CNA Staff, Mar 11, 2021 / 14:00 pm America/Denver (CNA).
Poland’s Catholic bishops strengthened their child protection system on Thursday with a cooperation agreement with the country’s male religious orders.
During the bishops’ plenary meeting in Warsaw on March 11, Archbishop Stanisław Gądecki and Fr. Janusz Sok, C.Ss.R., signed a declaration committing men’s religious orders to working with the St. Joseph Foundation, which the bishops established in 2019 to support abuse survivors.
Gądecki is the president of the Polish bishops’ conference and Sok is chairman of the Conference of Major Superiors of Men’s Orders in Poland.
During the plenary assembly, the bishops were updated on the Church’s safeguarding efforts by Archbishop Wojciech Polak, their delegate for the protection of children and youth.
A March 11 statement on the bishops’ conference website said: “The development and strengthening of this system is to be served by the declaration adopted by the plenary assembly on cooperation between the Polish bishops’ conference and the Conference of Major Superiors of Men’s Orders in Poland as part of the activities of the St. Joseph Foundation.”