ABC News
Posted Sun Jun 19, 2011 10:48pm AEST
The Vatican is inviting 200 Roman Catholic bishops from around the world to a conference to draw up guidelines for tackling child sex abuse by priests.
Two months ago the Vatican instructed bishops that they must make it a global priority to root out sexual abuse of children by priests.
The Vatican official in charge of prosecuting priest abusers under church law, Monsignor Charles Scicluna, admitted however some bishops’ conferences have shown little interest in drafting new guidelines.
There was no mention at the news conference, held at the Papal Gregorian University, of Archbishop Dermot Martin, the Archbishop of Dublin.
Archbishop Martin has been outspoken in his criticism of the cover-up by Irish bishops of sexual abuse scandals in Ireland.
The gathering will take place next February in Rome.
– BBC