VATICAN CITY (ITALPRESS) – “I heartily send you my greetings and some directions for your valuable service. Indeed, it is like ‘oxygen’ for local Churches and religious communities, because where there is a child or vulnerable person safe, there you serve and honor Christ.” So said Pope Francis in a message to participants in the Plenary Assembly of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, penned by Policlinico Gemelli before his resignation March 20.
“In the daily texture of your work, especially in the most disadvantaged areas,” the Pontiff stressed, “a prophetic truth is made concrete: the prevention of abuse is not a blanket to be spread over emergencies, but one of the foundations on which to build communities faithful to the Gospel. For this I express my gratitude. Your work is not reduced to protocols to be applied, but promotes safeguards: training that educates, controls that prevent, listening that restores dignity. When you implant prevention practices, even in the most remote communities, you are writing a promise: that every child, every vulnerable person, will find in the church community a safe environment. This is the engine of what should be for us an integral conversion. To you, today, I ask three commitments: To grow in working together with the Dicasteries of the Roman Curia; To offer victims and survivors hospitality and care for the wounds of the soul, in the style of the Good Samaritan.” n
“Listening with the ear of the heart, so that every testimony finds not records to be compiled, but bowels of mercy from which to be reborn; Building alliances with extra-ecclesial realities-civil authorities, experts, associations-so that safeguarding becomes a universal language. In these ten years you have grown a safety net in the Church. Go forth! Continue to be sentinels keeping watch while the world sleeps. May the Holy Spirit, master of living memory, preserve us from the temptation to file away grief instead of healing it. I thank you for your remembrance in prayer. I, too, accompany you and ask the Lord and the Blessed Virgin to sustain you, so that you may continue with dedication and hope on the path you have taken.”
– IPA Agency Photos –
(ITALPRESS).
