There are rules for priests who father children

Vatican secret out: There are rules for priests who father children

The Catholic Church has required celibacy from its priests for centuries, yet those vows were broken so frequently that the Vatican established a secret set of guidelines for dealing with clerics who fathered children.

This latest revelation, first reported by The New York Times, comes amid a new wave of developments tied to the burgeoning sexual abuse scandal that has rocked the church for close to two decades.

On Monday, the Diocese of Oakland, California, released a list of 45 clergymen and religious brothers it said have had “credible accusations’’ of child sexual abuse made against them, going as far back as the 1960s. Several other dioceses have taken similar steps in recent months.

On Saturday, Pope Francis defrocked former Washington archbishop Theodore McCarrick after he was found guilty of a series of sexual crimes, making him the first American cardinal to be expelled from the priesthood.

Two weeks ago, Francis acknowledged the long-known but rarely addressed problem of nuns being sexually assaulted by priests.