Mags GarganFollowing her participation at the latest meeting of a new Vatican commission set up by Pope Francis to fight sex abuse, a prominent abuse survivor has said she is happy with how progress is being made.
Marie Collins had expressed her frustration at the slow pace of progress in advance of the three-day meeting of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors at the weekend. However, after its conclusion she told The Irish Catholic she was happy with how the meeting went and that while an “enormous amount of work is still to do”, she was “quite enthusiastic and excited about where we are going from here”.
“There is definitely going to be firm and concrete actions and recommendations going to the Holy Father. The working groups will come up with proposals for things to be put in place and we will definitely see results at the end of this process. We are not just going round in circles talking about it. This issue is too important,” she said.
Last May Pope Francis appointed Mrs Collins and seven others to a commission tasked with giving him recommendations for changes. In December, he doubled the commission’s membership, and Mrs Collins said the newly structured group “worked very well together”. “It was wonderful to have a big spread of cultures and voices and it is going to make the commission more valuable,” she said.