Russia

Seminars on the protection of minors in Russia began near Saratov, on the Volga, from May 20th to 21st 2019. The Catholic diocese in Saratov covers a territory that can be compared to France plus Spain and Portugal plus Italy, but it has only about 22,000 Catholics. The bishop, Mons. Clemens Pickel, invited all priests and religious who work in his diocese, plus the local directors of Caritas (about 100 persons altogether, who come from about 20 different countries of origin). The seminar was lead by Fr. Andrej Kačmar from Košice in Slovakia, who did his studies in the CCP in Rome and is now the director of the Slovakian center for child protection, by Anna Sokolova, a psychologist working with Caritas in St. Petersburg, and by Fr. Stephan Lipke SJ from the St. Thomas Institute in Moscow. It was the first time that the clergy of this diocese directly worked on the issue of sexual abuse, so the topic was discussed broadly.

Generally speaking, abuse and violence is a crucial issue in Russia, where problems like the absence of clear personal relational boundaries, the over-sexualization of girls, alcoholism, broken families, etc. are present everywhere. Even outside of the question regarding abuse by clergy, the Church has to deal with the issue. It was striking that many participants wanted to talk to the speakers individually.

Stephan Lipke SJ

A conference on child and youth protection in Budapest with P. Hans Zollner SJ

A first of its kind conference was held in Budapest, Hungary on child and youth protection within the church. The event took place on the 24th and 25th of May and featured P. Hans Zollner SJ, president of the Centre for Child Protection of the Pontifical Gregorian University as keynote speaker. The co-organisers were the Ignatian Pedagogic Workshop and the Catholic Pedagogic Institute, both from Hungary.

The conference was two fruitful days for more than 200 experts, teachers, who presented how wide a scale Hungarian Catholic institutions and communities work on child and youth protection. There were also presentations from NGO-s, school and church officials to showcase their best practice.

The conference intended to outline the whole range of child and youth protection, in which preventing and handling sexual abuse is of key, but by far not of only importance. The work the experts are involved in include the following as well: Crisis and conflict management - Bullying - Digital challenges - Sexual education - Providing social aid for the ones in financial need - Developing social competence in schools

While the other keynote speaker, Cirill Hortobágyi OSB, chief abbot of Pannonhalma Benedictine community, presented their model of safeguarding students in a boarding school, P. Hans Zollner SJ gave an outline of how acute the question is. He quoted the 2019 report of the European Council stating that worldwide not less than 1 billion children – that is one in every five – are exposed to sexual abuse. However, according to the surveys 95 per cent of the maltreatment take place in the family, and the greatest risk is a foster or stepfather: the chance of them being an abuser is seven times higher than that of the biological father.

Although in the light of media coverages their ratio seems much higher, sexual molestation committed within institutions, including churches, do not exceed 5 per cent. Nonetheless, it is not by any means a neglectable figure. Cirill Hortobágyi and Hans Zollner mutually agreed that Catholic communities must undertake utmost responsibility for the most vulnerable ones, and providing minors a safe surrounding. In Hungary the Jesuits developed their policy on child and youth protection years ago, and implemented these guidelines in their educational institutions as well.

Szőnyi Szilárd