Press release
Childtable Workgroup has been set up to assist Catholic child protection.
With unique interprofessional collaboration unprecedented to date in Hungary, Childtable Workgroup has been formed with the goal to initiate positive changes in Catholic child protection. We sincerely hope our work will improve the quality of the public dialogue about children’s rights and sexual abuses and we strive for facilitating communication between clerical and lay members of Hungarian society.
The diversity represented by our team members’ backgrounds is a sign of hope that it is indeed possible. It is rather unusual – even in international contexts – that our members include clerical leaders who have experience dealing with child abuse cases, and a journalist who has uncovered such atrocities. In our team we find theologians, civil rights activists and even an activist who, as an altar boy, was a victim of abuse committed by a clergy member.
“I find Childtable Workgroup important because people of different backgrounds can cooperate, and therefore refine their ideas, while sharing their expertise and opinions here. What’s more, we can fight together for a noble and holy cause, an issue especially important for society: child protection inside the Church.
I would very much welcome a culture of honest and true apologies – apologies, which come from the bottom of the heart, take responsibility for wrongful behaviour, accept the pain and suffering of the victims and provide assistance to help healing.
I wish to see the conspiracy of silence be replaced by the culture of transparent communication since it is an integral part of facing sins, helps to see more clearly and hinders the process of losing faith”, said Cirill T. Hortobágyi, the Abbott of Pannonhalma Benedictine Archabbey.
“As a child abuse survivor, I deeply believe we need dialogue and accountability to face our past wounds and build a safer future. This work group has been set up to support the Hungarian Catholic Church in their attempts to prevent abuse and to respond appropriately to this challenge. Taking the victims’ experience and point of view into this dialogue, my goal is to assist to form a church in which transparency, safety and justice are fundamental values. With this, I believe I can help create a more accountable and more humane ecclesiastical community.”, says Attila Pető, children’s right activist.
The workgroup wishes to spread an approach and practice – more and more apparent in the Catholic world – which contributes to the healing processes and prevention of future abuse by systematically uncovering past events, creating detailed reports, introducing effective preventive measures and educating experts on this field.
We find it of the utmost importance to create a comprehensive country report on Hungary. Such reports have already helped many countries come to terms with the complexity of the issues, in many instances resulting in a society-wide collaboration in facing the committed crimes and assisting healing, even beyond ecclesiastical communities.
Naturally, to create such a report on our country is well beyond the capacity and resources of our civil initiative. Childtable Workgroup can play a role only in supporting the processes leading to it. Even the preparation of such a country report is a rather complicated task on which we hope to work together with international and Hungarian experts of Catholic child protection.
“To facilitate effective solutions and responses to solve the complex problem of child abuse, it is crucial to have interdisciplinary dialogue and cooperation. Listening to victims, emphasising the importance of a holistic approach and communication between experts on psychology, law, criminology and children’s rights are indispensable. Childtable Workgroup embraces this multidisciplinary approach which can bring about a multifaceted understanding on the phenomenon of abuse, the creation of more effective preventive strategies, the adequate support of the victims and also the increase of accountability and transparency inside the Church. Based on my experience, interdisciplinary forums have contributed in all fields (ranging from child protection, education, health care to sports) to restoring lost credibility after abuse cases were revealed and helped victims heal.”, says Szilvia Gyurkó children’s rights advisor.
The mission of the team is congruous with the synodal process initiated by Pope Francis – whose main objective is the renewal of the Church and its communities – and with the synod’s child protection guidelines which emphasise the necessity of transparency.
We strive for assisting Catholic child protection (in a wider sense, Hungarian child protection) by organising meetings, workshops, educational courses and conferences on a topic which is hard to discuss. Many don’t dare; many are unable to. We encourage everyone involved to speak up and we are attempting to reach the largest possible audience through our home page; in ecclesiastical as well as secular media. One of our important goals is to publicise the efforts of Catholic child protection, a further one is to make studies and research concerning this issue available for the public in order to facilitate more effective work. One of our first tasks will be to publish a volume containing a comprehensive selection of papers written by theologians on the topic. We endeavour to analyse the phenomenon of sexual and spiritual abuse in the appropriate context, rather than focusing on individual cases.
“My wish is to create and maintain such an environment in the Church and in our society where everyone can feel safe – children and adults, laypeople and clerics, subordinates and leaders. The protection of human dignity can’t restrict itself to individual matters; we need to strive for a fundamental change in our culture. To achieve it, we need to understand the process leading to abuse, we need to research, to alter our approaches, to work on prevention, education, communication, case handling and cooperation.
Furthermore, on our webpage, gyerekasztal.hu we published the abstract of a research report by Szilvia Gyurkó, in which the author investigates the accomplishments and the shortcomings of Catholic child protection systems, disaggregated by state in East-Central Europe.
I strongly believe our service is part of our Church’s merciful and healing mission and will contribute to deepening our relations with God and thus, spreading the Gospel.”, says Benedek Dobszay Franciscan monk, former provincial minister.
23 January 2025.