Eileen Shearer, head of COPCA (Catholic Office for the Protection of Children and Vulnerable Adults), the agency to which the Catholic Church of England and Wales has assigned the task of implementing the recommendation of the Nolan Report on sexual violence committed against children, will leave her post in July. Her decision comes at the end of a long and fruitful work performed by COPCA in the field of the protection of children. In this regard, a revision of the guidelines of the Nolan Report will be published on 16 July. One of the main recommendations of the report was that there should be in each parish and diocese a person specifically delegated to the task of invigilation and to ensuring that no sexual violence be committed against children. Those who thanked Eileen Shearer for all the work COPCA has done since the publication of the Nolan Report include Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor, Primate of England and Wales. “Thanks to the work of the director of COPCA – declared Murphy O’Connor – the Church now has effective procedures that minimize the risks and that demonstrate that we are seriously tackling the problem of the protection of children”. “The leaders of the Catholic Church of England and Wales – declared Shearer – have responded to the challenge of implementing a programme of action. Their coherent and constant efforts to develop safe national strategies is very clear and the protection of vulnerable persons is now woven into the structure of the Church. This work of vital importance will continue to be developed in future”.
