The Catholic Bishops Conference of England and Wales reaffirmed its commitment to protect vulnerable children and adults as an integral part of the ministry and the life of the Church and established a group which will implement the guidelines of the Cumberlege Commission. The Commission, guided by former Health Minister baroness Cumberlege, in the past mont examined the Church’s implementation of the Nolan Report Guidelines, the investigation on child abuse which concluded its work in 2001. One of the Commission’s conclusions is the request to Catholic Bishops to adopt a new approach in its leadership giving priority to the protection of children. Cumberlege believes it is important for the Church to pass from a position of defense to an active commitment in the field of child abuse. The group that will be addressing the Cumberlege guidelines will be led by Bill Kilgallon, director of “St. Gemma’s Hospice”, by bishop Declan Lang and by sister Jane Bertelsen. It will draft a report that will be presented in the course of next spring’s annual Assembly of Bishops. “As a results of the large amount of work carried out in this field both by the Catholic office for vulnerable children and adult protection as by volunteers from the dioceses, we are today in a situation which is completely different from the one we had five years ago and the next phase of this process entails integrating child protection in the agenda of the Bishops Conference and of the Church as a whole”, said cardinal Murphy-O’Connor primate of the Catholic Church of England and Wales.
