“I believe every Catholic should see it…. it’s not Church bashing, it’s truth”
“For me as a survivor I find it very difficult that there might be men at that top position in the church that are still feeling there isn’t a need for change or resisting change even when its recommended by a child protection commission and approved by the Pope.”
Interview
In an interview with iCatholic, Marie Collins commended all Catholics to watch Spotlight, the winner of Best picture at the 2016 Oscars.
“I believe every Catholic should see it, it’s not sensationalised, it sticks to the truth it explains what was happening in one large dioceses which was reflected in so many other places, it’s an education for anybody inside or outside the Church in how things were being done the effect they had and how they must not be done that way in the future.I don’t think there should be any fear of going to see it, it’s not Church bashing it’s truth. It’s not something that any Catholic should fear going to see. “
Mrs Collins revealed that members of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors on which she serves watched the film while attending their most recent meeting in the Vatican. She also commented that Cardinal Sean O’Malley, Archbishop of Boston, who chairs the Commission has commended the film.
Mrs Collins criticised certain sections of the Curia who she claimed were Curia holding up implementation of the Commissions’ child protection proposals against the wishes of Pope Francis.
“There are some areas of the Curia that are holding up the implementation of these proposals. For me as a survivor I find it very difficult that there might be men at that top position in the church that are still feeling there isn’t a need for change or resisting change even when its recommended by a child protection commission and approved by the pope. The idea is eventually to have the sort of child protection we have here in Ireland in every country.”
Speaking about commission member and abuse survivor Peter Saunders recent leave of absence Ms Collins said there had been a lot of misinformation about what had happened.
“There has been a lot of misinformation about that and confusion. His view of the work of the commission is entirely different from what our mandate is, Peter felt we should be looking into investigating cases that come up whereas the commissions mandate is policy development. We don’t have any remit to investigate current cases and the problem was Peter thought that we should be doing so he didn’t engage in the policy development work. So he was asked whether he could do the work . He was asked if he would like to take time out to think about it, so it is a leave of absence. The real problem was it went out into the media that the Vatican had sacked a survivor, it actually had nothing to do with anything outside of the commission it was the commission members themselves.”