In April 2022, Pope Francis asked the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors to “prepare for me a report on the Church’s initiatives for the protection of minors and vulnerable adults” on an annual basis. He added that this “might be difficult at the beginning.”  In her address to the Commission one of the Commission members, Maud de Boer-Buquicchio, a Dutch jurist with expertise on child rights and child safeguarding, asks, "Has it proven as difficult to begin this process as he suggested?" 

When you factor in the difficult nature of the subject matter and a global absence of discrete data on sexual abuse, drafting a report on how the Church is living by adequate policies and procedures in preventing and responding to child abuse in all its daily activities across the globe might seem impossible to do. But the urgency of the problem and consequences of failure require no effort be spared in improving child protection measures within the purview of the Church and its ministers.

The report is expected to be published by summer 2024.