Doyle, whose father was a priest, is a member of Coping International, an organisation that campaigns for the rights of priests' children.

Although the guidelines are not new, they have been secret until now.

Last year the secrecy around them changed when the Congregation for the Clergy said it was happy to send them to any Bishop's conference that requested them.

This development followed a meeting between Mgr Andrea Ripa, Undersecretary for the Congregation, and Doyle.

Coping International and the Congregation for the Clergy then cooperated over their release.

Doyle says he is "delighted" with the release.

He says it represents represent an important step towards transparency on the part of the Vatican and adds weight to the prioritisation of the natural rights of the child to know his or her parents.

Previously, Cardinal Cláudio Hummes, who was prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy between 2006 and 2010, emphasised the obligation to equal treatment on the part of the children of the ordained had to outweigh any other interests.

Hummes said this was also the opinion of Pope Benedict XVI during his time in office.

Ripa indicated during discussions with Doyle that it would be possible for a priest to remain in ministry, having fathered a child.

He said whether this would occur would be subject to two other considerations.

One is the priest's suitability for ministry and the other concentrates on the good of the child. This represents a significant change in the attitude of the Vatican regarding such situations.

Given Ripa's comments that it would not be "impossible" for priests to continue in their ministry after fathering a child, Doyle pointed to the recent suggestion of the ordination of "viri probati" as priests could provide a "remedy" for "procreative breaches in celibacy".

If this were the case, it would remove the clash of vocations that has previously led to children being raised without knowledge of their father, or in secret.

Source

• The Tablet UK
• Image: The Irish Times

The meeting, which is a first in France, follows an initial meeting between Children of Silence president Anne-Marie Jarzac (67) and two Bishops' Conference members.

"We told them that we needed to be recognised as the children of priests," she says.

Jarzac says she has also met with her local bishop, who had shown "sensitivity to the issue".

"Until now, we [Children of Silence] were given the impression that we were a threat to the Church," Jarzac says.

"Perhaps leaders were afraid that we would demand compensation. But we are not operating on that wavelength at all."

Jarzac says she was 16 before she found out her father was a priest.

She spoke only once with him as "the issue was painful for him."

She says she would like "to be able to meet with the pope in Rome and that he might provide some words of comfort" for those concerned.

"We are not responsible for our situation."

Jarzac is condemnatory of the "silence" in the Church over the children of priests.

While he was archbishop of Buenos Aires, the future Pope Francis said a priest who became a father should "leave the ministry and assume care for the child, even if he did not decide to marry the woman concerned."

"Since the child has a right to a mother, it also has the right to a father with a known face," he said.

An internal Vatican document setting out the procedure for dealing with cases of priests with children provides for an accelerated administrative procedure allowing a priest with a child to be relieved of his priestly obligations "in a few months".

Source

• La Croix
• Image: Washington Times