A new manual designed to help prevent clerical sexual abuse in Chile has triggered further outrage by listing a host of instructions that critics say should be self-evident. Among other things, the manual – which was published on the website of the Archbishop of Santiago, but which has since been withdrawn – advised priests not to touch children’s genitals and to refrain from “expressions of affection” such as patting buttocks and hugging from behind. It also warned priests not to kiss children on the mouth. The document, signed by Cardinal Ricardo Ezzati, was posted online one day before Pope Francis defrocked Fernando Karadima – one of the priests at the centre of Chile’s clerical abuse scandal.

I would prefer a Catholic to explain how the church got itself into this appalling mess. For a non-believer to do so seems inappropriate.