed procedures to be offered as guidance to episcopal conferences and religious orders, tailored to their different cultural and social contexts,” the report stated.

One major focus of the report was on the need for proper and concrete “reparation” to victims by the entire Church community.

“One cannot harm one of Christ’s precious ‘little ones’ without betraying, harming, and, indeed, angering Christ,” according to the report. Therefore, “in facing the tragedy of abuse, the Church must acknowledge her debt of reparation to God” as well as to victims/survivors and to the larger community. … We must reemphasize that the Church’s decades-long pattern of mishandling reports, including abandoning, ignoring, shaming, blaming, and stigmatizing victims/survivors, perpetuates the trauma as an ongoing harm,” the report stated.

“The first objective of repair is to stop the spiritual and emotional bleeding precipitated by the combination of abuse, enablement of abuse, and mishandling of reports of abuse. This is why both new and old cases matter,” the report added.

The report listed multiple harms caused by abuse and the mishandling, silencing, and cover-up of cases.

Not only are whole families, innocent priests, and religious harmed, the report stated, a toxic environment marked by fear and distrust of priests, bishops, religious, teachers, and other Church staff can undermine a child’s “relationship to the Church and separate them from spiritually nurturing experiences.”

In addition, priests, religious, and Church personnel can be unwilling to “nurture and mentor children and adolescents, based on fears of being unjustly accused or because of over-restrictive safeguarding protocols,” the report said.

Anywhere there is an environment of fear and suspicion, it said, “the necessary boundaries of safeguarding can become barriers and children can be viewed as too dangerous for interactions,” which is “gravely harmful to the development and spiritual formation of children and adolescents.”

The report said it was “not merely an account of the Church’s progress and continued areas for improvement. Rather, it seeks to be a living instrument of shared conversion – a means of communicating the wisdom and knowledge learned through the witness of victims/survivors, and the commitment of countless women and men of goodwill who have sought to respond to the question: What did you do, once you knew?”

By gathering and sharing on-the-ground, lived experiences and perspectives, the report sought to represent a “shared journey” to help the Church restore trust and credibility.

Need help?

If you or someone you know is the victim of sexual misconduct or abuse by a member of the clergy or anyone ministering on behalf of the Church, officials with the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend’s Office of Pastoral Care are here to help and listen. As part of our ongoing care for victims of sexual misconduct and abuse, we offer pastoral support and counseling. We pledge to listen, support, investigate, and follow our policies and procedures outlined by the bishop.

For misconduct by a priest against someone younger than the age of 18, contact diocesan victim assistance coordinator Jodi Marlin at 260-399-1447 or [email protected]. To report other sexual misconduct situations that occurred in a Catholic environment, contact Mary Glowaski at 260-399-1458 or [email protected].