Role of women in training priests to fight abuse pushed

Women should play a greater role in the training of priests

has engulfed the Catholic Church, Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet has said.

“More must be done within the church to tackle the root causes of the latest wave of global abuse

said Ouellet, the prefect of the Congregation for Bishops.

“We would need participation of more women in (the training)

Saturday (Sunday in Manila) on the sidelines of a meeting in the Polish city of Poznan.

Better care must be taken when choosing bishops, he said, adding that more women should select candidates for priesthood and assess their suitability for the job.

His comments at the four- day assembly of the Presidents of the Bishops’ Conferences of Europe come amid a slew of devastating several assault allegations spanning continents.

People in Australia, Europe, and North and South America have charged they were sexually abused by clergymen and lay people, in what German Archbishop Georg Gaenswein has called the

“This is a very serious matter that has to be dealt with in a spiritual

said, but added that direct attacks against the pope over the scandals

The US Catholic Church has been shaken by the publication of a report on sexual abuse by clergy in Pennsylvania and by the resignation in July of US Cardinal Theodore McCarrick.

Pope Francis met US bishops and cardinals on Thursday to discuss the Vatican’s response after McCarrick was accused of sexually abusing a teenager while working as a priest in New York in the early 1970s.