Marie Collins was the featured speaker at the US Voice of the Faithful’s National Assembly held on 18th April 2015. Marie is a member of the Vatican’s Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors and a clergy sexual abuse survivor from Ireland. She was among the first survivors there to take a prominent role in pursuing justice, having helped the Archdiocese of Dublin to set up its Child Protection Service in 2003.
Watch a video of Marie’s most informative talk in which she tells her own story as a survivor of clerical sexual abuse up to her current experience of the Vatican’s Pontifical Commission.
Watch Video of Marie Collin’s Talk
Video of Marie Collin’s Q&A Session
Read Statutes of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of minors (8th May 2015)
Visit VOTF Website
I hope every parish safeguarding committee in the country sits down and watches this together. The integrity and absence of cynicism in Marie Collins’ address shines through. Her personal story while of course painful is also insightful, as is her outline of the work to date of the Commission, which includes its strengths and weaknesses. Marie has received flack from some quarters for participating in the commission, but explains her primary concern is to work on the inside for the protection of children in the future.
I agree, Martin. It’s well worth all of us listening to this but particularly for those involved in parish safeguarding issues.(Recommend readers forwarding the link to their parish team.) There is an excellent insight into the workings of the Commission and lessons for all of us involved in parish groups in how to conduct business. Marie is so honest about her own motives, questioning herself as to whether she was colluding in a PR exercise but thankfully, her integrity, as you rightly observed, shines through. It’s a reminder too of the iniquity of clericalism (it hasn’t gone away, you know)and the need for each of us in our own lives to echo Marie’s “you can only speak the truth”. She does and it is powerful.