ROME
Crux
November 14, 2018
By Claire Giangravè
An Italian priest on the front lines of the fight against sexual abuse, and a member of a commission that shortly will be producing the Italian bishops’ new guidelines for safeguarding children, said he’s optimistic about the handling of abuse cases on the peninsula.
The guidelines “will address formation, information and prevention, as well as everything necessary to ensure that the Church becomes a safe haven of care capable of handling these issues,” said Father Fortunato Di Noto, an internationally renowned figure respected for his work in the fight against pedophilia, in a phone interview with Crux.
The Italian bishops’ conference gathered Nov. 12-14 for an extraordinary assembly that is tackling, among other things, sexual abuse. Pope Francis requested that the bishops provide new guidelines, to be added to those already published in 2014, and to focus primarily on prevention.
After a year and a half of work, the commission will present the new guidelines to the assembly and the bishops will take them back to their dioceses for reflection until they are called to express their vote.
The date in which the guidelines will be voted upon and released has not been set.
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.