Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1055420
NEWS maltatoday | SUNDAY • 25 NOVEMBER 2018 79 • 27 • 26 • 55 • 50 | 64 • 51 • 83 24-11-2018 Draw No: 751 MATTHEW VELLA MALTA'S Archbishop Charles Scicluna will form part of a high-powered steer- ing committee to oversee a Vatican summit in February on the protection of minors in the Church. The committee is composed of two cardinals, Blase Cupich (Chicago) and Oswald Gracias (Bombay, India), and two of the Church's experts in the field: Archbishop Charles Scicluna (Malta), and Fr Hans Zollner, a German Jesuit and president of the Centre for Child Protec- tion and Director and professor of psychology at the Gregorian University in Rome, who will serve as coordinator. In an interview for the Ameri- can Jesuits' magazine America, Archbishop Scicluna, whom Pope Francis recently appoint- ed as adjunct secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and who is also the president of its tribunal for appeals, said the summit will be the first ever synodal meeting on the sexual abuse of minors of the Church. The event is significant be- cause it brings together the presidents of over 100 bish- ops' conferences from around the world, and the heads of all the Eastern-rite Catholic churches. The synod is expected to hold plenary sessions, prayer groups, discussions with stakehold- ers, and a "penitential liturgy" where victims will be listened to. Scicluna said this was "a very important sign of what we call in technical terms 'affective collegiality,' which means the bringing together of bishops from around the world with the Holy Father to discuss impor- tant issues and to get them to be on the same page with the Holy Father." Scicluna said Pope Francis "realises that this issue" – ad- dressing sexual abuse by clergy in the Church – "has to be top on the Church's agenda." "This is a global issue which the Church would want to ap- proach with a united front, with respect for the different cul- tures but with a united resolve and with people being on the same page on it." The four-day summit will aim at getting bishops to under- stand that the phenomenon of clerical sex abuse is not only a crime but "a very grave symp- tom of something deeper, which is actually a crisis in the way we approach ministry," Scicluna said. "Some call it cler- icalism, others call it a perver- sion of the ministry." Scicluna, who led count- less investigations into clerical sex abuse, said bishops had to "move away from panic-driven policies that put the good name of the institution above all oth- er considerations" and "move forward from any temptation to cover up any crimes. It is only the truth which will set us free." Scicluna steers Vatican summit on clerical child sex abuse