Vatican posts rules for handling predator priests

Priests accused of sex abuse should "always" be turned in to civil authorities, the Vatican said yesterday in guidelines on handling paedophilia cases that were posted for the first time on its website.

"Civil law concerning reporting of crimes to the appropriate authorities should always be followed," the guidelines state.

"In very grave cases where a civil criminal trial has found the cleric guilty of sexual abuse of minors or where the evidence is overwhelming," the Pope may issue a decree to remove him from the priesthood, they add.

"There is no canonical remedy against such a papal decree," say the guidelines, drawn from the Church's canon law and a papal instruction signed in 2001 by then Pope John Paul II.

The document, which the Vatican described as "an introductory guide which may be helpful to lay persons and non-canonists", also confirms that the Pope can intervene directly to defrock the worst offenders.

It is posted in a new section on the Vatican website www.vatican.va entitled Abuse of Minors, the Church's Response.

"If the allegation has a semblance of truth the case is referred to the CDF," it says, referring to the Vatican's morals watchdog, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

The decree on "serious crimes" was drafted by the CDF when it was headed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger - now Pope Benedict XVI.

The Vatican announced on Friday that it would post the guidelines as a way of helping Roman Catholic authorities deal with predator priests.

It said the guidelines, published in English only, were a summary of operational procedures that were set down in an internal CDF document in 2003.

Large-scale paedophilia scandals have rocked the Catholic Church in Ireland, Austria, the United States and the Pope's native Germany in recent months.

Also yesterday, the editor of the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano insisted the Vatican has handled child abuse cases in an "exemplary" manner.

The Church as a whole "is the only institution to address this problem that concerns all of society in an exemplary manner," editor-in-chief Giovanni Maria Vian told the foreign press in Rome.

Thanks to strict anti-paedophilia measures, "the phenomenon is practically gone in the United States with less than 10 cases in 2009," Mr Vian said.

The Vatican has adopted a strategy of blaming the media for playing up the paedophile revelations, accusing them of trying to smear the Pope.