The Catholic Church is soon to release new rules especially formulated to protect children from further abuse by clergy, reports the CNN.
To this end, the Vatican will add the possession of child pornography to its list of most serious crimes, and also declare the abuse of any mentally retarded persons to be in the same category as the abuse of children due to their shared vulnerabilities.
The firming up of these rules are part of the Catholic Churches continued efforts to respond to the abuse scandals which have plagued it over the last couple of years. Essentially, these rules are an effort to formalize the practices and standards which it already practices.
However, it does not seem as if the Vatican’s controversial approach to reporting child abuse to civic authorities is set to change.
Abuse victims, and the organizations which represent them, are already claiming that the changes are not far reaching enough.
"There needs to be massive overhaul, not mere tweaking, of how the church deals with abuse and cover-up," said Barbara Dorris, of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.
"As long as bishops can ignore and conceal child sex crimes without punishment, they'll keep ignoring and concealing child sex crimes," she said last week, responding to media reports about what the new guidelines would say. The focus needs to be on catching predators more quickly, involving secular law enforcement, and preventing recklessness and deceit by bishops, who can and should take many steps to protect the vulnerable long before the defrocking process begins," she said.
(To read the article in full, please go to http://religion.blogs.cnn.com).