“It’s a report that, together with the three others that have preceded it, paints the picture of the constant and constructive progress being made in so delicate an area of the life of the Church as the abuse of minors”, declared Archbishop Vincent Nichols of Birmingham on 3 July. Nichols, chairman of the board of directors of COPKA (Office of the Catholic Church for the Protection of Minors and Vulnerable Adults), was presenting the annual report “in which the Church examines the situation of abuses committed on minors”. In 2005, according to the report, there were “18,000 controls on priests, those involved in the system of the protection of children, those who work with children and with vulnerable adults, all the new volunteers and those already involved”. There were 4,000 more controls that in 2004. There were 400 more training and counselling meetings than in 2004, involving some 5000 people. Now over nine parishes in every ten have a local representative with the task of monitoring children. “We are having success in the task of cracking down on abuses on children. But there is no room for complacency: those who commit sexual abuses are persistent and we must never lower our guard”, concludes the archbishop.
