Swiss bishops to revise rules for sex abuse cases, says official

Published: 2008-01-24

WARSAW, Poland (CNS) -- The Swiss bishops' conference will revise its rules for handling cases of clerical sexual abuse of children after an unnamed Swiss Capuchin was accused of offenses in Switzerland and France, said a church official. "We've done our best since issuing guidelines in 2002 which stressed the need for prevention, transparency and close collaboration with the civil authorities," said Walter Mueller, the Swiss bishops' spokesman, in a Jan. 24 telephone interview with Catholic News Service. "Yet although these regulations have proved useful, we've had several unfortunate cases. These need to be analyzed to see how we can make improvements." Mueller said the 2002 guidelines were similar to those adopted by other bishops' conferences, but would be revised by an independent commission of jurists, psychologists and medical experts. "This is a story of sex and crime, which the media like," he said. "But we accept that our church is co-responsible for what happened. In the 1960s and 1970s, the policy was to pass over such cases. Today, we know this isn't enough."

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