National Board for Safeguarding Children: Pope ‘dismal’ on child protection

Catholic bishops have made no response to criticisms by the former head of the Church’s child safety watchdog that Pope Francis’ record on child protection “has been a dismal failure”.

Speaking in an interview with The Irish Times, former chief executive of the Irish Catholic Church’s National Board for Safeguarding Children Ian Elliott also hit out at Irish bishops saying they had paid “a lot of lip service” to child protection at the beginning of his work in 2007. He said the bishops were also “very resistant” to his work at this time.