Italian Cardinal Gualtiero Bassetti New guidelines on the question of clerical sexual abuse were discussed and presented during the general assembly of Italy’s bishops, with the creation of a National Advisory Centre to aid bishops and the promises to make a “more radical evangelical choice” in terms of prevention.
“Woe to whoever touches children,” said Italian Cardinal Gualtiero Bassetti, President of the Italian Episcopal Conference (CEI), during a press conference on November 15, adding that clerical sexual abuse “is a problem that the Italian Church intends to resolve in radical terms”.
The office would have its own statutes, norms and permanent secretariat staffed by lay, ordained and religious experts available to help bishops nationwide.
At Pope Francis’s request, the Italian episcopacy was asked to create new guidelines on clerical sexual abuse to be added to the already existing ones published in 2014 and focusing primarily on prevention, information and education.
New guidelines
Italian bishops were presented with the new guidelines, which were created by an ad hoc commission, and will take them back to their dioceses to evaluate them until the next episcopal gathering in May 2019.
The bishops also approved the translation of the third edition of the Roman Missal, the book of prayers used at Mass, and included changes to the text of the Our Father and the Gloria.
Instead of ending: “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil” the new version is the Italian equivalent of “Do not abandon us to temptation but deliver us from evil”. The bishops had approved the same translation in 2002 when they agreed to a new translation of the Bible for use in the liturgy.
Regarding the Gloria, instead of beginning with “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to people of good will”, the new version is the Italian equivalent of “Glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth to people, beloved by the Lord”.
The text of the new edition of the missal must still be approved by the Vatican.