IRELAND
Irish Independent
By Catherine Hornby in Rome
Wednesday February 08 2012
Church guidelines on how to root out paedophile priests and protect children need to be backed up by penalties for bishops who fail to implement them, Irish abuse survivor Marie Collins told a Vatican symposium on clerical abuse yesterday.
She said rules without sanctions were too easily ignored and cases were often swept under the carpet, allowing paedophiles to carry on molesting children.
The symposium is aimed at compelling bishops to create tough policies to protect children and root out paedophiles from the priesthood.
“I would hope that internally there could be some ecclesiastical penalty for a bishop who may not follow the guidelines,” the 65-year-old campaigner said at the gathering in Rome. “You obviously have civil law as well, but I am talking more on the church side.”
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