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Archbishop Francesco Panfilo says the Catholic Bishops’ conference will be looking at ways it handles cases of sexual abuse.
Panfilo is the Archbishop of the Rabaul archdiocese in Papua New Guinea.
He speaking after, a now laicised priest, Philip Kelerea, was last month found guilty in the National Court in Kokopo of sexually abusing boys.
Kelerea had been working in the Malakur ward, of the Pomio district.
Panfilo says it has been made clear to children and their parents that they had every right to bring priests who commit sexual abuse to court.
He said there are protocols within the Catholic Church for addressing issues child abuse.
“As for PNG, there are protocols in place on how to handle cases of sexual abuse,” he said.
“However, the church leaders are yet to sit down and look at ways of implementing that protocol.”
The Archbishop said the protocol would look at ways to prevent sexual abuse of children from happening again.
After Kelerea was found guilty Panfilo sent all the necessary documents on the case to the Vatican.
On 29 March the Vatican informed him that Pope Francis had laicised Kererea.
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