No-one knows how many children have priests or religious as parents. Some suggest there could be thousands.

The "Principles of Responsibility Regarding Priests who Father Children While in Ministry" was written in consultation with Vincent Doyle, an Irish psychotherapist whose father was a diocesan priest.

Doyle helped found Coping International, a voluntary mental health organisation that promotes the well-being of children of Catholic Priests and Religious as well as their parents.

According to The Irish Times, the guidelines Doyle helped develop attempt "to articulate a position based on natural justice and subsequent rights regarding the children of priests." They include five general principles.

• The parents have a fundamental right to make their own decisions regarding the care of their new-born child.
• The needs of the child should be given the first consideration. In the case of a child fathered by a Catholic priest, it follows that a priest, as any new father, should face up to his responsibilities - legal, moral and financial. At a minimum, no priest should walk away from his responsibilities.
• Each situation requires careful consideration, but certain principles present themselves on which the decision of the priest should be made: The best interests of the child; dialogue with, and respect for, the mother of the child; dialogue with Church superiors.
• The importance that the mother, as the primary care-giver, and as a moral agent in her own right, be fully involved in the decision.
• In arriving at a determination regarding these cases, it is important that a mother and child should not be left isolated or excluded.

Coping International representatives have met with various church organisations, including Vatican officials, to publicise the issue.

Source

• The Boston Pilot
• Crux
• NCR
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Irish-based Coping International was assured by the bishops that this support would be forthcoming.

The bishops made this decision at their autumn meeting in October last year.

The therapy would be provided through the church-sponsored "Towards Healing" service.

The founder of Coping International said the "Irish Catholic bishops have been providing counselling services ‘ad hoc' through Towards Healing since 2011 to children of Irish Catholic priests and to their mothers since 2013".

He told The Tablet that the Irish bishops' decision is believed to be "the first of its kind in the Church".

Coping International maintains contact with more than 30 children of priests and also some priests.

It works "primarily (at this point) with Irish clientele", but includes the Philippines, Africa and South America, where Irish priests work as missionary priests.

Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin reportedly stated: "I pray that Coping will be able to find ways which will bring the children of priests and their natural parents together for the benefit of both."

Blogging for The Tablet, David Weber, founder of Human Rights for Children of Priests, said thousands of people are affected by this issue worldwide.

Mr Weber wrote that while "a child of a diocesan parish priest might sometimes have secret contact with his or her father . . . in my experience, the payment of child support is attached to a confidentiality agreement that results in immense pressure on the child not to tell anyone who the father is".

He pointed to the 2014 report on the Vatican's compliance with the UN convention of the right of the child on this matter.

Mr Weber said a UN committee's report was "almost revolutionary" in recommending that "the Vatican find out who [the children of priests] are, [and] take all necessary measures to ensure that the rights of those children to know and to be cared for by their fathers is respected".

Sources

• The Tablet
• The Tablet
• Image: Fashions Cloud