Towards a Theology of Safeguarding

Fr Hans Zollner

Fr Hans Zollner SJ is founding President of the Centre for Child Protection and Professor at the Institute of Psychology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. He is member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors and consultor to the Congregation for Clergy. He is honorary professor at Durham University, UK. Lectures and conferences have taken him to many countries on six continents.

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Sr Nuala Kenny

Nuala Patricia Kenny is a Sister  of Charity of Halifax.  

In 1989-1990 she was the pediatrician member of the St John’s, Newfoundland Archdiocesan Committee on Child Sexual Abuse which produced a “landmark report’ in 1992.This committee identified both individual and systemic/cultural factors at work in the crisis.  In 1990-1992, she was appointed to the Canadian Conference of Bishops Ad Hoc Committee on Clergy Sexual Abuse. This Committee produced From Pain to Hope, the first set of national guidelines on this topic. Following this involvement, she returned to her academic and clinical career as paediatrician and medical ethicist.

In late 2009, she returned to ministry in this area and presented to the 2010 Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops Plenary Meeting on “unfinished business” in dealing with the abuse crisis with particular attention to the need for accurate diagnosis of its causes and identification of personal and systemic risk factors for recurrence. In October, 2011 she co-chaired the McGill Centre for Research in Religion Conference From Trauma to Transformation on clergy sexual abuse.

In September 4-5, 2012 at the European Society of Catholic Theology Redeeming Power Launch Conference at St Mary’s University College, Twickenham, UK, she was chosen to respond to the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith’s Monsignor Charles Scicluna’s keynote on institutional response to abuse, and presented “Diagnosing the Clergy Sexual Abuse Crisis: Lessons From the Canadian Experience.”

In May, 2014 she was appointed a consultant to the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Ad Hoc Committee for the Protection of Minors to revise From Pain to Hope. It produced ”Protecting Minors from Sexual Abuse: A Call to the Catholic Faithful in Canada for Healing, Reconciliation, and Transformation” (CCCB Publications, 2018). The CCCB principles of responsibility, accountability and transparency were used in organizing the 2019 Summit in Rome.

She has travelled extensively giving reflections to clergy and laity from her books “Healing the Church: Diagnosing and Treating the Clergy Abuse Crisis”(Novalis, 2012) and Still Unhealed: Challenges for Conversion and Reform from the Clergy Sexual Abuse Crisis (Novalis and Twenty Third Publications, 2019) on the spiritual and ecclesial challenges emerging from this crisis and its management. Her newest book focuses on pathology needing personal and ecclesial conversion in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. Titled Prophetic Possibilities for the Post Pandemic Church it is due from Novalis in January, 2021.

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Dr Ethna Regan

Dr. Ethna Regan CHF is Associate Professor in Theology and Ethics in Dublin City University.  A Holy Faith Sister, she taught for over a decade at the University of the West Indies, and worked with Credo Foundation for Justice in Port of Spain with socially displaced children, and in the campaign for the abolition of the death penalty in the Caribbean. She also worked for five years in Samoa. Her PhD from the University of Cambridge was on theology and human rights, and she has also published in the areas of Catholic social thought, theological anthropology, and ecclesial responses to child abuse.

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Fr Paddy Boyle

A priest of the Archdiocese of Dublin, Administrator St. Benedict’s Grange Park and St. Monica’s Edenmore. Chaplain to the Deaf Community in Dublin. 2004/2005 trained with VDA as child Safeguarding Trainer. Training and Development Co-ordinator with the Dublin Diocese 2005 – 2016. Currently Tutor with the National Office for the Safeguarding of Children in the Catholic Church in Ireland. Part-time lecturer in Biblical Theology in All Hallows College, Dublin 1998 – 2014.

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Una Allen

Una is the current coordinator of Towards Peace, the spiritual support service set up by the Irish Church in 2014 in response to a request from survivors of abuse by Church personnel.

She has an interdisciplinary background including Social Science, Spiritual Direction and a Masters in Pastoral Theology .  She worked for thirty years with the Probation Service in both Dublin and Galway.  While her work brought her into contact with those who perpetrated sexual abuse, her experiences also taught her about the physical, psychological and social consequences of abuse – for abuse survivors, their families, and their communities.  She continued her involvement in this area with Athru, a multidisciplinary agency attached to Health Service Executive, working with young people who exhibit sexually inappropriate behaviour. 

A spiritual companion and retreat giver with a number of years’ experience, Una has taught on the Diploma in Spiritual Direction Course at the Jesuit Centre of Spirituality and Culture in Galway, and in Manresa Spirituality Centre in Dublin. She is a qualified supervisor for spiritual directors.

Una is married with four children.

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Dr Jessie Rogers

Jessie Rogers lectures in Sacred Scripture and is Dean of Theology at St Patrick’s College, Maynooth. She specialises in Old Testament Wisdom Literature. Originally from South Africa where she taught at a number of institutions including Cornerstone Christian College and the University of Stellenbosch, Jessie came to Ireland in 2007. She was a member of the Department of Theology and Religious Studies in Mary Immaculate College, Limerick before coming to the Pontifical University in 2014. Jessie is a member of Godly Play International’s College of Trainers and founding member of Godly Play Ireland. Her most recent publication is an article on Rahner and the Theology of Childhood in the Irish Theological Quarterly.

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Dr Jessie Rogers

Jessie Rogers lectures in Sacred Scripture and is Dean of Theology at St Patrick’s College, Maynooth. She specialises in Old Testament Wisdom Literature. Originally from South Africa where she taught at a number of institutions including Cornerstone Christian College and the University of Stellenbosch, Jessie came to Ireland in 2007. She was a member of the Department of Theology and Religious Studies in Mary Immaculate College, Limerick before coming to the Pontifical University in 2014. Jessie is a member of Godly Play International’s College of Trainers and founding member of Godly Play Ireland. Her most recent publication is an article on Rahner and the Theology of Childhood in the Irish Theological Quarterly.

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Father Jim Corkery

Father Jim Corkery is an Irish Jesuit who taught systematic theology at the Milltown Institute of Theology and Philosophy in Dublin for more than twenty years. In the autumn of 2014, he moved to the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, where he is a Professor in the Departments of Fundamental and Dogmatic Theology and was also, until 2020, active in the St. Peter Favre Centre for Formators to the Priesthood and Religious Life. Among his current areas of research/writing are the following: contemporary approaches to the resurrection; the theologies of Joseph Ratzinger, Karl Rahner, Avery Dulles and Elizabeth Johnson; the social and cultural dimensions of grace; the interpretation of the Second Vatican Council; and the attempt to re-think the theology of salvation in the light of the clerical sexual abuse crisis. He is also interested in Jesuit spirituality and history and is one of the associate editors of The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the Jesuits (2017). Other writings of his include Joseph Ratzinger’s Theological Ideas: Wise Cautions and Legitimate Hopes (2009) and, in 2010, a co-edited collection of essays with U.S. Jesuit, Thomas Worcester, entitled The Papacy Since 1500: From Italian Prince to Universal Pastor. In Rome, he has worked with the Centre for Child Protection (CCP), teaching for its Diploma in the Safeguarding of Minors and guiding two doctoral students attempting to combine theology and safeguarding in their dissertations. Arising from his activity with the Centre, he has published two articles: “Jesus and Children, Images of a Loving God” and “Toward an Understanding of Salvation that Could be ‘Salvific’ for Survivors of Sexual Abuse in the Church: An Exploration of the Notion of Representation in Joseph Ratzinger’s Soteriology” in: Karlijn Demasure, Katharina A. Fuchs and Hans Zollner (editors), Safeguarding: Reflecting on Child Abuse, Theology and Care (Leuven: Peeters, 2018, pp. 5-15 and 17-35 respectively). While he teaches at the Gregorian University he lives at the Collegio Internazionale del Gesù, a community that is home to more than fifty Jesuit theology students from all over the world.

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Dr. Marcia Bunge

 Dr. Marcia Bunge is Professor of Religion and the Bernhardson Distinguished Chair at Gustavus Adolphus College (Minnesota, USA) and Extraordinary Research Professor at North-West University (South Africa). She received her Ph.D. in Theology from the University of Chicago.
 
Her current area of research is perspectives on children and childhood in world religions, and she has published five volumes on the subject including, The Child in Christian Thought (Eerdmans, 2001) and The Child in the Bible (Eerdmans, 2008). Her forthcoming book, Child Theology: Diverse Methods and Global Perspectives (Orbis Books, Fall 2021), brings together Roman Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox theologians from around the world who re examine central Christian doctrines and practices with attention to children.
 
As a theologian, scholar, and child advocate, Bunge is engaged in several ecumenical and inter-religious academic projects and advocacy efforts devoted to children and child well-being. She regularly speaks about her work in the United States and abroad and has participated in child-focused conferences and consultations on six continents.

Some of the books that Marcia has edited and referenced in the video are available here.  You can also view a flyer for Marcia's upcming book Child Thology- Diverse Methods and Global Perspectives here.

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Justin Humphreys

Justin is married with three adult children and lives in southwest England. He is Chief Executive (Safeguarding) at thirtyone:eight, the leading independent Christian safeguarding charity in the UK. With a background in social work and church leadership, he has spent the past 25 years working in a variety of contexts and settings with vulnerable groups. He is a passionate advocate for justice and has dedicated his working life to the pursuit of protecting vulnerable people. He is a 'learning leader' committed to exploring and practicing authentic and just leadership. Justin is also Honorary Lecturer in the School of Psychology at the University of Chester, the current Chair of the Christian Forum for Safeguarding (a national body of leading safeguarding professionals from across the Christian denominations in the UK), and founder/initiator of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Safeguarding in Faith Communities. He holds an MSc in Child Protection and Strategic Management and a BSc(Hons) in Social Work Studies. 

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