Father Hans Zollner, the director of the Institute of Anthropology – Interdisciplinary Studies on Human Dignity and Care (IADC), was in Mexico to attend various workshops on safeguarding and to promote a safe church, as part of our Institute's mission.
Zollner’s trip began in Cuernavaca, Mexico, where he met with Monseñor Castro Castro, the Secretary General of the Mexican Bishop Conference, one of the biggest Episcopal conferences in the Catholic Church.
Following his visit to Cuernavaca, our director traveled to the next destination of his trip, Puente Grande, which is located in the state of Jalisco. In Puente Grande, Zollner was a part of a workshop for seventy-five people who were either Jesuits or delegates, people responsible for certain christian works throughout academic settings, lay-people and ministries in disadvantaged areas.
Zollner mentioned the challenges about the implementation a culture of safeguarding “in a context in a country in which there is a lot of structural violence in which there are so many threats to the safety and security of people though all what is connected to trafficking of drugs, trafficking of human being, and all types of social injustice.” Zollner described how their major task throughout the workshop was to find out “what can be done so that we don’t only talk about high ideal states, but what can be done so that people at least are listened to when they are threatened and how we can help a structural and systemic change in the society and in the church.”
Father Zollner's trip to Cuernavaca was followed by a visit to the Universidad Iberoamericana, a Jesuit-run university in Mexico City with 12,000 students, at Mexico City. Zollner was specifically there for a conference on safeguarding children in an educational context. The conference welcomed an array of participants which included students from schools, orphanages, and academic settings.
Zollner said how the purpose of the conference was to “transmit to all the participants that all of us can do something so that children can grow up in safe environments, in safe spaces, and with safe relationships.” He additionally added the importance of helping young people with reporting acts of abuse and serving as people in their lives they can trust.