PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer
May 9, 2019
By Jeremy Roebuck
Pope Francis on Thursday issued a sweeping set of new Catholic Church laws aimed at better policing how the hierarchy investigates claims of clergy sex abuse and cover-up, marking his most concrete effort to date to respond to a crisis that has threatened to overwhelm his papacy. Here are some of the highlights:
1. Mandatory reporting
The new policies, outlined in what is known within the Church as a motu propio, require for the first time that all of the world’s 415,000 Catholic priests and 660,000 religious sisters inform Church authorities of all reports of abuse.
But the directive stops short of requiring them to go to police or other civil authorities — a nod to the Vatican’s long-held concern that doing so could endanger clerics in parts of the world where Catholics are a persecuted minority.
Bishops in the United States adopted a similar but tougher policy in the early 2000s, amid the first wave of the clergy sex abuse crisis here. The U.S. version requires dioceses to report suspected abuse to police.
2. Making it easier for victims to come forward
The Church also will require every diocese to create a public, easily accessible, confidential system to field complaints of sexual abuse and cover-up.
Most dioceses in the United States already have established protocols that meet this minimum requirement, but there have been calls for further reform.
For instance, after complaints that seminarians and priests feared repercussions if they came forward to accuse their superiors, bishops here launched a confidential third-party hotline last fall for reporting abuse.
The rules issued Thursday by the Vatican establish whistleblower protections, saying that those reporting misconduct from within the Church may not suffer “prejudice, retaliation, or discrimination.” It also requires that victims be notified of the outcome of any investigation.
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