“In the formation setting, the presence of women as counselors, as teachers, and formators is necessary to bring about in males training for the priesthood or religious life a much more mature and realistic image and experience of this mysterious human being that is called a woman,” said Father Hans Zollner, SJ, a member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors.

Referring to the clerical abuse scandal, he added, “It seems that men are not only in the great majority responsible for the big mess and the hurt, but they also run away from facing that reality.”