Marie Collins Leading child protection campaigner Marie Collins has said it would be “shortsighted” of the Vatican not to invite Dublin’s Archbishop Diarmuid Martin to a global safeguarding bishops’ summit to be hosted in Rome in February.
Fr Hans Zollner SJ, who Pope Francis has asked to coordinate the gathering, has said that while the summit’s planning committee is willing to consider inviting Dr Martin to the gathering of heads of bishops’ conferences, there is a risk that too many western bishops could compound assumptions that abuse is primarily a western problem.
Criticising this on Twitter, Dubliner Mrs Collins, who until last year was a member with Fr Zollner of the Pontifical Child Protection Commission, said: “To exclude Ab Diarmuid Martin because he is ‘Western’ is shortsighted.
“He has enormous practical experience in the area of clerical abuse, implementing safeguarding, managing perpetrators and helping survivors,” she continued.