THE long awaited guidelines of the Catholic bishops' committee on clerical child sex abuse will be published on January 30th.
The 70 page document will be entitled The Report of the Bishops' Advisory Committee on Child Sexual Abuse by Priests and Religious. The guidelines will cover a wide range of issues, including church procedures for dealing with abuse allegations, reporting such allegations to the civil authorities, pastoral support for victims and clerics involved, and dealing with the media, but not compensation for victims.
The bishops' committee has been in existence since 1991, but only began work on the guidelines in April 1994, after it was expanded to include medical, psychological, child care, legal and media experts.
This followed a series of seminars held by the Conference of Religious in the winter and spring of 1994 to discuss the issue, which were addressed by a number of international experts, notably the American psychologist Father Stephen Rossetti.
The conference had taken the initiative because of growing public and church concern in the wake of the Brendan Smyth case in Belfast, which came to public notice in the Republic in October 1994 and within two months had led to the resignation of the then Taoiseach, Mr Albert Reynolds, and the collapse of his government.
Last October, the chairman of the bishops' committee, Bishop Laurence Forristal of Ossory, announced after the hierarchy's autumn meeting at Maynooth that the committee's central recommendation was being adopted immediately as church policy, even before completion of the guidelines.
This was that henceforth the bishops and religious superiors would report to the gardai and health boards "all allegations which give reasonable cause to suspect that child sexual abuse may have occurred". The guidelines were completed in mid December.
The other, members of the bishops committee are Sister Eilis Bergin, manager of a children's home in Co Tipperary Father Frank Buckley, a Cork hospital chaplain Mrs Margaret Burns, administrator of the church's Council for Social Welfare Father Damian Byrne, secretary general of the Conference of Religious of Ireland Mr Jim Cantwell, director of the Catholic Press and Information Office Mr Edward Gleeson, a solicitor from the hierarchy's legal advisers, Arthur O'Hagan Mr Ted Jones, a Belfast solicitor Father Loman Mac Aodha, representing the National Conference of Priests of Ireland Dr Imelda Ryan, director of St Louise's Child Sexual Abuse Assessment, and Treatment Service, Dublin Mgr Alex Stenson, chancellor of the Dublin archdiocese and professor of canon law at Clonliffe College and Dr Patrick Walsh, director of psychological services for the St John of God order.