The Vatican issued guidelines on Thursday for investigating suspected sexual assaults on minors in the Church. 

At the initiative of Pope Francis, the Vatican issued guidelines to clergymen on Thursday on the procedure to follow to investigate suspected sexual assaults on minors in the Church.

Combating sexual assault in the Church, one of the priorities of the pontificate

Collected in a "vade-mecum", these documents constitute an "instrument" intended to help the local authorities of the Church "in the delicate task of carrying out cases" involving religious "when they are accused of" abuse of minors, explained in a statement the Spanish cardinal Luis Ladaria Ferrer, prefect of the Congregation of the Faith. The Argentine Pope, who made the fight against the scourge of sexual assault in the Catholic Church one of the priorities of his pontificate, had convened in February 2019 an unprecedented summit including 114 presidents of episcopal conferences.

On this occasion he undertook to "give uniform directives for the Church", evoking above all legal references already in force on the civil and canonical level. In fact, the documents published Thursday do not propose new standards, nor are they intended to substitute the justice of the Catholic Church for the judicial procedure, underlines the Vatican. 

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A crime reporting form, and a procedure

In particular, the Vatican has drawn up a crime reporting form. The alerted official must inform the identity of the suspected priest, his various ministries, the date of the events and the name of the alleged victim (s), the measures taken by the ecclesiastical authority as well as, in the event of criminal proceedings, the name of the prosecutor and lawyers seized. The Church has been in turmoil for several years with successive revelations on massive scandals of pedophile attacks committed for decades by priests or religious and often covered by their hierarchy in several countries, especially in the United States, in Chile or in Germany.