The Vatican told bishops around the world today (May 16, 2011) that it is important to cooperate with police in reporting priests who rape and molest children, and said they should develop guidelines for preventing sex abuse by next year, according to the Associated Press website.
But the suggestions in the letter -- and that's all they are, suggestions -- from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith are vague and nonbinding, and they contain no enforcement mechanisms to ensure bishops actually draft the guidelines or follow them.
The document marks the latest effort by the Vatican to show it is serious about rooting out priestly pedophiles and preventing abuse, following the eruption on a global scale of the abuse scandal last year, with thousands of victims coming forward.
Today's Vatican letter was criticized by several theological scholars who said that it will not diminish the sexual abuse problem of priests, because it reinforces bishops' exclusive authority in dealing with abuse cases. Moreover, members of the lay review committees said some bishops "failed miserably" in following their own guidelines with respect to disciplining pedophile priests.
In the past, Catholic bishops had a tendency to simply transfer pedophile priests from one church to another as a means of "resolving" sexual abuse by priests.
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