Vatican revises sex-abuse guidelines
Source: Agencies |
July 16, 2010, Friday
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Print Edition
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THE Vatican issued a revised set of church guidelines to respond to the clerical sex abuse scandal, targeting priests who molest the mentally disabled as well as children, defining child pornography as a canonical crime but making few substantive changes to existing practice.
The new rules yesterday make no mention of the need for bishops to report clerical sex abuse to police, provide no sanctions for bishops who cover up for abusers and do not include any "one-strike and you're out" policy for pedophile priest as demanded by some victims.
As a result, they failed to satisfy victims' advocates, who said the guidelines amounted to little more than "administrative housekeeping" of existing practice.
The Vatican's sex crimes prosecutor acknowledged it was "only a document," and didn't solve the problem of clerical abuse. He defended the lack of any mention of the need to report abuse to police, saying all Christians were required to obey civil laws that would already demand sex crimes be reported. "If civil law requires you report, you must obey civil law," Monsignor Charles Scicluna told reporters. But "it's not for canonical legislation to get itself involved with civil law."
Victims' groups have accused the church's internal justice system of failing to deal with abuse allegations and allowing bishops to ignore complaints in order to protect the church.
"The first thing the church should be doing is reporting crimes to civil authorities," said Andrew Madden, a former Dublin altar boy who launched the first public lawsuit against the church in Ireland in 1995.
The new rules yesterday make no mention of the need for bishops to report clerical sex abuse to police, provide no sanctions for bishops who cover up for abusers and do not include any "one-strike and you're out" policy for pedophile priest as demanded by some victims.
As a result, they failed to satisfy victims' advocates, who said the guidelines amounted to little more than "administrative housekeeping" of existing practice.
The Vatican's sex crimes prosecutor acknowledged it was "only a document," and didn't solve the problem of clerical abuse. He defended the lack of any mention of the need to report abuse to police, saying all Christians were required to obey civil laws that would already demand sex crimes be reported. "If civil law requires you report, you must obey civil law," Monsignor Charles Scicluna told reporters. But "it's not for canonical legislation to get itself involved with civil law."
Victims' groups have accused the church's internal justice system of failing to deal with abuse allegations and allowing bishops to ignore complaints in order to protect the church.
"The first thing the church should be doing is reporting crimes to civil authorities," said Andrew Madden, a former Dublin altar boy who launched the first public lawsuit against the church in Ireland in 1995.
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