SAFEGUARDING CHILDREN AND VULNERABLE ADULTS

SAFEGUARDING OFFICE

The Missionaries of the Sacred Heart are fully committed to protecting and promoting the safe care of children involved in Church activities.

The MSC Generalate in Rome has a Safeguarding Office that can be contacted at:

safeguard@msc-chevalier.org

The MSC Safeguarding Office promotes the safe care of children by:

• Developing good practice in our ministry with children.
• Providing safeguarding training for members, employees, and volunteers.
• Ensuring that all members in active ministry and employees and volunteers working with children have undergone Garda Vetting and a safe recruitment process.
• Dealing with complaints and concerns about child protection matters, reporting to the civil authorities, and advising the Provincial on any protective measures necessary to protect children from abuse.

In this, we are mindful of the remarks of our Pope. In August 2018 in a Letter to the People of God, Pope Francis wrote:

With shame and repentance, we acknowledge as an ecclesial community that we were not where we should have been, that we did not act in a timely manner, realizing the magnitude and the gravity of the damage done to so many lives. We showed no care for the little ones;
we abandoned them.

We MSC are part of that story and in this not been the heart of Jesus that we so readily speak of.

The 2011 MSC General Chapter, devoted considerable time to educating leaders and members from across the MSC World about child sexual abuse and commenced developing a policy. At the 2017 General Chapter, further time was devoted to reviewing how we as MSC had progressed this matter and what else was needed. Today MSC Entities in every part of the world are required to have a Safeguarding Policy. 

There is much still to be done. A policy does not change the culture of an MSC Province, an MSC Ministry, an MSC Formation House, or an individual community of MSC.

The employment of experienced professionals in this field has begun in some parts of the world. Safeguarding Advisory Bodies in each MSC Province and Union seek to include expertise from beyond the MSC family, so as to benefit from a variety of disciplines and offer greater objectivity in addressing matters. However, such practices are not fully embedded in all cultures. 

In February 2019 Pope Francis gathered the Leaders of Episcopal Conferences around the world to address this issue. Each day began with time spent listening to those sexually abused by clergy as minors. Subsequently, many participants reflected that it was listening to these fellow members of Christ’s Faithful with their stories of sexual abuse that brought about their conversion of heart and a new safeguarding passion in the lives of those who attended.

MSC will best provide a safe environment for minors and adults when that same conversion of heart has occurred, and it is at the core of our vocation.