VATICAN CITY
Religion News Service
Josephine McKenna | November 11, 2014
VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope Francis on Tuesday (Nov. 11) created a new Vatican body to deal with the most serious cases of child sexual abuse and to streamline complaints against the clergy.
The Vatican said the pope would nominate seven cardinals or bishops to consider appeals from clergy accused of abusing minors in a bid to speed up the judicial process of clergy who have received an initial assessment by local bishops.
The members of the panel, or “college,” may come from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which currently handles cases, or elsewhere in the church. Members will also be asked to deal with serious abuses of penance in the confessional.
The Vatican’s chief spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, called the pope’s proposal a “good solution” to help alleviate a backlog of cases.
Bishops accused of sexually abusing minors will still have their appeals handled by a session of CDF members at their monthly meetings
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.