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	Vatican Edict That Bishops Must Report Abuse Already's in Place Here By Dan Horn Cincinnati Enquirer April 12, 2010 http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20100412/NEWS01/4130321/Vatican+abuse+rule+not+new+here The Vatican's pronouncement Monday that the church must report sexual abuse to police is nothing new for Catholic bishops in the United States. Church officials in Cincinnati and Covington say the Vatican's edict, which was made public for the first time Monday, has been in force here since American bishops adopted a series of rules in response to a clergy abuse scandal in the United States eight years ago. Those rules required better training for church employees, background checks for volunteers, improved record keeping and mandatory reporting of abuse allegations to civil authorities. "There is nothing new here, as far as U.S. bishops are concerned," said Tim Fitzgerald, spokesman for the Diocese of Covington. "We follow these procedures." Victims' rights advocates in the United States say the Vatican now is playing "catch-up" with the American bishops because of an abuse scandal in Ireland and allegations that Pope Benedict XVI failed to act when, as a bishop and a cardinal, he learned of abuse accusations against priests. "The Vatican is a little late," said Dan Frondorf, leader of the Cincinnati chapter of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP). "They should have followed the lead of the American bishops." A Vatican spokesman told the Associated Press on Monday that the policy on reporting abuse to civil authorities has been in place since at least 2003, but it had not been discussed publicly until now. The American policy was adopted in 2002 after U.S. bishops formally set down rules to deal with clergy abuse cases involving hundreds of victims over several decades. At the time, some victims accused the church of covering up abuse and moving priests to new locations without regard to the threat they posed to children. Since then, every diocese in the country has undergone annual independent audits to make sure the rules are being followed and that any abuse accusations are reported to police. Both the Archdiocese of Cincinnati and the Diocese of Covington passed their most recent audits. Archdiocese spokesman Dan Andriacco said church officials do not evaluate accusations to determine whether they are credible. He said the church now hands over any accusation it receives to civil authorities. "We don't make any judgment about whether it's required by law or not," Andriacco said. "We report any accusations that come to us." Frondorf said the abuse crisis now confronting the Vatican shows that clergy abuse is not a problem unique to the American church, and that authorities at the highest levels of the church must act to prevent it. "It's obvious now it's a global problem," he said. "The church has a lot to explain." Contact: dhorn@enquirer.com
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