To wonder how anyone can support/like The Vatican?

[Kreacherelf]

www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/10/catholic-bishops-not-obliged-report-clerical-child-abuse-vatican-says

Yes, I know that many countries have dubious children's rights records.

However, The Vatican is one 'country' which simply takes the piss. How could any parent send their child here?

Larry because it is mandating a policy of not telling at an institutional level.

Baconyum, in order to get absolution a person must take full responsibility for their actions, and make amends. A priest would most certainly instruct a murderer to hand themselves in to the police.

I agree that this policy is crap, and I'm not at all happy about it, but I do agree with Larry - if there is no legal obligation for an ordinary member of the public to report a crime, why should a priest be different? If the law of the country does require it, then the priest is required to obey that law.

As I said above Jessica ... by that rationale you'd be happy if staff at your children's school didn't report allegations of abuse to the police? You'd just say 'oh well the law didn't require them to tell the police that my child had told his/her teacher they were being abused by one of their colleagues, oh well I guess they'll deal with it internally.'

Of course you wouldn't.

Because institutions who are in a position of trust should have a greater duty of care towards doing people in their care, than a person in the street.

I've read the full policy..... my understanding of it is that any clergy who are made aware of abuse should have the consent of the victim or their parent/guardian before going to the authorities.

Clergy should encourage and support the victim/parents if they decide to report; the final decision is theirs alone. Clergy are not obliged to report abuse if the victim/parents do not give their consent. This last bit of the sentence is missed off many news articles because it doesn't make for an interesting headline.

I was a victim (hate that word) of abuse. I would have been absolutely mortified if my confidence had been breached without my knowledge and consent. I don't think I would have got the successful outcome I did if the authorities had been involved earlier. I would have been zero use as a witness until I ready to report on my terms.

As a victim you already feel pretty powerless. Reporting without my consent would have made me feel a whole lot worse. Criminal cases are subject to press coverage and certain documents becoming public knowledge. Some victims just don't want to go through that.

I don't think taking the ability to decide if/when to report a crime away from the victim is a good thing. When they decide to do it, they should have every ounce of support it's possible to get.

goldierocks you are spoiling all their fun. How can they all have their righteous indignation if you are going to be reasonable and explain the details.

On a serious note I couldn't agree more. My DD had a similar experience to you and she needed to take control and not have other people making the decisions (much as I wanted to)

My DD was abused by a family member (now dead) and has only recently told us. Her reasons for not telling were that it would have broken up the family and destroyed the family business and that she knew I would go on a crusade to see this person brought to justice and she couldn't cope with it.
I feel dreadful that she went through it on her own and didn't feel able to tell us, but have to accept her choice. If it had been obligatory to report without her consent it would not have made her confide in someone, it would have confirmed her in the action she took, which was to keep quiet.

Baconyum

We live in London, so even though many of the people they met and mixed with (yes, Catholic schools too) were Catholic they were certainly not all of the same cultural background - within our church circle there are people from Ghana, Goa, Jamaica, Nigeria, the Phillipines, Poland, Ireland, the U.K and so on. There are also people from many different occupation and income groups from very well-off professionals to people struggling financially because of long term physical and mental health problems. They met and mixed with all these people in a way that they would never have experienced without the church as our work and friendship groups are more homogenous. And at school the mix was even greater.

But, yes, ethically there would have been similarities, but ethically I think any religious group (and most non-religious groups) would have similar values - honesty, kindness, family, generosity, forgiveness.

Really, my point in posting was to point out that the church is not all bad and ordinary, reasonable, normal, flawed, well-meaning people are as representative of the faith as the bigots and corrupt church officials that, quite rightly, attract press attention.

"A priest would most certainly instruct a murderer to hand themselves in to the police." Yes but if that person didn't the priest according to catholic dogma can't break the sanctity of the confession box to report them. And the murderer knows this.

Liinyo but the people they were mixing with are all being told its acceptable for CSA to be dealt with in house.

"if there is no legal obligation for an ordinary member of the public to report a crime, why should a priest be different?"

2 things -I did say I think there should be an obligation to report, and I speak as a survivor too (though my abuser not catholic)

Why should a priest be different? Given the level of abuse and cover up thats ALREADY HAPPENED that's why!

Goldie what happens to the children of parents or those who are complicit in the abuse, or refuse to believe the child?

It also puts the priest to whom the information in a powerful position to steer. the parents and unduly influence the parents.

"Clergy should encourage and support the victim/parents if they decide to report; the final decision is theirs alone. Clergy are not obliged to report abuse if the victim/parents do not give their consent. This last bit of the sentence is missed off many news articles because it doesn't make for an interesting headline."

Goldie thank you, I didn't know this and it makes a lot more sense.

even if you agree that they are not obliged to report it, why don't they fire these child rapists instead of giving them a new job with easy access to kids again?

From the article: The Catholic church is telling newly appointed bishops that it is “not necessarily” their duty to report accusations of clerical child abuse and that only victims or their families should make the decision to report abuse to police

I'm afraid I don't think this is about an individual churchman's view or any particular geographical area - I believe it's an ongoing issue within a church which has always resisted public scrutiny and change

I'll probably get flamed for this, but I don't believe they've ever had any real intention of dealing with this properly; a few show pieces of "addressing things" are all very well, but I honestly doubt there's any real change in the secretive mindset - as this latest, appalling directive seems to show

Agree puzzledandpissedoff

I agree, it seems all about protecting the reputation of the Catholic Church rather than protecting victims of child abuse.

Verbatim link here to the interview where Cormac Murphy O'Connor was absolutely skewered by Jeremy Paxman - his pitiful, hesitant attempts at answers are especially revealing: news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/archive/2548969.stm

And this is the very man who the church subsequently put in charge of their abuse investigation in Ireland:
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/vaticancityandholysee/7790597/Cardinal-Cormac-Murphy-OConnor-to-lead-Irish-sex-abuse-investigation.html

As I said, I'm afraid I don't believe there's ever been any real intention to address this issue properly, if at all

I just can't get my head around the fact that the Catholic Church has been covering the crimes of their own Priests for decades if not hundreds of years. And people are trusting them to give the correct advice to abuse victims and their parents? Really?

Ok, I do apologize for my confusing messages. This is a very emotive subject for me.

My mother's side of the family is Irish. They were raised in a catholic area in Cork. My mother, and her 12 siblings, all faced abuse at the hands of the church. It was a long time ago, nobody has ever faced charges over it. That area is still a Carholic stronghold.

I think your comment about the "Catholic stronghold" is very relevant, Kreacherelf. I could well be wrong, but it's always seemed to me that a child raised in such a background might have major issues in speaking up about abuse

I'm just trying to imagine being the one family among an otherwise loyal (slavish?) flock to rock the boat, and it's honestly not computing

And yet people think Islam is a more dangerous religion!
Please tell me you're joking.

No not joking. 1.1 million deaths from aids in Africa in 2013 alone (WHO stats) how many total? How many due to the Vatican stance on condom use? Then add back street abortions, deaths due to pregnancies continued because of abortion being illegal and the pregnancies being dangerous, lives ruined through forced adoption, deaths of children battered and sexually abused, lives ruined (including suicides) by the abused

Try looking up the staticstics in the carnage across the world in the name of Islam. When was the last time you saw a group of Catholics beheading someone.

And yet people think Islam is a more dangerous religion!

OP YANBU. I’m currently reading the Four Streets trilogy by Nadine Dorries about Irish immigrants living in Liverpool in the 1950s/1960s.

There is paedophilia by priests and other public figures and a 14 year old becomes pregnant after being repeatedly raped by a priest –everything is covered up by the church and authorities.

I know it’s fiction, and don't care if anyone thinks that it's crap fiction as it has made me aware of something that I had absolutely no idea about.

Reading around the subject led me to realise the widespread abuses that the Catholic Church and Irish Government had been carrying out up until quite recently – as late as the 1990s .

Pregnant unmarried girls and women, along with other vulnerable people such as orphans, the mentally ill and the poor were imprisoned as slaves in Magadalene Laundries.

Hospitals, prisons etc used the laundries and the babies born to the inmates were sold or sent to America for adoption. There was no adequate medical care during pregnancy and birth and the women and babies that died due to their abuses were buried in mass graves on site .

Totally horrifying and I guess that is the sort of thing that you are a referring to with your mother's family.

he pope has set up a committee and made it crystal clear that the catholic church has a zero tolerance policy on child sex abuse.
The mandate says that in countries where the sexual abuse of children must by law be reported to the police, then this must be complied with.maybe in countries which do not regard child abuse important enough to be reported (and there are countries where it is tolerated) then the church is better placed to deal with it effectively.

Well, I agree that neither Catholics nor Protestants have beheaded or tortured anyone in the UK for 404 years...........but that's not a very long time in historical terms.