In contemporary society, the safeguarding of minors at the secular level involves community-based awareness raising, education, prevention, and intervention systems. For the Catholic Church, such interventions, particularly the education effort, must not only be at par with or better than secular systems, but also show how the safeguarding of minors is an integral part of the life of the Church and a necessary part of the formation of persons, of their ability to draw close to Christ. Thus, it is imperative to provide a safeguarding education that is both theologically integrated and temporally robust. This is the spirit that inspired the conception and mission of the Catholic Safeguarding Institute (CSI).
A practical need
There is an observed practical need for more than one education/formation programme to meet the demand for high-quality Catholic education in culturally effective safeguarding. The Centre for Child Protection (CCP-Rome), an academic centre of the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, aims to address this by providing higher educational degrees in safeguarding. Launched in January 2012 by the Institute of Psychology of the Pontifical Gregorian University, CCP-Rome’s mission is geared towards safeguarding the vulnerable, educating to protect them from all kinds of abuses and any attempt to violate their integrity, both within the Catholic Church and in society.
With Fr Hans Zollner SJ – a German Jesuit, theologian, psychologist, and one of the leading pioneers in the field of safeguarding and prevention of sexual abuse – at its helm, CCP-Rome animates the mission of the Universal Apostolic Preferences as it provides a rich platform and expertise in educating all stakeholders of the need for recognition, protection, and healing of the many who are vulnerable and violated by abuse. It goes beyond offering educational programs as it collaborates with an international academic network and doctoral students in various fields (psychology, theology, spirituality, canon law, social sciences, etc.), slowly building a culture of safety in the Church and in society that is based on Gospel values.
After successfully completing its first offering of a one-semester diploma course on safeguarding in June 2016, CCP-Rome observed that the demand for positions in the programme from all over the world is greater than what the programme can accommodate on a yearly basis. Currently, the CCP-Rome diploma course is the only safeguarding education programme that formally incorporates Catholic teaching. This is a good problem as it indicates a sense of initiative and urgency on the part of the local Churches to learn how to design and implement a culturally effective safeguarding programme that has Catholic theology among its core elements.
Among the Catholic institutions in Asia (diocesan, religious, and lay), there is a lack of knowledge and skills for creating and implementing effective Catholic safeguarding programmes. Additionally, the Church in the Philippines, through the St John Vianney Renewal Center for Priests and Religious that is sponsored by the Philippine Episcopal Commission for the Clergy, has received many requests from various jurisdictions in Asia for safeguarding training but has been unable to provide it because it lacks personnel who are trained to provide such an education.
This is where CSI comes in. Led by Prof Gabriel S Dy-Liacco LPC who is a member of the Pontifical Council, it aims to offer a culturally effective programme similar to that of CCP-Rome’s but designed specifically for the Church in the Asian context, as well as to collaborate with CCP-Rome on institutional research in the areas of vocation assessment and ongoing formation in relation to safeguarding. Inspired and animated by the healing ministry of Christ, CSI is the pioneer in promoting the development of and providing safeguarding education and formation against sexual and other forms of abuse in the Asia-Pacific region, contextualised training of safeguarding leadership personnel and teams, and raising awareness and knowledge of the importance of building and maintaining a safeguarding culture and environment while affirming existing safe values and practices in Asian and Pacific cultures.
Safeguarding the Philippine Church
CSI concretises its ministry through the various formats of its formation programme based on the Tripod of Relational Safety model. These formats are the Basic Orientation Workshop on Safeguarding in the Church (BOWS), the Guidelines Write-shop for BOWS Alumni, the Safeguarding Leadership Formation Program, the Diploma in Safeguarding (in collaboration with Pontifical Loyola School of Theology and the Centre for Child Protection-PUG; face-to-face programme is developed but has not yet been launched due to Covid-19; online version will be developed), the Webinar for Alumni: Safeguarding in the Time of Covid-19, and talks or seminars for various audiences with expert sharing their expertise in the field. CSI commits its ministry to the current or intended protection officers, vicars for clergy, formation directors, Catholic educators, and others who have or will assume leadership roles in safeguarding in their jurisdiction. Since its conception in 2019, the institute has reached a total of three archdioceses, nine dioceses, and various formation institutes for clergy and laypersons across the Philippines. This array of safeguarding formation formats has trained a grand total of 589 persons. With the rest of 2021 already fully booked for workshops and more requests from other dioceses and lay institutions coming in, the mission of CSI in safeguarding the Asia-Pacific Church has only just begun.
In keeping with its duty to the Catholic church, CSI works to ensure that those who participate in its formation programmes return to their respective cities, provinces, and countries of origin and collaborate with the leaders of their local Churches in the creation and maintenance of safeguarding structures, policies, and systems towards the protection of the minors and vulnerable adults in their population. It is CSI’s hope that a collaborative network of safeguarding efforts can be established in the Philippines and Asia towards a global alliance focused on the protection and care of minors and vulnerable adults. It is also expected that the documentation of the experiences of these local agencies will contribute to an expanding body of knowledge that can serve future target beneficiaries of CSI’s formation programmes as well as their own local populations.
One, Holy, Catholic safeguarding mission
Pope Francis articulated well in his March 2014 Chirograph establishing the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors the reason for needing a unified Church response and concretising it in initiatives arising from the particular Churches as given by our Lord himself in His Gospel. The “unified response” envisioned by the Catholic Safeguarding Institute, in collaboration with CCP-Rome, refers to a unity in principles and necessary standards of education, prevention, and intervention that demonstrates the single-minded commitment of the Church to this endeavour.
Beyond just educating and training individuals and leaders of dioceses on the fundamentals of safeguarding, CSI’s mission is geared towards the development of a unified and intentional Asia-Pacific culture of safeguarding and communities of care. It recognises that safeguarding is a perspective and way of life that needs to become an intentional part of the daily life of every Catholic.
Johanne Arceo
Assistant Director, and Program and Technology Officer
Catholic Safeguarding Institute
This article was first published in “The Jesuits in Asia Pacific 2021”. To download the report click here.