The Vatican |
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Vatican Preparing New Guidelines to Deal With Sexual Abuse
Protecting children, cooperating with authorities & careful selection of priests
by Rachel Donadio
New York Times
November 20, 2010
VATICAN CITY — The Vatican announced on Friday that it was preparing a new set of guidelines to help bishops offer a “coordinated and efficient” response to sexual abuse, one that emphasizes protecting children, cooperating with civil authorities and careful selection of future priests.
The Vatican did not reveal details of the guidelines or when they would be published, but they appear to be one of the most decisive remedial measures it has taken to tackle a sexual abuse crisis that roared back last spring, challenging its moral authority and underscoring widespread confusion about its own rules for handling abuse.
Cardinal William J. Levada , the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which is responsible for disciplining abusive priests, announced the guidelines at a meeting of more than 200 cardinals at the Vatican on Friday. The cardinals had been summoned by Pope Benedict XVI to discuss key issues facing the church on the eve of his elevating new cardinals on Saturday. |
In the past, Cardinal Levada, the highest ranking American in the Vatican hierarchy and a former archbishop of San Francisco, has praised the so-called Dallas Charter adopted by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in 2002, which offers guidelines on reporting abuse and raising awareness.
The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said that it would be impossible for the Vatican to apply the United States norms worldwide, but that the new guidelines would allow local bishops' conferences to issue their own procedures, taking into consideration “the different legal and pastoral situations” in each country.
In a central issue, some countries require the mandatory reporting of abuse to civil authorities, while others do not.
In a statement, the Vatican also said that after Cardinal Levada's presentation, several cardinals suggested that the Vatican “encourage bishops' conferences to develop plans that are effective, timely, articulate, complete and decisive about protecting minors,” and that help “re-establish justice, both for the aiding of victims and for prevention and training, including in countries where the problem has not yet manifested itself as dramatically as it has in others.”
According to several cardinals who attended Friday's meeting, two speakers who raised those themes were Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, a former archbishop of London, and Cardinal Sean Patrick O'Malley, the archbishop of Boston, both of whom were chosen by the pope as part of a delegation to investigate a widespread sex abuse scandal in Ireland.
In the past, some bishops had complained that the Vatican's own rules for handling abuse were unclear. In 2001, Pope John Paul II issued a document saying all credible allegations of abuse by priests should be reported to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. But the document was not widely circulated, and the confusion remained.
Last July, the Vatican issued changes to canon law for handling abuse, placing pedophilia in the rank of the church's gravest crimes, but drew criticism confusion when it also placed the attempted ordination of women in a similar category.
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