VICTIMS of paedophile priests reacted with fury after new
guidelines from the Vatican insisted bishops, rather than gardai, should
deal with child abuse cases in the first instance.
A document drawn up by Cardinal William Levada,
the head of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, concludes
that the responsibility for dealing with child abuse cases within the
church "belongs in the first place to bishops".
In the past,
there have been repeated accusations of cover-ups by the church and
claims that bishops around the world have shielded child abusers.
The
Vatican claimed that the document, to be circulated to all clergy
worldwide, was "an important new step" to cleanse the church of
recurring child abuse scandals and urged bishops to co-operate with
police in reporting priests who rape and molest children.
Cardinal
Levada, head of the Vatican's doctrinal watchdog, instructed bishops to
send their updated national guidelines for preventing abuse by May
2012.
The guidelines are aimed at "facilitating the correct application" of rules that Pope Benedict XVI issued last year on handling sex abuse.
Besides
repeating that suspected crimes should be reported to police, it called
on bishops to "investigate every allegation of sexual abuse of a minor
by a cleric".
It also made distribution of child pornography a crime in canon law.
Flawed
There was no immediate reaction from Irish church leaders Cardinal Sean Brady and Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin.
But this latest Vatican instruction highlighted the continuing gulf between Rome and Irish abuse victims.
Maeve
Lewis of the One in Four survivors' support group welcomed the new
guidelines but said they were dangerously flawed and that bishops had
little expertise or experience in recognising child abuse.
"It is not acceptable that reporting an allegation is at the discretion of a bishop," she said.
"The
Vatican has missed an opportunity to deal definitively with the sex
abuse scandal and to protect thousands of children throughout the
Catholic world."