A French priest raised eyebrows recently, after telling newly ordained bishops attending a Vatican-sponsored seminar that they were not obliged to report allegations of priest sexual abuse to civil authorities.

Monsignor Tony Anatrella, a Paris priest and psychotherapist, made the assertion in a speech last week that's part of a handbook, "Witnesses of the Risen Lord", for the Vatican's annual course for the so-called "baby bishops".

Reading the priest-therapist's entire article (published in French), one is surprised by the way he explains the problem of sexual abuse inside the Church. There is no mention of empathy for the victims in his long speech. Rather, he offers a cold enumeration of canonical texts and procedures, psychological assumptions and citations from his own publications - or Wikipedia!