ROME
Reuters
By Catherine Hornby
ROME | Tue Feb 7, 2012
(Reuters) – An Irish victim of clerical abuse said Tuesday that Catholic Church guidelines on how to root out pedophile priests and protect children needed to be backed up by penalties for bishops who fail to implement them.
Speaking at a major conference in Rome on the sex abuse crisis, Marie Collins said rules without sanctions were too easily ignored and cases were often swept under the carpet, allowing pedophiles to carry on molesting children.
“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 for abuse survivors told reporters during the conference.
“You obviously have civil law as well, but I am talking more on the church side.”
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.