NCR are reporting that on Wednesday 1st March 2017, Irishwoman and abuse survivor, Marie Collins, who has served on the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors for the past three years, has announced her resignation.
“She decided to leave the commission after losing hope that Vatican officials would cooperate with its work following a failure to implement a series of recommendations.”
“Collins says her decision to resign was immediately precipitated by one Vatican office’s refusal to comply with a request from the commission, approved by the pope, that all letters sent to the Vatican by abuse survivors receive a response.”
“I find it impossible to listen to public statements about the deep concern in the church for the care of those whose lives have been blighted by abuse, yet to watch privately as a congregation in the Vatican refuses to even acknowledge their letters!” Collins writes in the statement.
“Dominican Fr. Thomas Doyle, an expert on the church’s response to clergy sexual abuse, said in an interview that he thought Collins’ resignation would cause the commission to lose trustworthiness among survivors and advocates who have pushed for decades for the church to better protect vulnerable people.”
“Its credibility … is going to take a nosedive,” said Doyle. “If they don’t have a survivor on that commission, it’s like if the board of directors of the American Medical Association [is] only made up of bureaucrats and no doctors.”
https://www.ncronline.org/news/accountability/lone-survivor-vatican-abuse-commission-resigns-frustration