Monsignor Luis Manuel Alí Herrera, new secretary of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors

Monsignor Luis Manuel Ali Herreraauxiliary bishop of Bogotá, who had been serving as general secretary of the Episcopal Conference of Colombia (CEC) since July 2021, was appointed by Pope Francis as the new secretary of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, the main body of the Catholic Church in the fight against cases of pedophilia worldwide.

“Monsignor Ali’s work will be very important worldwide because, together with men and women, retired judges, human rights experts, priests and religious, he will have the responsibility of carrying out this Pope’s goal of zero tolerance in matters of pedophilia.” , of violations and of the protection of minors and persons unable to resist,” explained canonist and Vaticanologist Hernán Olano.
Those close to Monsignor Luis Manuel Alí Herrera and experts say that the bishop took every step of his career in this sense, since He was in charge of developing the first protocol on the protection of people who were victims of pedophilia in the Colombian Catholic Church. and was the driving force behind the initiative Safe and protective churches in all the dioceses of the country to prevent abuse and violence in all areas of Catholicism.

He must now move his office to Rome, where he will be the right-hand man of Cardinal Seán Patrick O’Malley, president of the commission since 2014, and will replace Monsignor Robert Oliver, who served his term as secretary.

Monsignor Luis Manuel Alí Herrera will have to promote “the application of policies, as well as the training process that is being carried out for seminarians, to prevent pedophile crimes from being repeated worldwide,” said Olano.

“She will have to give the line together with the president of the Pontifical Council, in accordance with the Pope’s instructions, then she is the one who applies the sanction. But Tutela Minorum is the one that applies the palliatives, the training process and where the policies are drawn up to see how reparation can be made to the victims,” he added.

Before his appointment, Monsignor Luis Manuel Alí Herrera participated in the commission for more than 10 years. As a psychologist he found that one of the biggest problems is in the training process of seminarians, a topic on which he will focus his work.