AUSTRALIA
The Australian
February 23, 2017
SAM BUCKINGHAM-JONES
JournalistSydney
Licenses and regular training for priests and bishops should be considered as a measure to protect children from abuse, a group advising the Pope on the issue says.
Baroness Sheila Hollins, a member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, told a Royal Commission this morning registration licenses like those used by medical professionals could be an option for priests, who would then go through an “appraisal system” of regular education.
“I don’t see why there couldn’t be an appraisal system, and why that appraisal system shouldn’t require feedback from parishioners and others with whom a priest is in regular contact,” Baroness Hollins told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Sydney. baroness
“The answer is often that the sacramental part of the priest’s role is not something which could be subject to external, lay scrutiny. But my view is that there is a part of a priest’s role which is very similar to the kind of professional role that, for example, doctors and teachers might have. That part of their role could be subject to licensing.”
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