MaltaMedia.com

The Curia’s Response Team set up to investigate claims of child abuse by priests does not make its conclusions public, but instead communicates them to the interested parties.

The Sunday Times reported that once the Response Team concludes that there was “a semblance of truth in the accusations”, the Vatican may appoint an ad hoc tribunal to decide on the punishment, with the harshest being the dismissal from priesthood, a spokesman for the Curia told The Sunday Times.

The team, headed by retired judge Victor Caruana Colombo, is still investigating the cases involving four priests which came to light in 2003. The criminal cases against three of the priests have not been concluded either.

The priests allegedly involved in sexual abuse at St Joseph’s Home in St Venera are still barred from carrying out ministerial duties, pending the outcome of the case against them.

The priests charged with abusing boys in the 1980s and 1990s were segregated from children and prohibited from carrying out priesthood duties in public when the claims surfaced in 2003.

Fr Louis Mallia, Regional Superior of the Missionary Society of St Paul, told The Sunday Times the Society had taken the allegations “very seriously”, even though none of the men had yet been found guilty. He said the priests were transferred “away from children within hours of receiving the claims”.

Ten men claim to have been abused by priests in a St Venera orphanage in the 1980s and 1990s, in a case which made world headlines when Pope Benedict XVI visited Malta last month and met the alleged victims.

Replying to questions on procedure, the spokesman explained that the Response Team’s decision will be communicated to the interested parties, including the head of the Maltese church.

Archbishop Paul Cremona will be “obliged” to refer the case, together with the necessary documentation, to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which is the competent authority that deals with these issues.