Latest from Vatican Handbook on Child Abuse reporting

New Vatican Handbook

I am just catching up on this from a couple of weeks ago. Are any of the rest of you wondering if you'll ever step in a Catholic church again? (some of you, of course, never have, and that is fine). I was married in one over 30 years ago, and had my first child baptized in one, but I have since moved away from that faith, and the revelations of systemic complicity in child abuse among Catholic priests in America and beyond has totally pushed me away, likely forever. My oldest son married last year, and I breathed a huge sigh of relief when they chose not to marry in a Catholic service, because I was going to have to make the hardest decision of my life in whether to participate. When my Catholic nieces and nephews marry, I will have this problem all over again. But not for a few years, likely.

I am also a teacher and I work with children, and legally we are not told just that we "should" tell local authorities, we are reminded every year by our lawyers that we are legally obligated to report and liable for damages, both specific and general, if we do not. How is it possible that the Vatican would advise any standard less stringent than that of a teacher or school worker?

Here, mandatory reporting exists in all State and Territories. Although there are variations between States, all include clergy as required to report, without exception for circumstances.

Some Catholic archbishops have stated that as a matter of principle that they would go to jail to protect the rights of the paedophile over those of the child (not exactly their wording, but the effect).

I'm so impressed.

Was educated by nuns and brothers in the 60s and 70s. After what I experienced and saw, I hold the church in nothing but contempt. It is a thoroughly corrupt institution and anyone believing otherwise is a fool or a zealot, or likely both.

Back in Ireland in the 1990,s there was hardly a month when there wasn't a Catholic priest up in the local court on charges of sexual abuse with minors. However, the Catholic pretended to be surprised when more and more cases began to appear in the US court system several years later!