Fray Antonio Carrón: Protection of Minors is part of personal transformation

Renato Martinez – Vatican City

In order to “train professionals from various fields in integrated prevention of ill -treatment, with a multidisciplinary approach and a specialist”, Anthropology Institute Studies of specializations on human dignity and the care of vulnerable persons (IADC), from the University of Gregoria Pontevopy in Rome organizing “Security Diploma: theory and Practice” in the 2025-2026 edition.

In this regard, in the Vatican News, we are dialogue with Fray Antonio carrón, the General Council of Agustinos Recoletos and the teacher at the Institute of Anthropology at the University of Gregory, which highlights that the course provides “theoretical and practical tools” to deal with all kinds of violence to resist: in laws, two wives, an institution, and an institution “. And remember that “the goal is to form the transformation agents who are able to enhance safe environments inside and outside the church.”

What is the purpose of this course that organizes the Institute of Anthropology at the University of Gregory?

It is many years in which the University of Gregoria was a special interest in contributing from the field of research, from the multidisciplinary field, and it is a vision of how cases of abuse in the ecclesiastical context. What can be provided for a special response from the field of prevention and training and above all, in recent years, we have seen the need to open the perspective, not only focusing on the starting point that we have, which was to discover the positions of ill -treatment, especially commitment against minors, against adults at risk in the contexts concerned, but to open the perspective not only for the environmental car, but also for the social continuity that determines it, it precedes it for social work. Abuse.

In short, at the bottom of ill -treatment, there is always a misuse of power, but then we have also been able to verify the peculiarities of that abuse of power, above all, which relate to misuse of conscience, with ill -treatment in religious contexts and spiritual abuse. Then in this new proposal for the session, in this new diploma, because we want to open, and open this perspective and we have a broader approach to this reality in an attempt to contribute to everything that has already shown us experience these years.

How does the Pug Institute arise? Does it have to do with the center protection center from the same university?

The institute is a derivation Child Protection Center, From the center protection center, which started its way in Germany and gradually moved here to Rome, to the University of Gregory. Father Hans Zolner, who, as a promoter of all this, as well as one of the people who opened a long way to respond to the Church to this situation, was accompanied by all this time.

This was also a few years ago, where the need was seen, as I said before, open the perspective and not only focus on the field of palace, so we have already moved from the name “Child Protection Center” to invite ourselves “the Institute of Anthropology to study multidisciplinary study on cream and care.” This allowed us to open the perspective a lot, and also to be able to host the needs, above all, the training that we asked of different contexts, not only the ecclesiastical, but also from other areas of society, and above all, to be able to respond to the needs that were presented to us, regarding accompaniment, regarding the various specifications, there is no doubt about this topic. The spread of artificial intelligence and its effect because it takes us. So it was practical, and the process of discovering needs and giving response gradually.

Return to this course, which will start in the coming months, what is the proposal, from the mentor, and how can they participate?

This course aims to all those who are already working in the field of prevention, whether in ecclesiastical or non -study contexts, let us think about educational contexts, in the contexts of people working with minors and the elderly as well.

It is a particularly directed course in this Spanish version, because the context of people from the world of Spanish origin, from Spain and the context of Latin America. In fact, this session is a derivation of the diploma that we presented since 2022 in its Spanish version, which was also a continuation of the English version.

We have been determined that, little by little, and we must thank many people who also formed here and developed this same course in other contexts. Then we identified that at this time there was a great offer for the training courses that were responding to the same needs that we answered here.

Therefore, we wanted to expand us, expand this perspective, and above all, we offer a course that facilitates, facilitates participation, before we have a course that has been fully developed -to the interface here in Rome, and now we will get the first part that will be on the Internet in October to a march, then another face -more or less than April until the beginning of June, so it will be supposed to be able to provide all of this. Theory and practice.

All theoretical part, because people will be able to do so from their original places and the practical part that we consider very important because this issue protection It is not only theoretical thing, but it is something that involves life, it means martyrdom, this means that the ability to participate with others, and above all means transforming a person, and we believe that this process cannot be achieved only from a theoretical point of view or from an online point of view, but it requires a look at her face and requires it.

One of the concerns of Pope Francis was to enhance safe environments, fighting this scourge of abuse. How much was done from the point of view of protection and prevention in the church?

In these years, a lot was done. I think it has made, so there is more and more proposals, there is more awareness. It is clear, as we also repeated on many occasions, Pope Francis insisted on a lot, this will be something that will accompany us, and will accompany us because we are talking about a very human fact.

In addition to a fact that has a starting point and its primary focus, because in particular in reliable contexts, in family contexts and in a somewhat solution, especially when the reality of violence is against minors, against weak adults, it is a fact that is sometimes culturally assumed, and pretends to be certainly unrealistic. But it is true that we have won a lot of awareness, we have gained a lot in how complaints respond, we have won a lot of guidelines in prevention procedures, I think, in ecclesiastical contexts, let us think about educational contexts, in pastoral contexts, in the parish contexts, as well as leaders, in the formation of future mortal, religiously, religiously.

In any case, we should not lower our guard because we have a lot to go to. It is something that requires conversion. It is also a vision of the church here, the science of ecclesiastical, there is on the essence of how we dealt, in the background how we consider power or power or if we consider it something for our own interest, or if we consider it a real service. For this reason for these years, I think that Pope Francis’s testimony was not only in the word and with concrete procedures such as inviting that summit that was in 2019, which was really an unprecedented fact, but also with his life, because he has moved to this resort to continue to progress in this butcher.

What will your final message be?

Our training suggestion is open to the next session that we will start in October. If there is anyone interested so far, it is possible to register until May 16 and all the team that is part of the institute, we are pleased to be able to present this new open perspective, and we then hope that many people who can attend so that these safe environments can in many contexts and social environments. So we also wait for you in Gregory.

The structure and dates of the training course

The diploma will start on October 6, 2025 and will be concluded on June 12, 2026. The training is divided into two phases: an online part (from October 6, 2025 to March 27, 2026), with simultaneous sessions twice a week and personal monitoring; He directed -the interface in Rome (from April 13 to June 12, 2026), which will be held from Monday to Friday, mainly during the morning hours.

They can start the registration process by writing to Iadc-Secr@unigre.it