Ireland moving to compel church to report sexual abuse

[xchrom]

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2011/0714/Ireland-moving-to-compel-church-to-report-sexual-abuse

A report into clerical child abuse in Ireland has scandalized the nation, prompting the government to promise tough new laws to compel the Catholic church to report abusers and a senior politician to call for the expulsion of the Vatican's ambassador to the country.

The Irish Catholic church, with the support of the Vatican, continued to conceal evidence of child abuse even after it created new internal rules in 1996 that promised to inform state authorities of suspected child abuse by priests, the Cloyne Report found. The report also found that two-thirds of abuse complaints made to the church between 1996 and 2009 were not passed on to the police.

New laws, set to be voted-on in the fall, will see clerics and others imprisoned for up to five years if they withhold information about suspected pedophiles.

“This is not a catalogue of failure from a different era. This is not about an Ireland of 50 years ago. This is about Ireland now,” said Frances Fitzgerald the Irish government’s minister for children, speaking at a news conference Wednesday.

[WatsonT]

1. You mean they aren't required now?

Teachers must report evidence of child abuse. Doctors and nurses as well.

Seems anyone who is given some authority over a child should be obligated to report signs of abuse.