Pope Francis announced tremendous changes in the way Roman Catholic Church handles cases of sexual abuse of minors, abolishing the rule of “pontifical secrecy” that was used to cover them previously.
Many advocates that have been demanding a better way to handle such issues in the papacy for several decades applauded the move as being long overdue, but however still emphasized that it has to be applied broadly.
Some documents issued by the pope supports practices that was already in place in some countries, especially the United States. Such practices includes reporting suspicion of sex abuse to civil authorities, forbids imposing an obligation of silence on those who report sex abuse or have been a victim of sex abuse.
This is indeed an epochal decision in the Roman Catholic history.
For some decades now, the Catholic Church has been consistently hit by scandal involving the sexual abuse of children by priests around the world. Pope Francis has vowed zero tolerance for offenders.
However, victims of abuse wants the Pope by severely punishing offenders.
