What’s in the Vatican’s child protection commission’s new statutes?
Why does the PCPM need new statutes — and what are the main changes?
The Vatican published the revised statutes of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors on Saturday.
The document, issued only in Italian on June 13, replaces statutes released in 2015, a year after Pope Francis established the Vatican safeguarding body. The new statutes have been approved for a five year experimental period, after which they will be amended or made permanent.
Why does the PCPM need new statutes — and what are the main changes?
The Pillar takes a look.
Why new statutes?
A great deal has changed in the world of Catholic safeguarding since 2015. Back then, the PCPM was a small, rather shaky new body created to advise the pope on child protection.
Some Roman curia officials appeared to view the new body with suspicion or condescension, though it was led by the respected U.S. Cardinal Seán O’Malley. It would be another three years before the Cardinal Theodore McCarrick abuse scandal would rock the Vatican to its foundations, underlining the need for the PCPM.
In the early years, the body’s scope gradually expanded, as it evolved from something that resembled a think tank to a global safeguarding standards body, facing pushback from the curia at several turns.
Its transformation was formally recognized in March 2022, with the publication of Praedicate evangelium, Pope Francis’ apostolic constitution reorganizing the Roman curia. The document embedded the PCPM within the Roman curia, specifically within the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, which oversees clerical child abuse cases.
Praedicate evangelium also acknowledged that the PCPM was more than a papal advisory body. It could propose new safeguarding measures, and help dioceses and religious orders establish up-to-date child protection policies.
These developments needed to be reflected in the PCPM’s statutes. A draft was prepared as early as April 2022, but underwent revisions for the next three years. The Secretariat of State, the Vatican’s powerful coordinating body, was consulted on the document, as were other dicasteries whose work overlaps with the PCPM’s.
In May 2025, the month that Pope Leo XIV was elected as Pope Francis’ successor, O’Malley approved a final draft of the new statutes. The Boston cardinal personally presented the text to Pope Leo and the Secretariat of State.
In March 2026, Leo XIV gave an address to participants in the PCPM’s plenary assembly that was interpreted as expressing his support for the body’s expanded mandate.
During a meeting with Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin on May 20, 2026, the pope approved the new statutes for three years, on an experimental basis, and ordered their publication in the official gazette.
What’s changed?
The most significant change between the 2015 and 2026 statutes is the recognition of the PCPM’s new status, as set out in Praedicate evangelium.
In 2015, the body was defined as “an autonomous institution attached to the Holy See.” The 2026 text says it is “established within” (presso, in Italian) the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith.
The new statutes offer greater clarity on the relationship between the PCPM and DDF, which remained ill-defined even after Praedicate evangelium.
Article 3 § 2 says the two institutions will collaborate on a broad range of areas, including the PCPM’s annual report, preparations for ad limina visits, training programs for bishops and canon lawyers, and safeguarding standards in local Churches.
The two bodies will also be connected at a personnel level. The PCPM’s president, French Archbishop Thibault Verny — or secretary, Colombian Bishop Luis Manuel Alí Herrera — will be a member of the DDF for the duration of his term of office.
Meanwhile, the DDF’s prefect, Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, can nominate one or more observers to the PCPM’s plenary assemblies.
It’s worth noting that the new statutes do not say that a DDF official will also serve as a PCPM member, which would mirror the PCPM president’s membership of the DDF. No reason has been given for this asymmetry. Any attempt to explain it is therefore speculative.
Perhaps the arrangement is intended to achieve two goals: giving the PCPM significant access to the DDF, while ensuring it retains its independence from the much older body. But that’s just one possibility.
The new statutes also confirm the PCPM’s shift from a mere “advisory body at the service of the Holy Father” in 2015 to an advisory body with safeguarding monitoring, reporting, and training functions in 2026.
While the 2015 text limited the PCPM to 18 members serving three-year terms, the 2026 statutes say the body can have up to 23 members serving five-year terms. The longer term duration arguably gives the PCPM more stability.
The body’s organizational chart also becomes noticeably more complex in the 2026 statutes, with not only a president, secretary, and members, but also an executive council, regional groups, and regional consultants.
The new statutes set out mechanisms through which the PCPM can encourage local Churches to raise their safeguarding standards. They recognize that the body has a role in ensuring that “stable and publicly accessible systems for reporting abuse are established in all dioceses and eparchies.”
They note that “in cases of repeated violations of the norms or serious deficiencies in local systems for the reporting of allegations and complaints, the commission may submit its assessments and recommendations to the competent dicasteries of the Holy See, so that they may exercise their respective responsibilities.”
The new statutes also cover the PCPM’s annual report, first issued in 2024. This document is unlike a company’s annual report that offers a glossy overview of the previous 12 months. It is rather an accountability tool that assesses safeguarding policies and suggests improvements, not only within local Churches but also the Roman curia.
The new statutes explain how the reports are produced in collaboration with Vatican dicasteries, bishops’ conferences, and religious orders, before they are submitted to the pope, whose approval is necessary before publication.
Overall, the new statutes reflect a deepening understanding of abuse that has arguably taken place in the Church (or parts of it) over the past decade. They stress that the PCPM’s remit now extends well beyond abuse prevention. It also includes promoting ongoing care for abuse survivors worldwide. These survivors, the statutes say pointedly, must be treated everywhere with “dignity and respect.”