ROME (ITALY)
Crux
July 16, 2020
By Elise Ann Allen
In a bid to universalize the Catholic Church’s approach to handling clerical abuse cases, the Vatican Thursday issued a new handbook outlining the procedures to follow when an ordained minister is accused of abusing a minor.
The request for a manual was made during the Feb. 21-24, 2019, global summit on the protection of minors at the Vatican, which drew together the heads of all bishops’ conferences worldwide.
That gathering was, in part, held to break the notion that clerical sexual abuse was primarily an issue in the West, and to get bishops on the same page in terms of best-practices, as some countries are more advanced in safeguarding policies than others.
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.