VATICAN CITY
Vatican News
July 16, 2020
By Isabella Piro
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) publishes an “instruction manual”, a step-by-step guide to help ascertain the truth in cases of minors who have suffered abuse on the part of a member of the clergy.
Substantially, the Vademecum provides precise responses to what can be called the most frequently asked questions. It is an instruction manual which, in a bit more than 30 pages and 9 chapters, responds to the main questions to several procedural steps regarding how cases of the sexual abuse of minors committed by members of the clergy should be handled. It is not, however, a normative text. Nor does it introduce new legislation on the subject. Rather, it is a tool designed to help Ordinaries and legal professionals who need to apply canonical norms to actual cases regarding the delicta graviora (more serious delict or crime). The Vademecum says such crimes referred to as delicta graviora “constitute for the whole Church a profound and painful wound that cries out for healing.”
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.