After the launch of our licentiate program, we would like to share some of the highlights from the two-day intensive event. For those following the developments of the work of the CCP, the Crux article by John Allen covering the event and the opening event speeches are of special interest. Now online, you can watch the Gregorian Rector Nuno da Silva Gonçalves and CCP President Hans Zollner who explained the uniqueness of the CCP’s program. Cardinal Marx followed with a refection in which he likened the church to the dogma of Chalcedon, a reality with human and divine interplay, and we cannot neglect what is human in best practices for organizing the Church as a safe place. Professor Elizabeth J. Letourneau, Director of the Moore Center for the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse shared about her ground-breaking educational work to reduce incidents of abuse in families. Major Dana Humaid, from the UAE Interior Ministry spoke about the interfaith conference on protecting children from online abuse that will take place in November and that follows the Child Dignity in the Digital World Congress from October 2017. A press conference concluded the Friday event.

The piece "Transformation, a Staged Musical Work, as a Signal against Child Abuse" by composer and conductor Konstantia Gourzi was premiered on 6 October at Sant'Ignazio. It was performed by soloists of the Bayerische Staatsorchester, the Children’s Choir and Male Choir of the Bayerische Staatsoper as well as singers and dancers from Munich. The project idea started off from Agnes Wich who wrote about her trauma of sexual exploitation by a priest when she was young. The piece evoked a profound empathy in those gathered… as musicians, singers and dancers  painted an impressive picture of young lives first untainted, then broken by the cruel experience of abuse. The audience could feel how they lose contact with themselves and their emotions and how difficult recovery is. In the end the children’s choir called everybody present to transformation, i.e. action for the safety of children.

CCP thanks all who participated in the licentiate opening events and looks forward to this new academic year!

https://youtu.be/po4Kdq7raY0