IRELAND
Catholic News Service
By Michael Kelly
Catholic News Service
DUBLIN (CNS) — The latest audits of the Irish church’s handling of abuse allegations show that, while substantial progress continues to be made, as recently as a year ago there were still areas of noncompliance with agreed-upon procedures.
The reviews — carried out by the independent watchdog, the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church — showed that as recently as July 2011, one religious congregation was not reporting abuse allegations to the civil authorities. The reports also show that, as recently as 12 months ago, religious congregations were not following the Vatican’s procedure on reporting all allegations to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Ian Elliott, head of the national board, said the “reviews indicate that full compliance has not yet been achieved by all of those reviewed, although many examples of excellent practice were found.”
Four dioceses and three religious congregations published the results of their independent audits Sept. 5, looking at incidents back to 1975.
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