Church must respect local law in abuse cases - Vatican

The Catholic Church must respect local laws when handling child abuse cases, the Vatican's chief spokesman said yesterday, two days after the Holy See issued new rules against paedophile priests.

The new rules "represent an indispensible guide for a large community, like the Catholic Church, which must have common standards autonomous of those of the countries in which it is present," Federico Lombardi was quoted as saying by Ansa news agency.

"However, it is obvious that in these countries just civil laws must be respected and applied to men of the church, as on the part of each citizen, equally in regard to crimes of abuse," said Lombardi.

The new set of Vatican rules published last Thursday promised an acceleration of internal investigations and extension by a decade of the statute of limitations in abuse cases.

But they do not deal with handing abusers over to civil criminal authorities, a key demand of advocacy groups.

After the publication, Lombardi said compliance with civil law was already contained in guidelines published in April at the height of the abuse scandals sweeping the Church.