Boston archdiocese creates rules to prevent child abuse

BOSTON – In what church officials here labeled “a response of repentance,” the Boston archdiocese released a set of rules yesterday to protect children from clerical sexual abuse.

The document – a year in the making – outlines protocol to create “safe environments” intended to prevent child sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests. The report, whose recommendations take effect July 1, also outlines procedures to report and investigate allegations of child sexual abuse by clergy.

Acknowledging the toll of a crisis that began in the Boston archdiocese more than 18 months ago, Bishop Richard G. Lennon said yesterday that he hoped the new policies will “rebuild trust and bring healing within the Catholic community of Boston.”

In an introduction to the report, Lennon – who in December succeeded Cardinal Bernard Law as the interim administrator of the country’s fourth-largest archdiocese – quoted from a biblical passage saying that a person who hurts a child should “have a great millstone hung about his neck and be drowned in the depths of the sea.”