It doesn’t matter what religious affiliations you have as a parent. Every time news hits the world about a child being sexually abused by a member of the clergy, we gasp and wonder how someone we trust with our children could do such a thing. Our gasps grow even louder when said offender is often protected by the religious organizations they are a part of.
In answer to the growing number of child sexual abuse cases reported, the Vatican is revising its laws in relation to children reporting to have suffered sexual abuse at the hands of their priests.
Among the unexpected changes by the Vatican, victims will no have twenty years after their eighteenth birthday to report incidents of sexual abuse, where in the past they were only granted ten years. Spokesman for the Vatican, Father Federico Lombardi noted that in some instances, limitations may be extended even further.
As more child sexual abuse cases have surfaced in the Catholic church, victims’ groups continue to claim the Church does little to rectify the situation. At this time, the changes in Vatican laws make no mention of requiring bishops to report sexual abuse to police, and most allegations of sexual abuse are dealt with within the church itself.
Child sexual abuse is one of the most awful things a child can go through, and as a parent and a survivor of sexual abuse, just reading about the lax efforts on the side of the Vatican makes me feel angry and biased.