Revealing the secret Vatican rules for priests with children

The Vatican has written instructions on what to do when a priest breaks the vow of celibacy and has children, confirmed today Alessandro Gisotti, spokesman for the Holy See.

"I can confirm that these guidelines exist," said the official, in response to a New York Times inquiry, revelation on the eve of the Vatican summit on pedophilia in the Catholic clergy.

The 2017 "internal document" guidelines synthesize decades of procedures with "protecting the child as a fundamental principle," Gisotti told the US newspaper.

They also provide that the father leaves the priesthood and badumes his father's responsibility by devoting himself exclusively to the child.

"It's the next scandal, there are children everywhere," he told the newspaper Vincent Doyle, an Irish psychotherapist who, at age 28, knew that he was the son of a young man. a priest and that after the initial shock he had created a support group same situation, said Ansa.

Although there is no estimate of the number of children of priests, Doyle told the Times that the Coping International online support group, which he himself created, has 50,000 registered people from 175 countries.

The professional said that he had seen the Vatican's directives for the first time in October 2017 and that he had been "shocked" to discover that "they had a term to define us:" neat children "".

Doyle travels to Rome, in view of the summit that begins Thursday and ends Sunday, where other people will be children of priests, other victims of badual abuse committed by priests and nuns badually badaulted by religious.