Ireland's 26 diocesan Catholic bishops received secret guidelines from the Vatican last June on setting up ecclesiastical courts to deal with cases of paedophilia involving priests or religious, it has been confirmed.
Under the guidelines Catholic bishops and heads of religious orders worldwide will be required to report sex-abuse cases allegedly involving priests or religious to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome. It will then decide whether a tribunal of clergy will be set up locally to investigate the case or whether it should be addressed in Rome.
The guidelines,which do not indicate whether local civil authorities should be informed about relevant cases, impose strict secrecy and establish a 10-year statute of limitations for such cases, with effect from the alleged victim's 18th birthday. They also stipulate that cases must be heard before a tribunal of priests. Among the penalties they can impose is expulsion from the priesthood.
Pope John Paul issued the document under his personal authority last spring, and this in turn was summarised in a six-page letter in Latin sent to bishops and heads of religious orders last June by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith.
Neither the original document nor the subsequent letter was made public, but they appear (in Latin) in the Vatican's annual Acta Apostolicae Sedis (Acts of the Apostolic See) for 2001, the Holy See's journal of record. A cover sheet with the letter sent to bishops and the heads of religious orders by Cardinal Ratzinger asked that its content be kept secret.
Yesterday spokesmen for the Irish Bishops' Episcopal Conference, for Cardinal Desmond Connell, Archbishop of Dublin and a member of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and for the Conference of Religious of Ireland (CORI) were unaware of the new guidelines. However, it has since been confirmed that they were received last June by Ireland's diocesan bishops.
In the letter Cardinal Ratzinger said that with the new guidelines and the setting up of ecclesiastical courts in relevant circumstances "we hope that not only will these serious crimes be avoided, but above all that the holiness of the clergy and the faithful be protected by the necessary sanctions and by the pastoral care offered by the bishops and others responsible."
The Irish bishops stipulated that all such cases must be reported to the Garda and that where children were involved the relevant health authorities should also be informed. They also directed that in all such cases the complainant should be advised by church authorities to report the case to the local Garda and relevant health authorities.
