The Conferencia Episcopal de Colombia (CEC) has just presented two documents: the second version of “Cultura del Cuidado en la Iglesia Catolica Colombiana: Lineas Guia” (“Culture of Care in the Colombian Catholic Church: Guiding Lines”) (whose previous edition was published in July 2022) and “Apostoles del Cuidado: Lineas Operativas o Buenas Practicas,” (“Apostles of Care: Operational Guidelines or Good Practices”) which updates the text published in August 2023. This second document is important because it orders the concretization of rules, protocols and procedures, guaranteeing compliance with the duty of immediate reporting to the competent civil authorities in the face of any report or suspicion of sexual abuse.
The new orientations of the Colombian ecclesiastical authority reaffirm the centrality of victims/survivors as a transversal axis of all ecclesial action in this matter. In this sense, the Colombian bishops express in the introduction of the Lineas Operativas that the love of God encourages them “with a contrite heart to recognize, once again, as a Church our errors, our negligence, our faults and to assume our responsibilities.”
The objective is to form throughout the Church a culture of care
They also reiterate their request for forgiveness and the need to strengthen processes of attention and integral reparation, including spiritual, psychological, and therapeutic accompaniment, within a framework of respect for the rights of all the people involved.
In the presentation of the Lineas Guia, Monsignor Francisco Javier Munera Correa, president of the Conferencia Episcopal de Colombia, underlines the scope of this process: “It is about helping to form, throughout the Church, a culture of care, in which the protection of minors and of people in situations of vulnerability is not considered a strange obligation, but an evangelical requirement.”
For her part, Dr. Ilva Myriam Hoyos Castaneda, president of the National Council for the Culture of Care, states in the presentation of the Lineas Operativas: “This document has, above all, a practical orientation, aimed at action. Yes, at the action of all those of us who are called to be Apostles of care.” “These new Lineas, of an operational nature, are, precisely, the way to organize the service of care of the Colombian Church.”
The joint publication of these documents establishes an updated framework for the action of the Church in Colombia in the face of abuses, articulating principles and practices in a single system. Both texts are made available for their knowledge and implementation, guiding the adoption of concrete measures that strengthen prevention, reporting, attention and reparation, as well as the generation of safe environments, in all ecclesial settings.
The two documents, approved by the Plenary Assembly of the Episcopate in February 2026, are complementary: the Lineas Guia establish the principles, criteria, and general orientations; while the Lineas Operativas — defined as an annex and integral part — develop the concrete forms of application in ecclesial life.
Catholic Church follows guidelines of the Constitutional Court
The new version of the Lineas Guia incorporates recent pontifical magisterium, current canonical regulations, and the orders given by the Constitutional Court in the Sentencia de Unificacion 315 of 2025, especially in relation to the duty of reporting. This updated framework reinforces criteria such as the centrality of victims/survivors, transparency, and institutional co-responsibility.
For their part, the Lineas Operativas update and organize the good practices that make it possible to bring these principles into action, with a more structured approach articulated to the System for the Culture of Care, facilitating their promulgation and implementation in the different ecclesial realities.
One of the central contributions of the Lineas Operativas is the structuring of action into strategic axes: prevention; detection and disclosure; integral attention; and integral reparation, together with a transversal axis oriented to management, transparency, communication, and accountability.
This approach makes it possible to translate the orientations into concrete and verifiable practices, including selection processes, training, the creation of safe environments — also in digital settings — as well as mechanisms for the attention and accompaniment of affected persons.
Both documents insist on the need for their reception, adoption, and implementation through diocesan decrees, so that they acquire binding character in each ecclesiastical jurisdiction.