Kettelkamp on abuse report: Victims want justice

By Christopher Wells

“Victims want to be heard and victims want justice,” says Dr Teresa Kettelkamp, as she explains some of the findings of the “Pilot Annual Report on Church Policies and Procedures for Safeguarding,” published Tuesday by the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors.

In an interview with Vatican News, Dr Kettelkamp, the Adjunct Secretary for the Commission, says the Report is a “tool… a snapshot of what the Church’s status is with regard to safeguarding and reaching out to survivors.”

“One finding” she is pleased with, she says, “is the desire to develop safeguarding mechanisms for the Church as universal.” Acknowledging the challenges that remain, Dr Kettelkamp says the Church already has “a safeguarding mentality,” but needs to develop a “safeguarding culture.”

Part of the challenge is delivering justice to survivors of abuse. “Victims want to be heard, and victims want justice,” she says.

Similarly, Dr Kettelkamp recognizes the limitations of this initial Report. “I want to give people hope,” she says, “I know that this is a pilot. This is a snapshot. There are gaps in some areas that even you know, but this is the first time out of the gate.”

But, she says, “the Church is serious about safeguarding. Even if they don’t have resources, I have not found one church leader with whom I met, in my experience, who dismisses safeguarding.”

“Now, are the resources there?” she asks. “Is the skill set there? Is the knowledge base there? No, but we can help. We can help with that.”

Read the full transcript of the interview with Dr Teresa Kettelkamp.

Vatican News: Doctor Kettelkamp, thank you for joining us this morning. The commission is getting ready to release its first Annual Report. Can you say, in a word, what is the purpose, what is the intention of this Annual Report?

Teresa Kettelkamp: Well, Christopher, first of all, thank you for interviewing me.

I think the purpose is… there’s multiple purposes. The main purpose, it’s a tool. It’s a snapshot of what the Church’s status is with regard to safeguarding and reaching out to survivors.

The Pope asked us to give him an idea of how we’re doing as a global Church in the area of keeping children safe and reaching out to survivors. That was in 2022. So we took that task very seriously. We did not have a blueprint to follow. We had to think about, How do you go about doing this? What’s the methodology? How do we collect information? What information should we collect that’s available? And statistically, if we go in that direction, scientifically solid.

And so, we figured out the methodology, and we were hoping that this annual report can serve as a tool for the Holy Father and the Church as a whole, to look at how the Catholic Church is doing, keeping its children, its vulnerable [people] safe. Are there safeguarding guidelines and where they are? How are we doing if they’re not? What are the challenges of implementing those? Are we reaching out to survivors? Are we having a safe, welcoming Church?

So they looked at different ways for this pilot [Report]. Now remember it’s a pilot. So don’t look at it as years and years of, you know, fine tuning. First of all, we looked at how are we going to gather the information.

So we thought, well, what we could do, we could gather information from the ad limina visits when the bishops come and meet with the Holy Father. We could also prepare a questionnaire in addition to what the Dicastery of Bishops prepares to gather information.

And so we meet with the bishops after their meeting with the Holy Father. I hate to say this. It’s usually like 4:00 on a hot day, but they come and they’re, very warm, tired, probably hungry as well, to be honest. And we just talk with them about the answers to their quinquennial questionnaire and how we could help develop resources that we all agree are kind of the foundational for developing a safe environment in a church that’s welcoming to those who have been abused.

So that’s one part of information.

The other part is, we are divided now in the Commission into regions: Asia, Africa, the Americas and Europe. So, we have regional experts, and we have asked them to do their own regional assessment of how things are going. What are the challenges? What’s the good news? The bad news? Things like that.

The third area is we have chosen two dicasteries this year, Clergy and Doctrine of the Faith, to collaborate with them and see what we can learn from them with regard to our common goal of keeping the Church safe. Openness and transparency: I cannot emphasize enough putting up safeguards and working as a Church in a holistic manner.

The last section is looking at the Church outside the Church, and this is Caritas. What other entities in the Church, in the church environment, are working to help the poor, those in need, etc. and where are their safeguards and openness to welcoming survivors?

So that’s the template that we developed on round one. Now, we’ve learned a lot. As far as statistics – I know some of the questions might be on statistics – we do not, as a Church in the area of safeguarding, have a strong statistical foundation and we need to work on that. But they don’t have the resources in many places to gather those: how many allegations, how many survivors have come forward. You can imagine the challenges in those two areas.

And hopefully the Report will serve as a tool, that we can use this as a foundational document and improve on our methodology and our collection, and then, even better, for next year, give a crisper perspective of the Church. There was one thing I was going to mention with the ad liminas: We only did, 14 or 15, but we’re hoping through the tenure of this Pontifical commission through [2027] we will be able to cover all the Episcopal conferences.

Vatican News: Thank you. It’s a great overview of the document.

I know it’s a fairly long document. It covers, as you said, the whole Church and the whole world. Can you maybe point out some of the highlights in terms of your findings and of recommendations? Not in detail, but some of the most important findings and then recommendations for moving forward?

Teresa Kettelkamp: Well, one finding – and I will be honest, I am very pleased – is the desire to develop safeguarding mechanisms for the Church as universal. Now there may be some challenges, culture, resources, just lack of how do we do what we do.

So, we do have a safeguarding mentality. Do we have a safeguarding culture? Not yet. Because we need policies and procedures.

We also have a gap as far as having kind of centres where survivors can come and find healing. Now different countries have different, I would say, definitions of healing. In the US, healing might be equated, so they think, to money, but that’s not true. Victims want to be heard and victims want justice.

Now, what justice is for me may be different from justice to you, but they want justice. They want a wholeness back.

So that was one of the things that we have found is the challenge.

We don’t have the mechanisms right now in the Church to do that, but we do have an initiative within the Church now, through the Pontifical Commission, for a Memorare Initiative. And remember, our mandate is [twofold]: give advice to the Holy Father and work locally. These Memorare Initiatives are ways that the local Church can work locally. And we will help train and resource them. And they will be centers of implementation of safeguarding and welcoming survivors in helping set up the sustainable capacity at the local level.

So, we’re slowly moving in that regard too. But the world is big.

Vatican News: Is there anything you’d like to say to the Church, to victims, and to the lay faithful as a whole about your work?

Teresa Kettelkamp: Yes. I want to give people hope.

I know that this is a pilot. This is a snapshot. There are gaps in some areas that even you know, but this is the first time out of the gate.

But the Church is serious about safeguarding. Even if they don’t have resources, I have not found one church leader with whom I met, in my experience, who dismisses safeguarding. It just is not there. Now are the resources there? Is the skill set there? Is the knowledge base there? No, but we can help. We can help with that.

And there are gaps in reaching out to survivors. We need to do more to make everyone welcome. And the fact that if they have been abused, that they can come forward and no further harm will come to them.

Teresa Morris Kettelkamp is an expert in policies and guidelines for the protection of minors and vulnerable adults. In January 2016, she moved to Rome to work for the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors. Pope Francis appointed her as a Member of the Pontifical Commission in 2018, and, after renewing her appointment in 2022, named her Adjunct Secretary of the Commission in 2024.

The transcript of this interview has been edited for clarity.