Why did Léon XIV choose Bishop Verny to chair the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors?

With such a journey, it was obvious. At 59, Thibault Verny was placed by Léon XIV at the head of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors. Excellent skier and bishop in Savoy since 2023, Mgr Verny is greeted for his dynamism and his taste for challenges. “He does not dismiss vast projects,” says Father Loïc Molina from Aranda, parish priest in Chambéry.

It must be said that his triple diocese is one: overcrowded during the holidays, sparse the rest of the year; shared between urban centers and mountainous valleys … Now, to its Savoyard mission is added that of president of the Tutela Minorum, where he has been sitting since 2022. Created in 2014 at the request of François, this body advises the pontiff on the protection of minors, even if he does not hold any binding power.

The field experience

In terms of abuse prevention, Thibault Verny has long experience in Paris and within the Conference of Bishops of France (CEF), where he directed the prevention and fight against pedophilia. In Savoy, he applies what he helped build in Paris: close to the land, he took the time to visit each parish and meet all the priests.

At his request also, the territory has been experimenting for a year the parish self-assessment system “engaged together for a house that protects”, and people on mission with minors will have to follow the “Stopabus” training of the CEF at the start of the school year. “He energized what already existed in the diocese,” explains Marie-Jo Verlucco, a secular specialist in good treatment, which Mgr Verny named the head of his prevention cell.

To succeed the American cardinal Sean O’malley – who arrived at the retirement age -, Leon XIV therefore made the choice of a man familiar with the Commission and recognized for his competence. According to Father Roger Hébert, responsible for monitoring the establishment of the resolutions taken by the CEF after the report of the independent commission on sexual abuse in the church (CIASE), his name was recommended by Cardinal Jean-Marc Aveline, member of the Dicastery for the Bishops and new president of the CEF. The priest also salutes a daring choice: “In the Vatican, officials still think that France has gone too far with the Ciase. There, the Pope sends a strong sign. »»

* He is Archbishop of Chambéry and Bishop Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne and Tarentaise