By Nick Pisa
April 12, 2010
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1265528/Vatican-climbdown-sex-abuse-guidelines.html
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| The guidelines state that Pope Benedict XVI will be able to defrock priests without a church trial |
The Vatican has bowed to public pressure by posting on its website guidelines ordering bishops to report sex abuse allegations to police.
The guidelines were published yesterday as the Vatican fought back after being accused of covering up cases in a scandal that has rocked the Catholic Church.
A key aspect of the guidelines is the mandatory obligation that all cases should be reported to the police.
In the past there have been accusations that church chiefs covered up and moved clergy elsewhere.
The guidelines also said that in the most serious cases, Pope Benedict XVI will defrock priests without going through a church trial.
Vatican officials said the rules had been in force since 2003 when the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued them - but did not make them known.
The disclosure came after it emerged last week that the Vatican had dragged its heels for four years in the case of a self-confessed American paedophile priest.
In the 1985 case involving Father Steven Kiesle, Pope Benedict, who was then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, asked to have more time to consider the case 'for the good of the church'.
It is also claimed that in the mid-1990s, he did not respond to Milwaukee bishops' pleas to defrock Father Lawrence Murphy, who abused 200 boys between 1950 and 1974.
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