ROME — The Center for Child Protection at the Pontifical Gregorian University will be transformed from a diploma program to an institute of anthropology, with its own faculty, and offering licentiates and doctorates.

Jesuit Fr. Nuno da Silva Gonçalves, the rector of the university, said in a statement that the statutes of the new Institute of Anthropology: Interdisciplinary Studies on Human Dignity and Care (IADC) were approved by the Vatican’s Congregation for Catholic Education last month.

The Center for Child Protection (CCP) was started in 2012 to provide internet-based training to Catholics anywhere in the world on the protection of children from sexual abuse.

In spring 2016, the center began offering a one semester-long diploma course of 30 credits in the protection of minors through the Institute of Psychology at the Gregorian University in Rome.

With the change to the institute, starting in September 2021, the IADC will offer the degrees of a licentiate in safeguarding and a doctorate in anthropology.

“With this decision, our university reiterates and intensifies its commitment to the work of protecting minors and vulnerable people and supporting safe environments which promote respect for human dignity,” Fr. Gonçalves said.

“At the same time,” he added, “this conversion will deepen the interdisciplinary dimension of education and research, recognized by all as fundamental to addressing issues surrounding abuse and its prevention.”

CCP president Jesuit Fr. Hans Zollner described the step as an “academic upgrade” on his Twitter account.

According to a press release, “the academic discipline of Anthropology, with its variety of subdisciplines, will allow the IADC to broaden the breadth of its engagement in scientific dialogue and research. It will thus be able to expand the CCP’s endeavors by identifying and studying the anthropological, social, and systemic factors that jeopardize human dignity.”