1-7 September is National Child Protection Week: ‘Every child in every community needs a fair go’ ‘Every conversation matters.’
8 September is Safeguarding Sunday
In the first week of September, two similar causes are supported by public notice. They have a slightly different focus. Safeguarding Sunday is honoured in Catholic Churches. Although it makes no mention of children, and for that reason includes all relationships within the Church, it naturally focuses Catholic attention on ensuring that the terrible sexual abuse of children by representatives of the Church cannot happen again in Catholic institutions.
National Child Protection Week involves the whole Australian community and has a broader focus on the welfare of children in every situation. Its theme for this year suggests this more general approach: ‘Every Conversation Matters’.
In the last few years, we have been alerted to challenges to keep children safe which we had not previously emphasised. They extend far beyond sexual abuse by adults. They include also the frightening prevalence of domestic violence towards children as well as towards adult women, the discovery that other children perpetrate a high proportion of sexual abuse of children, the destructive effects on children of detention in prisons and juvenile justice centres and the massive exposure of children to social media and also to online pornography.
These new challenges should heighten the Catholic commitment to keep the Church environment safe. They also demand a broader understanding of what protection entails. The threats to children’s welfare and human growth arise not only from people within the Church but from features in our society that children themselves will bring from their peer culture into their homes, churches and schools. That is evident in the online humiliation of young women in social media, which has been perpetrated by students in public and private schools.
The many factors involved in Child Protection show the importance of the Week’s theme: Every Conversation Matters. Chats in the schoolyard and at parties matter, as do the conversations in the classroom and lack of them, and the conversations between parents and children. Safeguarding cannot be confined to what happens within church or school property. It is ultimately based in the values of homes, institutions and society.
Child Protection is not an add-on to a Catholic school curriculum. It is our mission, which is to say God’s mission. We are called to be a community that follows Jesus and attracts people by making visible God’s love. The Church is called to be a place of love, generosity, respect, forgiveness, prayer and hospitality – all the qualities found in Jesus’ life.
That is our Catholic ideal. The reality, of course, is much more mixed. In our relationships, we often fail in love and respect. We need to work at them so that the love and respect which Jesus shows in the Gospel stories is evident in all Church decisions, meetings and relationships. It must translate into welcome at the Church door, geniality in answering phones, promptness in responding to requests, and care to listen to complaints. The way in which we do things must reflect our mission.
Safeguarding Sunday invites us to ask whether the relationships within our Church express respect for people, and especially vulnerable people, who are precious in God’s sight.
Fr Andrew Hamilton SJ writes for Jesuit Communications and Jesuit Social Services.
