The distinguished judge Lord Nolan has been appointed by the Catholic Church to chair an independent review into the way the church in England and Wales copes with the problem of child abuse by its clergy, religious, and lay workers.
Lord Nolan previously spent three years chairing the committee on standards in public life set up to deal with the problem of British politicians becoming involved in sleaze.
The new committee was announced yesterday at a press conference in London at which Archbishop Cormac Murphy-O'Connor of Westminster reiterated the apology made on behalf of the English and Welsh bishops to survivors of child abuse when in 1994 they issued guidelines on how allegations of child abuse should be treated. "The errors of the past must not be repeated," he said.
The nine-member committee, only four of whom, including Lord Nolan, are Catholics, hopes to present an interim report by next Easter and to have completed its work within the year.
"The Catholic Church has not and must not have anything to hide in its handling of the problems of child abuse and child protection," said Dr Murphy-O'Connor.
"Recent experiences have made me quite determined to do all I can to ensure that the Catholic Church sets up and maintains the highest standards in this regard both now and in the future." The Nolan committee would provide "a completely independent assessment of our existing procedures", and its report would be made public.
Among "recent experiences" was, no doubt, the criticism over the way Dr Murphy-O'Connor had handled the case of a paedophile priest when he was Bishop of Arundel. Father Michael Hill was sentenced to five years' jail in 1997 for the sexual abuse of a number of boys.
After suspending Father Hill in 1983 from parish work on the grounds of allegations of paedophilia against him, Dr Murphy-O'Connor appointed him two years later as chaplain at Gatwick airport after being advised that he might be fit for "some restricted pastoral work outside a parish". The priest reoffended while working at the airport.
Figures distributed at the press conference showed that in the five years from 1995 to 1999 inclusive 21 English and Welsh priests were tried and convicted of child abuse, or 0.343 per cent of the total number of clergy, while four religious brothers were also tried and convicted - 0.651 per cent of the total.
Given that many of the cases that have come before the courts involved abuse that took place 20 or 25 years earlier, more cases can be expected. One priest is currently on trial in Cardiff.
While only a tiny minority of the clergy is involved, "one priest tried and convicted is one too many", the press conference was told by Bishop Peter Smith of East Anglia, who last November was asked by the bishops' conference to chair a review of how the 1994 guidelines have been working and who is a member of the Nolan committee.
The Nolan committee will thus be concerned not only with how the church should cope when allegations of child abuse are made but also with how it can improve its procedures for vetting future priests to ensure that paedophiles are not ordained.
The church authorities also cited research conducted in 1998 by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children which showed that in 40 per cent of cases the perpetrators of child abuse were the victims' fathers and in another 30 per cent of cases other relatives. Only in 4 per cent of cases were teachers, doctors, priests or lodgers in the household the perpetrators.